I’m a little busy, but I’m taking a break from Chimel v. California to throw some linky-love Lawrence’s way for his “Fast and Furious” posts. Especially this most recent one about Holder, which can best be summarized as:
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
I am furious, Holder.
Saturday, October 8th, 2011Was that wrong?
Friday, October 7th, 2011Should they not have done that?
I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing. I mean, if someone had told them it was a bad idea for a guidance councilor to strip search students, and that the Supreme Court had ruled it was illegal, then the Atlantic Community School District might not be out $300,000.
You know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of school districts, and I tell you, people do things like sending 12-year-old boys out to act as decoy buyers so they can bust other kids for selling pot all the time.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Who was Aiyana Stanley-Jones?
She was a seven-year-old in Detroit. A SWAT team raided her home looking for a murder suspect; in the process of that raid, the police set her and her bed on fire with a flash-bang grenade. Then they shot her.
Sucks, right? But it was an accident, right? It may be the kind of accident that happens all too often these days, but still an accident, right?
Well, okay, involuntary manslaughter and “careless and reckless discharge of a firearm” still carry the connotation of accident, right? Sure. But when was the last time you heard of a police officer being indicted for an accidental shooting? The Oakland BART shooting, perhaps? (And note that that officer was charged with second degree murder; the jury convicted him of less serious charges.)
But that’s not the only reason I’m noting this. You see, the SWAT team was being filmed by a crew from “The First 48”, a show on the A&E network. And…
So they’re charging the camera person as well. And note the charges: “perjury”, and “obstruction of justice”. Makes you go “Hmmmmmm”, doesn’t it?
(Hattip: Reason‘s “Hit and Run”.)
The Harris County Party Van.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Harris County (which includes Houston) decided yesterday that they were going to get their breath testing services from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Previously, the county had a contract with Lone Star College.
“So what?” you say. “TXDPS must have made them a better deal.”
Well, maybe TXDPS has more experience and competence than Lone Star. That’s quite possible…
So what’s the issue here? Well, one of the people who works for Lone Star is Amanda Culbertson. Ms. Culbertson was also the person who brought out the problems with the BAT vans. Ms. Culbertson will apparently lose her job once Lone Star’s contract ends. Of course, everyone denies that there was any retaliation involved.
I’m torn. It actually does sound to me like there are good reasons to go with DPS. But the timing is, to put it mildly, suspicious, especially since Lone Star has had the contract for 20 years.
Murray Newman (a former prosecutor) over at the excellent “Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center” blog has some more to say on this, and he comes down pretty firmly on the “retaliation” side. Here’s the Lisa Falkenberg column he mentions.
Case brief: Katz v. United States.
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Not that Katz. This one was Charles Katz, and he was a gambler who got caught “transmitting wagering information by telephone across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084”. The Man had attached a recording device to the outside of the phone booth he was using, and his recorded conversations were used as evidence against him.
Katz said, “Foul!” and the Supreme Court agreed. This is actually an interesting and somewhat surprising case; it serves as a very nice example of the Supreme Court changing its mind in a very public way. The government argued that what they had done was A-OK, because the Court had ruled (in Olmstead v. United States, which I understand comes up in the Ken Burns thing) this this kind of activity didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court came back and said, “Yeah. You know something? We’ve changed our mind. Olmstead is no longer controlling. Too bad. So sad. You lose.”
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about Charles Katz, either before or after his conviction. One of his lawyers on the appeal says he never even met the man.
Anyway, here’s my case brief, for your reading and mocking pleasure.
Things I’ve missed.
Monday, October 3rd, 2011Terry Francona fired by the Boston Red Sox.
Former Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro passed away on Wednesday. Former Sheriff Navarro is probably most famous for two things:
- Being all over the early episodes of Cops.
- Trying to press obscenity charges against 2 Live Crew.
Case brief: Terry v. Ohio.
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011Posted for your mocking pleasure.
Here’s what 1276 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland looks like today, according to Google Street View:
What wine goes with an extra-long cheese coney and tots?
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011Chain restaurants like Sonic (in one location) and Burger King (at least in their Whopper Bars) have started offering beer and wine. Unfortunately, this has turned into a great pain for little benefit:
(Our first thought is a big mouth-filling Cabernet. Other suggestions welcome in comments.)
The LAT asks the same musical question the FAA is asking: how do you keep planes from going into the crowd at Reno?
And the FBI apparently paid a deputy in the LA County Jail $1,500 to smuggle a cellphone in to an informant. You’re telling me a government agency would do something illegal? Why, the next thing I know, you’ll be telling me that government agents used form letters from BATFE to buy guns with taxpayer money, and then provided those guns directly to the drug cartels!
(Edited to add: Fox News. Hattip: Snowflakes in Hell.)
Shame! Come back, shame!
Monday, September 19th, 2011I forgot to stick this in the loser update update, but it may merit a separate post anyway.
Someone (I forget who; it may have been the bloggers at Jimbo’s old site) alerted me to Taylor Branch’s “The Shame of College Sports” in the October issue of The Atlantic.
I think this is worth your attention, even though it is long. I’m still digesting the article, but there’s quite a bit of interesting material in it about the NCAA’s past (and current) legal battles; the information Branch brings out makes me more convinced that we’ll see the end of the NCAA in the next decade.
Special non-sports firings watch.
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011Back in March, we noted that the Miami PD had shot a bunch of folks, and some people were upset over this.
Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito was fired on Monday. The reason for his firing does not appear to involve shootings:
The City Commission voted 3-2 in favor of firing Chief Exposito, and is calling for amendments to the city charter. But don’t cry for the Chief:
Mapp v. Ohio.
Monday, September 12th, 2011I’ve mentioned previously that one of the courses I’m taking at St. Ed’s this semester is “Constitutional Criminal Procedure”, in which we’ve (so far) spent a lot of time talking about the Fourth Amendment (not the FORTH amendment, but check this out, kids), probable cause, and such like.
One of the things we have to do for this class is write “case briefs”, which are basically one to two page summaries of a major court decision, detailing what the factual elements were, what the main argument was, how the court voted, summarize the majority opinion and concurring opinions, summarize the dissenting opinion and concurring dissents, and (finally!) give our own opinion about the decision.
Anyway, with things being kind of slow, and me not wanting to let a good opportunity for y’all to mock my writing go to waste, I give you my first case brief for Mapp v. Ohio. What makes this case significant is that the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that the exclusionary rule applied to the states as well as to the federal government. The application of the exclusionary rule at the Federal level was established in the case of Weeks v. United States as far back as 1914, but for some odd reason the court didn’t apply this at the state level. As a matter of fact, in Wolf v. Colorado, a 1949 case, the Supreme Court expressly declined to apply the exclusionary rule to the states: Mapp v. Ohio amounted to a complete reversal of that decision.
Beyond the legal aspect, there’s two other things about this case that I find interesting:
- This took place in Cleveland, where I still have family. The Cleveland Memory Project has a lot of background material on Miss Mapp and Mapp v. Ohio.
- One of my fellow students mentioned this in class when I asked, “Is it just me, or did the Cleveland PD really have it out for this woman?” The confidential informant who tipped the cops off? That was…Don King. Yeah, that Don King. According to my classmate, Miss Mapp had previously been…”employed” in Mr. King’s…”business” of…”providing services to gentlemen”, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Miss Mapp decided her talents were more valuable elsewhere, Mr. King did not like this, and hilarity ensued. I’m having some trouble confirming specific details of Miss Mapp’s employment with Mr. King. But it does seem that Miss Mapp was certainly well known to the Cleveland PD, judging by some of the clippings at Cleveland Memory.
Anyway, there you go. Feel free to mock and criticize in the comments to this post.
Thank you, Tam!
Thursday, September 8th, 2011I generally try to avoid linking to stuff that’s been posted on other blogs more widely read than mine. After all, if someone like Tam’s already written about it, what more can I add?
My excuse in this case is that Tam only covered one very small part of the website in question, and there’s a lot more there that I think is fascinating.
Faded Glory: Dusty Roads of an FBI Era is devoted to the FBI agents of the early 1930s. Quoting:
In addition to Delf Bryce’s employment application, which Tam linked, there’s a lot of other great stuff here. For example:
- a list of the weapons known to have been owned by Hoover and Clyde Tolson, and where they are now.
- an article about the search for Dillinger’s gun from the Biograph; the one that was on display for many years was not the actual gun.
- Where is Hoover’s Registered Magnum (#1)?
- The FBI and the Thompson submachine gun.
- A nifty article about the .38 Super. (This makes a good companion to Stephen Hunter’s American Rifleman piece.)
And all of that is just a small part of what’s on the Faded Glory website. There’s weeks worth of browsing material there. Thanks to Tam for the heads-up.
SAMCRO.
Thursday, September 1st, 2011How do you top a college professor accused of pimping?
Would you believe a college professor who led a chapter of the Devils Diciples motorcycle gang, and who is charged with dealing meth?
Damn. A pound of meth?
Edited to add: More detailed LAT article here. In response to Borepatch’s comment, neither of the articles say anything about the tenure status of the professors involved. But the accused pimp has apparently been working for his university since 1969, and the biker/drug dealer has been teaching at his university for ten years, so I’d be a little surprised if both of them weren’t tenured.
Civic corruption update.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011A while back, I read Ian Flemming’s book Thrilling Cities
First up: the state Senate has rejected a bill that would have disincorporated the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon. This isn’t the end of the line: the city has agreed to some reforms, and is currently under investigation by the IRS. But it is a major setback for those of us who were hoping for a good disincorporation.
Meanwhile, back in Bell, former fiefdom of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, it seems that the city issued $50 million in bonds a few years back. (I can’t tell if it was 2003 or 2004 from the LAT article.) The bonds were intended to pay for
Anyone want to take a guess on what’s happened?
Here’s the punchline: even though nothing was built, the money’s gone, and the city’s broke, the new city government still has to go through with the tax increases that were put into place to pay off the bonds.
Of course, the tax increase money is going to the bond holders, not into the general city government fund. And the city residents are upset that their taxes are being increased. But what’s the alternative, guys? Defaulting on the bonds, even if they were issued by a bunch of crooks, is just going to hurt you in the long run. Bell’s best bet at this point seems to be to return the unspent funds (about $20 million, per the LAT), and try to squeeze whatever they can out of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and his cronies.
I have an odd sense of humor.
Monday, August 29th, 2011Sorry for the radio silence the past few days. Two reasons:
- There just hasn’t been that much to report. I understand there was an earthquake somewhere, and a hurricane in some other place? Other than that, I got nothing (well, except it hit 110 in Austin over the weekend).
- I’ve been running around Armadillocon 33 all weekend.
Content will, perhaps, resume soonish. In the meantime, here’s a picture I took Sunday morning, just because I happened to have the book with me at breakfast (I was expecting to be eating alone) and the juxtaposition amused me.
The book is Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill