Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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Obit watch: July 31, 2011.

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

Frank Bender, noted forensic sculptor.

Among his other accomplishments, Mr. Bender did the bust of John List for “America’s Most Wanted”; that bust led directly to List’s capture.

It is impossible to gauge precisely Mr. Bender’s career success rate, where “success” means identifying a victim or catching a fugitive. Mr. Bender — who, as associates attest, was a larger-than-life character with no small awareness of his own news value — sometimes put the figure at 85 percent.

The correct figure, his associates say, is probably closer to 40 percent. “Not even he knows, because nobody actually tells him,” Mr. Botha said. “The police departments don’t always come back to him afterwards; that’s one of the kind of bittersweet things about what he does.”

That bugs me. I’d like to think that if I ran a police department and asked Mr. Bender (or someone like him) to do work for me, I’d at least have the courtesy to let them know how it came out, wrong or right, as soon as I knew. Good thing I don’t run a police department, eh?

I haven’t read The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession, and Forensic Artistry, but I did read The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases: at some point I should probably write up some longer thoughts on that book. For now, I want to say that it was an interesting but flawed book.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

All apologies.

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

I feel bad about this, especially since some folks like South Texas Pistolero apparently think I’m worth reading. (Thank you, sir.) But there’s just not a lot going on right now that’s worth blogging about. I blame the heat. And the vertical integration of the broiler industry.

I guess I could point to yet another reason to carry your damn guns, people!

Or yet another example of the police being indistinguishable from armed thugs.

Or I could put up a nifty photo of myself in one of Sean Sorrentino’s “Project Gunwalker” shirts, which he’s reopened orders for (and which you can now get with a pocket, even) but I haven’t picked up mine from the PO Box yet.

I could also ask what kind of fascist country we’re living in, when a judge expresses doubts about the credibility of an accused murderer.

I suppose I could also ask if it’s actually legal for mariachi bands to collude over the fees they charge; doesn’t that strike folks as being a violation of anti-trust law?

I’ve got a post I’m working on about the egg roll problem, but I’m still doing research on that.

The good news is, we’re only a week away from DEFCON 19, which I do plan on blogging. In that vein, if anyone has recommendations for places to eat in Las Vegas, please drop me an email or leave them in the comments. A trip to Lotus of Siam is required, of course, but I’m looking for something to eat on the other four nights I’ll be there.

Edited to add: Hey, while I’m thinking of it, I do want to point folks to this discussion at Battleswarm. I haven’t had a lot to say about Breivik, mostly because other smarter bloggers are saying it all. But for some reason I’m awfully darn curious about his weaponry; I think maybe because the gun in that photo is so blinged up I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that it’s identical to the ones carried by Food Court Team Six.

Posted in Admin, California Über Alles, Clothing, DEFCON 19, Food, Guns, IANAL, Law, Music, Shirts, Travel | Comments Closed

A tip of the hat.

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

By way of Jimbo, we’ve learned that Vincent A. Musetto has retired after 40 years at the New York Post.

Mr. Musetto was the Post film editor when he retired. But he is most famous for a headline he composed in 1982 1983. That’s right, Mr. Musetto is the man who came up with this:

As noted in the linked article, Mr. Musetto’s personal favorite of his headlines was “Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas”.

We wish Mr. Musetto a happy retirement, and all the best in any future endeavors he embarks upon.

Edited to add: P.S.: The happy decapitator, Charles Dingle, is apparently still in prison. Mr. Dingle denies any involvement in the rape/robbery/beheading spree for which he was convicted.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Media | Comments Closed

The (Double) Eagle has flown the coop.

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

We previously noted the strange legal saga involving the Federal Government and ten 1933 $20 U.S. gold coins.

(Since that time, we have also read Alison Frankel’s Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin and we think it is a better book than David Tripp’s Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle. But we digress.)

By way of FARK, we have now learned that a Philadelphia jury has found in favor of the Government. Here’s coverage from the WSJ Law Blog, and here’s coverage from the Inky.

As we noted at the time, this seemed like a case that couldn’t be won, given the events of 2002 and the attendant publicity. We are not displeased to see our prediction come true, though we will be sad if the Treasury ends up destroying the coins. At the same time, though, we suspect this is not the end of the story, and that this case will probably end up in front of Dianna Ross and the Supremes. Watch this space for updates.

Edited to add: We wish we had thought of this sooner. Here’s the story from “Coin World”, which appears to have been covering the trial in detail judging from the other links.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Coins, Law | 1 Comment »

Police professionalism update.

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

We previously noted the case of the LA County Sheriff’s deputies who worked in the county jail, and who were fired for thumping on fellow employees at the Christmas party.

As a followup, and in the interest of fairness, we update the story: the prosecutor’s office has decided not to file charges against the accused deputies.

According to a memo from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, charges were not filed against eight deputies in part because one of them who was alleging he was assaulted admitted he “struck the first blow,” which would “certainly raise the defense of self-defense.”

Prosecutors also found the statements of a female deputy who alleged she was punched in the chin to be unreliable. She reported being hit, according to the memo, 10 days after the incident, and was apparently inconsistent about who she believed struck her.

According to a department spokesman quoted in the LAT, this does not affect the ongoing departmental investigation.

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

Choctaw bingo.

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Too weird to pass up. On Friday, the Sunset Valley PD arrested a guy on charges of impersonating a police officer. (Sunset Valley is a small municipality on the outskirts of Austin; most of Sunset Valley consists of strip centers and big box stores. Just FYI.)

…31-year-old Crag Redhawk was arrested and charged with two counts of tampering with a government record after police found him to be carrying ticket books from area police and sheriff’s departments.

I really, really want to know where he got those ticket books.

…on Friday afternoon, Sunset Valley police stopped Redhawk in a Crown Victoria sedan with Home Depot-bought stickers on the side that said “Choctaw Police.” Redhawk claimed to be a member of the Choctaw Tribal Police Department, but that agency told the officers they had no record of Redhawk working for them. In addition, the car belonged to the Williamson County sheriff’s office and had a fake inspection sticker.

I also really, really want to know how he came into possession of a car belonging to the Williamson County sheriff’s office. Notice that the list of charges does not, so far, include “car theft” or “possession of a stolen vehicle”.

(I know what you’re thinking: “That might explain where he got the ticket books, too.” Maybe. But the way I read the article, he didn’t just have Williamson County ticket books, but also ones from the Austin Police Department and other local agencies. I don’t think all of those would be in one WCSO car.)

The fake inspection sticker is a nice touch, too. What, he couldn’t swing by one of those 10 minute inspection places? Then again, maybe the WCSO car wouldn’t pass inspection. Perhaps there was a problem with the emissions testing.

I wonder how they know he bought the “Choctaw Police” stickers at Home Depot. Was there a receipt in the car? Heck, I didn’t even know you could get custom stickers for your car done at Home Depot. That gives me a few ideas…

Redhawk was found to be carrying an antique handgun,

I’m wondering about that “antique handgun” as well.

a badge

I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!

and a handcuff case, the affidavit said.

(Subject line hattip: Do you really need one? He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don’t sell. I’m mildly annoyed that you can’t purchase that song as a stand-alone tune on iTunes, and Amazon charges $1.99 for it instead of the usual 99 cents. Then again, it is over eight minutes long, so you’re getting good value for money. And how many songs do you know that give a shout-out to the SKS and Berdan-primed ammo from some East bloc nation?)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Music | 3 Comments »

Good cop, bad cop.

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Good cop:

Between 1977 and 1987, six women in Northern California were killed and dumped. The cases became known as the “I-5 Strangler” killings; Roger Kibbe was convicted of one of the murders in 1987, and pled guilty to additional murders in 2008.

Unfortunately, the body of one of his victims, Lou Ellen Burleigh, was never found, even though Kibbe attempted to lead law enforcement to where he had left the body.

Earlier this year, Napa County Deputy Sheriff Michael Bartlett decided to search for the body on his own time. It took him about a month, but he eventually found a place that matched up with Kibbe’s description, and a bone.

DNA tests confirmed the bone was Burleigh’s.

At least now her people know. Well done, Officer Bartlett.

Bad cop: Houston police officer Mike Hamby.

Actually, make that “former Houston police officer”. Mr. Hamby was “relieved of duty” June 17th.

What gets you fired from HPD? In this case, former officer Hamby was accused of throwing a tear gas canister into another team’s tent during a barbecue cookoff at the Livestock Show and Rodeo earlier this year.

The powerful chemical irritant wafted over two military veterans — both of them multiple amputees — who were brought to the rodeo event in wheelchairs and were waiting for a ride home.

Former officer Hamby can appeal his firing.

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

Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?! (#4 in a series)

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Mark Davis is a writer in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Mark Davis wrote a book about a writer who gets discouraged over his rejections.

So he finds an uber-successful agent, kidnaps her daughter, and gives her 90 days to get his latest novel in print.

That’s not a bad sounding plot. But Mark Davis decided to take things one step further.

…Davis staged and filmed a kidnapping (“I checked with a lawyer first to make sure I wouldn’t get in trouble”) to post on the website, then sent an e-mail to a wide variety of agents. It began: “By the time you receive this, I will have already kidnapped your child.”

“The first phone call I received the next day was at 7:30 in the morning, from an agent,” Davis recalled. “She was yelling at me, saying, ‘Are you crazy?’”

Yeah, I’m going to say the answer to that question is, “Hell, yes!” Either that, or Mr. Davis put on the Bad Idea Jeans that morning. I’m boggled at the fact that a lawyer apparently told him this was legal, or even a good idea.

Apparently, this strategy actually worked, for definitions of  “worked” that include “finding a publisher” (Poinsettia Publications, according to the article; the book is available in their online store) but there’s no mention that Mr. Davis has actually secured an agent. Frankly, if I were a literary agent who’d read about this stunt, or received one of those letters, my first reactions would involve a restraining order against Mr. Davis and press-checking my .45.

(Hattip on this: I picked up the story by way of Marko Kloos on the Twitter.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, IANAL, Law | Comments Closed

Noted for the record.

Friday, June 24th, 2011

James “Whitey” Bulger had “an AK-47 assault rifle” and a “sawed-off shotgun” in his Santa Monica apartment, according to the FBI.

I wonder which of these “AK-47 assault rifles” Whitey had.

I also wonder how “sawed-off” that shotgun was.

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

Legal update, and other random notes, for June 23, 2011.

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

After 16 years, James “Whitey” Bulger has been arrested in California. Boston Globe coverage. If you go to the front page, the Globe has a quite extensive package, including some of their previous Bulger coverage. Boston Herald coverage. Ditto on the Herald having an extensive package, including commentary by Howie Carr. LAT coverage, but don’t bother. It doesn’t add much.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, Bulger was the leading crime boss in Boston for many years; he built his empire largely through a corrupt relationship with the local FBI office, which covered for his criminal activities because he served as an informant for them. (Bulger’s work as an informant generally involved either providing misleading information, or using the FBI to eliminate his competition and other folks he wanted to get out of his way.)

There are two excellent books on the Bulger case: The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century by Howie Carr concentrates on the relationship between Whitey and his brother Billy, a prominent Massachusetts politician. Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, won an Edgar for “best fact crime” and is pretty compelling, but a bit dated now. If you’re going to read only one book, I highly recommend Carr’s.

One of the first cases I mentioned here at WCD was the Sedona sweat lodge incident. I am mildly pleased to report that James Ray has been convicted of three counts of negligent homicide. Unfortunately, he was not convicted of the more serious manslaughter charges he was facing, but he could still get 30 years on the negligent homicide charges.

Due to being busy and on the road, I’ve been somewhat neglecting “Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark”. From what I hear, the revised version (which is now open, and getting “official” reviews) is actually a vast improvement over the original. (The NYT review is linked from the article I’m about to link; I’m not posting the link here because I’ve used up my free articles for the month on this one.) Anyway, Patrick Healy and Kevin Flynn have an interesting article in today’s NYT on where, exactly, that $75 million went.

Even the producers acknowledge that with such high expenses, at the show’s current earning level “Spider-Man” would need to run more than seven years to recoup what investors have poured in.

At this point, “Spider Man” is bringing in $1.2 million to $1.3 million a week, per the NYT. However, the show’s operating costs are…somewhere between $1 million and $1.2 million per week. And the show owes roughly $100,000 a week on the construction loan they took out to renovate the theater. (I’m not clear if that’s included in operating costs, or is a separate line item.)

Edited to add: By way of Jimbo:

“Globe reporters are already in the sky to L.A.,” Globe features staffer Billy Baker tweeted after the FBI announced the arrest of Whitey Bulger. “Newsroom is going on all cylinders. Historic morning to be a journalist in Boston.”

Meanwhile, you have to dig down to the Bulger page on the “America’s Most Wanted” web site to find any mention of the capture. This seems odd, given the number of times John Walsh ran stories about Bulger, but perhaps they’re holding off until they determine if an “AMW” tip was behind the capture.

Edited to add 2: The LAT coverage on their “LA Now” blog is a vast improvement over the initial LAT story I linked, and is being constantly updated. Kudos to the “LA Now” blog team.

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

The Mighty Quin(tana).

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Former APD officer Leonardo Quintana has been acquitted of one of the domestic assault charges filed against him.

There are apparently three other charges (misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief and criminal trespass) still pending, related to an incident in 2009. (The charge Mr. Quintana was acquitted on relates to a 2008 incident.)

You may remember former officer Quintana from such hits as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. I may be missing a few.

At this point, I’m tempted to give former officer Quintana his own (sub)category on WCD.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Random notes: June 21, 2011.

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

I go out of town for a few days. I come back, and l’affair Ward is still ongoing.

Today’s update: the head of the police union is “troubled” by the dismissal of the DWI charges. And well he should be; as I noted in the previous post, there’s three possible explanations, and two of those make the cops look bad. I haven’t watched the video yet, and I’m not sure doing so would do any good. I don’t have the level of expertise needed to judge if Mr. Ward passed or failed the sobriety tests. But in any case, the union’s right on this one. The county DA owes the citizens a full and complete explanation of why the charges were dismissed, and if wrongdoing or incompetence on the part of the APD were part of the equation, Chief Acevedo needs to address those issues.

In other news from the Statesman, their editorial board would like for us to know that guns are making their way across the border illegally. The editorial is devoted to lobbying for a plan to have Texas DPS set up checkpoints to stop “illegal weapons trafficking”. There are plenty of interesting questions that this editorial ignores:

  • “The weapon used to kill U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Jorge Zapata in February made its way south to Mexico from Dallas. Though the gun was legally purchased, it was smuggled into Mexico, where legal possession of firearms is restricted.” I’m trying to dig up more information on Officer Zapata’s killing, but what I’ve found so far is that he was killed by the Zeta cartel. So is the Statesman stating that US citizens who are Zeta cartel members are legally buying weapons in Dallas? Or are they having other people buy weapons for them in Dallas? That would be an illegal “straw man” purchase. And if Officer Zapata was shot with an actual “AK-47”, as I’ve seen in some reports, it is highly improbable that was purchased in Dallas.
  • Why do we need to use scarce Texas DPS resources to set up random checkpoints for weapons near the border? Why aren’t the existing checkpoints at the border working?
  • It is curious that the Statesman manages to write an entire editorial about illegal traffic of guns to Mexico without mentioning “Operation Gunwalker“.
  • “”According to CNN … over 70 percent of the 29,284 firearms recovered from crime scenes in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 were traced to the United States.” As we’ve discussed previously, is that 70% of the total firearms, or 70% of the total firearms submitted for tracing? If you dig deeper into these reports, a large percentage of firearms recovered aren’t submitted for tracing in the first place, because they can’t be traced, because they don’t have identifying markings, because they’re coming from South America or other countries.

I’ve just started listening to this week’s Vicious Circle podcast. (Warning: Vicious Circle is frequently not safe for work. Or basic human decency.) My great and good friend Weer’d Beard, among other folks, has some excellent points. What makes more sense? Cartel members are coming across the border to Houston, Dallas, and other Texas cities, paying $600 each across the counter for truckloads of WASR-10s and other semi-automatic AK-47 clones? And then they’re smuggling those clones back across the border, where they’re converted to full-auto and supplied to the cartels? Or the cartels are using weapons diverted from the Mexican army, and the reason those weapons trace back to the US is that we sold them to the Mexican army in the first place?

As Weer’d notes, it doesn’t take a lot to get folks to defect from the Mexican army; hell, the cartels are putting up “help wanted” signs, promising potential defectors that they won’t have to eat ramen. And somehow Mexico believes that the US is responsible for their lawless society?

I haven’t heard anyone ask the key question, especially in light of “Operation Gunwalker”: why does the BATFE continue to exist? Seriously, why do we need this agency? The tax collection functions can be handled by the Treasury Department, as purely administrative issues. The law enforcement portion of BATFE’s mandate could easily be taken over by the FBI, and BATFE’s budget freed up for something more productive; perhaps providing free ukulele picks to the poor, to steal a memorable line from Roger Ebert.

Edited to add 6/22: Well, this is interesting as all get out. Dave Hardy over at “Arms and the Law” has a link to the PDF of a letter sent by Senator Grassley to acting BATFE director Melson. Nut graph:

The most noteworthy portion of the information is that nearly 78% of firearms traced in 2009 and 66% of firearms traced in 2010 were assigned to a catchall category “No Final Sale Dealer” which means the firearms did not trace back to a United States FFL.

Also interesting:

Data indicates that the top source dealer for illegal firearms traced in Mexico for 2009 was “Direccion General De Industria Milita” or the Directorate General of Military Industry in Mexico. They provided 120 firearms that were later traced back, likely after a crime. Why does this entity have a U.S. Federal Firearms License? Are sales to this and other foreign entities with U.S. FFL’s included in the numbers the ATF provided as being a gun from a “U.S. Source”. If so, why?

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

On the road again…

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Yesterday was a travel day: I’m in an undisclosed location, doing stuff I can’t talk about right now. Blogging is uncertain; it depends on schedules and what-not.

However, I did want to note the following:

Posted in Admin, Clippings, Cops, Food, Law | Comments Closed

We’re going down the rabbit hole here, people.

Monday, June 13th, 2011

Jeff Ward hosts a popular talk show in the afternoons on one of our AM radio stations. I was a pretty regular listener to Mr. Ward’s show for a while (until the AM radio in my car stopped working).

Jeff Ward was also arrested Thursday night and charged with DWI.

Mr. Ward allegedly failed a field sobriety test. It’s not clear if he had blood drawn or was given a breath test, like the 37 people who were arrested on Friday or Saturday night during “no refusal” weekend.

But here’s what makes the story blog worthy, in my opinion. Today, the Travis County DA announced he’s dropping the charges against Jeff Ward.

“Based on their internal review, APD expressed concerns about significant weaknesses in the arrest, specifically whether probable cause existed to file a DWI charge,” Escamilla said in a statement today. “After our review of the evidence, including the officer’s in-car video, we confirmed to APD that there was not sufficient evidence to support a DWI charge. Therefore, the Travis County attorneys office will take no further action.”

Either the APD falsely arrested an innocent citizen, they arrested a citizen who was guilty but botched the arrest so badly that the DA didn’t feel like the case was prosecutable, or they dropped a DWI charge against a prominent local citizen for political reasons. There’s no way to spin this so it looks good.

Edited to add 6/14: Second day coverage in the Statesman.

Interesting points:

  • He failed a field sobriety test, but refused to take a Breathalyzer. The no-refusal weekend started Friday according to previous Statesman coverage.
  • He called Police Chief Acevedo at least twice; once during the arrest, and once from jail.
  • Mr. Ward says he had the standard “two beers” (police will tell you that everyone ever arrested for drunk driving had “two beers”) over a four hour period, and was originally stopped for doing 10 MPH over the speed limit.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 2 Comments »

Cops gone wild!

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

I don’t know why, but stories about cops committing particularly horrific crimes make me even more angry than I have any rational justification for. I’ve mentioned Antoinette Frank several times before; she’s a perfect example of the kind of thing I’m talking about, and I hope they get around to sticking a needle in her arm soon. I’m hoping for the same thing for the cops involved in the Danziger Bridge shootings, too.

But let’s move away from New Orleans for a moment. Let’s move to the north, and start with the DC area.

Richmond Phillips had a problem. He was accused of fathering a child with a 20-year old woman, and was scheduled to be in court last Tuesday for a hearing on paternity and child support. Phillips worked vice for the DC police, and he already had a wife and a 12-year old daughter.

What to do, what to do? Well, if you’re Phillips, you meet your baby mama in the park the day before the hearing, shoot her in the head, hide the body, load your baby up into baby mama’s car, drive the car away, abandon it, and leave your baby inside.

When an officer found the car Thursday, after the scorching midweek heat, the baby was dead. As police awaited autopsy results Friday, they said she might have died from the extreme heat in the car. Her body showed no clear signs of trauma. The car has tinted windows, one official said, so passersby were unlikely to notice the baby inside.

Let me repeat that. He killed the mother, and left a one-year old baby to die in a hot car.

I checked. Maryland does still have the death penalty, though it appears to be used rather sparingly (five executions since 1976, and five current death row inmates). Of course, Phillips is entitled to the presumption of innocence (though it seems like they already have a strong circumstantial case against him), but let’s hope the prosecutors don’t let this chicken shit asshole plea bargain down to life without parole.

There’s another recent incident that I’ve been meaning to note. Over the Memorial Day weekend, a sheriff’s deputy in Franklin County, Virginia, shot and killed his ex-wife, then led other police officers on an hour-long chase that climaxed in a shootout on I-81. This actually would not have come to my attention except that the shootout and resulting investigation backed up traffic for miles on the interstate: Sebastian from Snowflakes in Hell got caught up in the mess and blogged about it.

In addition to the cop gone bad angle, Franklin County is in the area around Roanoke, Lynchburg, and Bedford; my family has lived in that general area from time to time, so there’s a local angle to the story for us. The other interesting aspect to this story is the role of the rogue deputy’s department in the whole affair. Here’s the original Roanoke.com story on the shooting. Jake at Curses! Foiled Again! has been linking to the followup coverage: the sheriff’s phone call to the local police, holes in the timeline, and Jake’s first post, pointing out that the shooter had previous disciplinary issues but was still on the job.

According to today’s reporting, the sheriff apparently told a dispatcher “not to mention anything” about the deputy’s threats to kill his ex-wife. It’s looking more and more like the sheriff knew his guy was rogue, but thought he could calm the situation down and avoid public embarrassment. It’s also looking more and more like the embarrassment of having one of your guys taken off the street doesn’t compare to the embarrassment of having your guy shoot several people, and having the local citizens demand your resignation.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 1 Comment »

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