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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? and other random notes for February 2, 2012.

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Obit watch: Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s corner man.

Mike Kelley, L.A. based visual artist. There’s also a well-done appreciation of his work at the A/V Club website.

And I’m a little late on this, but wanted to note it anyway: Ian Abercrombie.

In other news, the fun never stops with the Harris County District Attorney’s office. I missed the actual report (I can’t get Houston’s Channel 13 in Austin), but BlogHouston and The Hon. Murray Newman have links. In brief, DA Lykos basically admitted that, yes, she ordered investigators in her office to “research” (as she puts it; other people use the word “investigate”) members of the 185th Grand Jury, as well as the special prosecutors and the judges involved with the grand jury.

I don’t think I am overstating things to suggest that the HCDA’s office is starting to look positively Nixonian.

Posted in Art, Clippings, HCDA, Law, Nixon, Obits | 1 Comment »

Update: Leonardo Quintana

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Do you remember Leonardo Quintana? The APD officer who was fired multiple times by APD, and reinstated multiple times by an arbitrator, before APD finally managed to make a charge stick? Last time we touched base with former officer Quintana, he’d just been acquitted on domestic assault charges.

Yesterday, he was acquitted on two more charges: another domestic assault charge in an unrelated incident, and criminal trespass.

According to the Statesman, there’s still one more criminal mischief charge pending against Quintana. We’ll try to keep you updated on the disposition of that charge.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 1 Comment »

Rogue grand jury update.

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

The 185th Grand Jury – that would be the one investigating the Harris County DA’s office – ended their term today. (Previously: here, here, here, here, and here.)

And?

No indictments. But the grand jury is not pleased with the DA’s office:

[Grand jury foreman Trisha] Pollard signed off on a one-page report blasting the DA’s office for “unexpected resistance” and accusing the office of launching an investigation into the grand jurors, the special prosecutors and judges.
The grand jury also harshly criticized Rachel Palmer, a prosecutor who invoked her fifth amendment right to refuse to testify.
“The stain upon the HCDAO will remain regardless of any media statements issued or press conferences issued by anyone,” according to the statement.

The current Chron article is a bit short; I expect a longer version later today. Murray Newman had a good piece up this morning with his predictions; I would expect commentary from him once he’s had a chance to read and digest the grand jury report.

Edited to add: The Hon. Mr. Newman has the statement, and his thoughts, up over at his blog.

Edited to add 2/1: Longer story from the HouChron. Note the fine copy editing (which I hope will be fixed when you see it):

Posted in Clippings, HCDA, Law | Comments Closed

Today’s literary fraud update…

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

…comes to us by way of our great and good friend Earl Cooley III on Google+.

It starts with the arrest of Mitchell Gross on charges of wire fraud and money laundering. According to the indictment, Gross defrauded a woman he met online of $3 million.

Okay, so? Mitchell Gross is also known as “Mitchell Graham”; he published fantasy books with HarperCollins and mysteries with Tor and Forge.

And then this is where it really starts to get weird. Gross claims to be a championship fencer (there are some questions about that claim; it seems clear, at the very least, that he was not on the US Olympic fencing teams in 1984 and 1988). Gross also claimed to have been a practicing lawyer for twenty years, and that he quit practicing in order to go back to school and earn a doctorate in neuropsychology. (Gross was actually disbarred in 1990, and convicted of practicing law without a license in 1992.)

And then it gets weirder. Gross may have set up his own fake writing contest, complete with judging by Ben Bova, and used that to get published. (“Mr. Bova told us that he had indeed been hired as a contest judge–the only one, so far as he was aware. He was a bit surprised to discover that there was also only one finalist, but went ahead and did as he was asked–to read the manuscript and judge if it was fit to win.“)

The best roundup of this is at the Writer Beware blog. Be sure to read the comments, as people seem to be digging up more information on Mr. Gross. There’s also a lot of good stuff in the linked AJC article.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Speaking of traffic lights…

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Battleswarm was doing a better job of covering the red-light camera issue in Houston than I was. However, I ran across an item (by way of Overlawyered) that I thought was worth sharing.

When the referendum outlawing the red light cameras was being litigated before District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes, Judge Hughes blocked Francis and Randy Kubosh, the people behind the referendum, from participating in Houston’s lawsuit against American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The Kuboshs (and other people) were concerned that Houston was going to go into the tank for ATS, “especially after ATS and Houston’s lawyers sat together at the same table during oral arguments.”

Yeah. Well. The Fifth Circuit ruled on Tuesday that, no, Judge Hughes, you can’t do that.

“There is no federal authority nor state law prohibiting intervention of right in this type of case,” Chief Judge Edith H. Jones wrote for the appellate panel. “These intervenors are unique because they engineered the drive that led to a city charter amendment over the nearly unanimous, well funded, and longstanding opposition of the mayor and city council… They have raised substantial doubts about the city’s motives and conduct in its defense of the litigation with ATS. Without these intervenors’ participation, the city might well be inclined to settle the litigation on terms that preserve the adverse ruling on the charter amendment and thus preserve its flexibility to reinstate red light cameras in the future. This is no matter of simply defending city policy of one sort or another: it involves millions of dollars of revenue to city coffers during a period of considerable economic uncertainty.”

Meanwhile, the city settled with ATS for $4.8 million. Noted:

Hughes has close ties with ATS, having served on the bench for 25 years with Judge David Hittner, the father of ATS General Counsel George Hittner.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

TMQ watch: January 24, 2012.

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Before we jump into this week’s TMQ, we thought we’d mention D.J. Gallo’s list of the worst college basketball blowouts in Division I history. “Long Island 179, Medgar Evers 62”. It took all of Long Island to defeat one guy? And “Texas 102, San Marcos Baptist 1”. “San Marcos Baptist Academy was — and is — a boarding school for teenagers.”

After the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Movies, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

I hope they get tongue prints.

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

LAT headline: “Gene Simmons look-alike robs stores in Sacramento“.

(First comment: “That’s Paul Stanley you morons.” How can you tell from that photo?)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Music | Comments Closed

Happy dance!

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

The Supreme Court has handed down their decision in the case of United States v. Jones, the case involving attaching GPS tracking devices to vehicles.

The court held that, yes, attaching a GPS tracking device to someone’s vehicle is a search under the Fourth Amendment, and yes, this does require a search warrant. The decision is here.

Even better: it was a 9-0 ruling. (Five of the justices signed on to the majority opinion; the other four wrote a separate concurring opinion.)

Here’s preliminary coverage from Wired‘s “Threat Level” blog. I haven’t had a chance to review the full ruling yet; I may have additional links or commentary later.

Edited to add: Correction. According to the WP, there were two concurring opinions; I missed one in my quick skim of the ruling. Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan signed on to one concurrence; Sotomayor wrote a second concurrence, and also signed on to the majority opinion.

Edited to add 2: Discussion at the Volokh Conspiracy. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Still wading through this, but part 2 makes a good point; the Court did not actually rule per se that GPS tracking requires a warrant, but that it is a search under the Fourth Amendment. Not all searches require a warrant (see Terry v. Ohio or Chimel v. California) but, in general, the types of searches that the Court has held do not require a warrant involve “exigent circumstances” and are highly limited in scope. I find it hard to see the Court applying an “exigent circumstances” exception to GPS tracking in just about any case.

ETA3: And one of Volokh’s commenters makes a good point: the police apparently had a warrant, but botched the execution of it (“The warrant authorized installation in the District of Columbia and within 10 days, but agents installed the device on the 11th day and in Maryland.”) and then tried to argue that they didn’t need no stinking warrant anyway.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 22, 2012.

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Joe Paterno is dead.

As opposed to last night, when he was apparently declared dead but actually wasn’t. (Good on Devon Edwards for standing up and taking responsibility, but I still feel sorry for him; especially since it sounds like they were taken in by a forged email and a dishonest source.)

Also among the dead: Philip Vannatter, LAPD detective. I know, you probably never heard of him. He led the Ron Goldman/Nicole Brown Simpson investigation and the Roman Polanski investigation, two of the LAPD’s biggest cases.

One colleague told The Times in 1994 that Vannatter was a bear of a man who, when he kicked in a door while arresting a robbery suspect once on the Westside, he knocked the door off the hinges. When Vannatter worked as a detective in Venice in the 1970s he would have contests with co-workers to see how long they could hold a sledgehammer outstretched in front of them with one arm.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Holy…goat? Maybe. Kind of. Sort of.

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

The German Sport Guns folks are putting out some interesting stuff. I’ve been tempted for a while to pick up one of their .22LR MP-5 clones (Mike the Musicologist has been pushing me to do so as well); they’re nice looking guns, I think they’d be a lot of fun to shoot, and I often see them at the gun show for reasonable prices. But I can’t find any practical use for them (other than “they’d be fun to shoot”) and I’ve got enough .22LR guns already, thankyouverymuch.

I do also kind of like the idea of an AK-47 clone in .22LR, but it has less appeal to me than the MP-5 clones. I’d rather have a full-on AK-47. (And that is on my list, just haven’t gotten around to it yet.)

New at the SHOT show, we’ve got the Mexican drug dealer line of guns from GSG: gold-plated AK and MP-5 clones. Yeah. Not on the list, but lord love GSG for trying.

On the other hand, American Tactical Imports (GSG’s US importer) is also going to be importing GSG’s .22LR version of the StG 44. This could be interesting; .22LR is a lot easier to find than 7.92×33mm Kurz, and I do have a certain interest in the StG 44 after reading Pale Horse Coming (in which the Audie Murphy clone uses one to great effect against a guard tower).

Also, if I’m going to be honest with myself, the wooden crate “handmade by a Amish community in New York state” pushes a button, too.

(Hattip: The Firearm Blog on both of these.)

Edited to add: Something occurs to me. You know what ATI/GSG could probably rake in the cash with? A Thompson clone in .22LR, complete with drum magazine. Especially if they sold it (and the drum) at a price that doesn’t make you think it is made out of compressed unicorn tears and ambergris.

However, I’d be willing to bet that the current owners of Auto-Ordnance might not take too kindly to that without some sort of licensing deal. Which I think actually raises an interesting legal question; to what extent is the physical look and design of a firearm protected by law? GSG was, after all, sued by H&K (“you suck and we hate you”) for trade dress infringement, but how long does trade dress protection last? Forever? The Thompson is, after all, an 84 year old gun…

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law | Comments Closed

Today’s Bell update.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

More than half of the disability retirements awarded to police officers under former Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo — including those given to three police chiefs — should not have been granted, and workers’ compensation settlements for 13 officers were “exceedingly large,” an investigation has concluded.

Former police chief Michael Chavez gets a pension of $117,942, and got a worker’s compensation settlement of $140,000. Former police chief Andreas Probst gets $160,649 a year on top of his $250,000 worker’s compensation settlement. Former police chief Dennis Tavernelli gets $169,027 a year on top of his $395,667 worker’s compensation settlement.

The advantage of a disability retirement is that only half of the pension is taxed; workers’ compensation settlements are tax free.

And:

The Times reported that in at least two instances, the city wrapped severance and unused vacation and sick time into the workers’ comp settlements, which experts said violated tax laws.

Question: if the city and the police chiefs knowingly violated state law in that fashion, could they be charged with tax evasion?

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

A show of support.

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Today is the first anniversary of l’affair TJIC.

“Brad in MA” apparently originated the idea of commemorating this date by going out on and purchasing something Second Amendment related, which we think is excellent. Our great and good friend Borepatch elaborated on this idea some more by suggesting folks patronize TJIC’s company, Smartflix, which rents learning DVDs. We also heartily endorse this idea; Smartflix has an amazing selection of firearms related DVDs for rent.

On this day, I encourage you to consider both options. As for myself, I’ve already set up a Smartflix account, specifically as a response to the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the Arlington, MA police, and look forward to a long and pleasant relationship with the company.

I also wanted to make passing note of this tweet by TJIC about the firing of Boston PD officer David Williams for beating a suspect. As the article notes, Williams was previously fired in 1998, and rehired after winning an appeal in 2005.

As it happens, I am currently reading Dick Lehr’s book The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide about the previous case involving Williams. In brief, Williams and a group of other BPD officers beat a black man who they thought was a criminal suspect senseless; then, when it turned out he was actually a fellow BPD officer in plainclothes, more or less successfully covered up their actions. The one BPD officer who was actually convicted of a crime was later found to be telling the truth (that he hadn’t seen the beating) and had his conviction overturned.

I’m not far enough into The Fence to feel confident recommending it, but the story of Michael Cox is appalling and deserves to be better known.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Cops, Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

WCD did not go on strike yesterday because of SOPA and PIPA (though we did call our Congress slime and make our views known).

(By the way, we think the “Congress” app for Android  is pretty spiffy.)

Basically, there just wasn’t much going on yesterday.

Today, we note the NYT‘s article on discussions of doing away with the leap second.

Also noteworthy: Penn State trustees discuss the decision to fire Paterno.

We have no joke here, we ust like saying “feral burros”.

Posted in Android, Clippings, Geek, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

Notes and updates.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Jim Caldwell fired from the Colts. 26-22 over three seasons, 2-14 this year. I don’t think there was anybody who didn’t expect this.

Moving right along, Harris County DA Pat Lykos did testify today before the grand jury investigating her office and the BAT vans.

This is another story where there’s really not much to add beyond the basic fact that she did testify, and apparently did answer questions (as opposed to pleading the Fifth). But we note it here as part of the ongoing story.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, HCDA, Law, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

There’s people out there turning free throws into gold…

Monday, January 16th, 2012

The HouChron has an article about former Houston Rocket Dikembe Mutombo and his involvement in what might charitably be described as a questionable scheme to sell half a ton of gold from mines in the eastern Congo.

There were, however, no profits to be had. In truth, the deal was an elaborate scam that ended at an airport in Goma with the seizure of the Gulfstream V jet and the arrest of St. Mary and several CAMAC employees, all suddenly facing accusations of money laundering and attempted smuggling.

Much of the article sounds like the Nigerian 419 scams we all periodically get in our mailboxes. (“In late December, Lawal reluctantly turned over almost $4 million in cash, but only after getting a certificate of ownership and having the gold placed in a secure customs warehouse in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. A week later, Malonga — and the gold — disappeared. The purported customs facility was a sham.“) I’m more than a little amazed that anyone fell for this stuff.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

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