Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Random notes: March 21, 2013.

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

Here’s your obit for Herbert Streicher, aka “Harry Reems”, the male star of “Deep Throat”: NYT. A/V Club.

Leaving alcohol, drugs, and pornography behind for good, Reems settled in Park City, Utah, where he got married, embraced Christianity, built a thriving real estate career, and—with the exception of interviews he did for the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat, and a round of interviews to promote its release—he made a concerted effort to stay as far out of the public eye as possible.

Oh, look! New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is re-thinking his hastily passed and poorly thought out gun control measures! It couldn’t have anything to do with his declining popularity, could it?

The gun-control law, approved in January, banned the sale of magazines that hold more than seven rounds of ammunition. But, Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday, seven-round magazines are not widely manufactured. And, although the new gun law provided an exemption for the use of 10-round magazines at firing ranges and competitions, it did not provide a legal way for gun owners to purchase such magazines.
As a result, he said, he and legislative leaders were negotiating language that would continue to allow the sale of magazines holding up to 10 rounds, but still forbid New Yorkers from loading more than 7 rounds into those magazines.

But gun control works!

A 47-year-old psychiatric patient was beaten to death in a locked shower room at Interfaith Medical Center in central Brooklyn late on Tuesday, officials said, and another patient, a 20-year-old, has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing.

I have not had time to go through all of it yet, but the NYT special section on “Museums” looks interesting. Call this a bookmark.

Here’s the LAT‘s second day article on the Bell convictions.

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you in the national recording registry…

(Also: The Ramones first album! “Einstein on the Beach”! “South Pacific”! “Sounds of Silence”! The “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack?)

Posted in Bookmarks, California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Movies, Music, Obits, Stupid | Comments Closed

Banana republicans on trial: March 20, 2013.

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

Woo hoo woo hoo hoo!

I was out and about until just now and returned home to find out we have verdicts in the Bell corruption trial.

Maybe.

Former council member Luis Artiga: acquitted on all twelve of the charges against him.

Former council member George Cole: found guilty of two counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on two counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on four other counts.

Former council member Victor Bello: found guilty of four counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on four counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on eight other counts.

Former mayor Oscar Hernandez: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

Former council member Teresa Jacobo: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

Former council member George Mirabal: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

The LAT has a handy cheat sheet covering who was convicted of what, in addition to their news coverage.

But.

…In a note, Juror No. 7 told Judge Kathleen Kennedy that he had misgivings about the deliberations.
The cryptic note said that the juror “questioned myself on information that had me on a [doubt] of thing [sic] that were not presented properly.”

A second juror sent a note saying “she believes the jury is ‘getting away from your instructions’ and possibly misunderstanding a law on ‘several levels.'”.

The judge, at this point, seems to be disinclined to “reopen verdicts that have been reached”, but the jury is supposed to report back to the courtroom tomorrow at 9 AM. We’ll see what happens; the judge may question the jurors about the returned verdicts, the judge may ask them to deliberate more on the undecided verdicts, some combination of the two, or possibly something I haven’t even thought of yet. We shall see.

By the way, the council members apparently have a good shot at getting probation and community service, if the verdicts stand.

But it still a good day. And this comic strip seems appropriate.

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

Upholding the doctrine.

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

Oddly enough, FARK made note of this yesterday, but I wanted to link it here: it is one of the few things that’s actually made me happy recently.

Yesterday, on a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court upheld the doctrine of “first sale”. Specifically, the Court stated that, if you legally purchase copyrighted material in another country, you have the right to rent out or resell it in the United States.

In the case before the Court, Supap Kirtsaeng, a student at Cornell and USC, got his family to purchase textbooks in his home country of Thailand, where they were cheaper. His family shipped the textbooks to him in the United States, where he re-sold them for a profit. The publisher John Wiley & Sons sued Mr. Kirtsaeng, alleging this violated copyright law. Wiley and Sons won a $600,000 award in lower courts, but the Supreme Court decision tosses out the lower court verdicts.

Two points I’d like to make:

  1. Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion, and was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagen. Ginsburg and Kennedy wrote a dissenting opinion. Scalia partially joined the dissenting opinion, but also took exception to parts of it. I have not found the actual opinions online yet; when I do, I will link to them.
  2. It might be worth keeping in mind that John Wiley and Sons was in favor of restricting your right to lend or resell things you’d purchased. I’d suggest that you consider the role of John Wiley and Sons in this case very carefully before purchasing any publications from John Wiley and Sons.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

“Likable scamps”

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

That’s how the prosecution described two NYPD detectives, Stephen Chmil and Louis Scarcella, at the trial of “a drug-addicted, unemployed printer” named David Ranta:

At trial, prosecutors acknowledged the detectives had misbehaved but depicted them as likable scamps.

Mr. Ranta was charged with shooting Chaskel Werzberger, a Hasidic rabbi, during a robbery that went bad. Mr. Ranta was convicted in 1991 and has spent the years since in prison.

Mr. Ranta could walk free as early as Thursday. In the decades since a jury convicted him of murder, nearly every piece of evidence in this case has fallen away. A key witness told The New York Times that a detective instructed him to select Mr. Ranta in the lineup. A convicted rapist told the district attorney that he falsely implicated Mr. Ranta in hopes of cutting a deal for himself. A woman has signed an affidavit saying she too lied about Mr. Ranta’s involvement.
Detective Scarcella and his partner, Stephen Chmil, according to investigators and legal documents, broke rule after rule. They kept few written records, coached a witness and took Mr. Ranta’s confession under what a judge described as highly dubious circumstances. They allowed two dangerous criminals, an investigator said, to leave jail, smoke crack cocaine and visit with prostitutes in exchange for incriminating Mr. Ranta.

Yeah. “Likable scamps” fabricated evidence and put an innocent man away for 22 years.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law, Louis Scarcella | 3 Comments »

Bad lawyer! No parole!

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

Back in November of 2011, I wrote about Paul Bergrin, “The Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey“. At that time, a mistrial had been declared in Mr. Bergrin’s trial on various charges, including drug trafficking and murder.

Mr. Bergrin was retried, and yesterday…

…a jury in Federal District Court convicted Mr. Bergrin of all 23 of the counts against him, including murder, after less than two full days’ deliberation. A previous trial ended in a hung jury.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 17, 2013.

Sunday, March 17th, 2013

Well, this is odd. I completely missed the story until I went over to ESPN’s web site. (I was trying to find out when the NCAA brackets will be announced. Again, not that I care about men’s basketball, but Gonzaga!)

Ruth Ann Steinhagen passed away on December 29th, but her death did not become public knowledge until last week.

“Who?”

On the night of June 14, 1949, Ms. Steinhagen lured Eddie Waittkus, first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, to her room in the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Mr. Waitkus had played for the Chicago Cubs, but was traded after the 1948 season. Ms. Steinhagen had an obsession with him.

After he sat down, Steinhagen walked to a closet, said, “I have a surprise for you,” then turned with the rifle she had hidden there and shot him in the chest. Theodore wrote that she then knelt by his side and held his hand on her lap. She told a psychiatrist afterward about how she had dreamed of killing him and found it strange that she was now “holding him in my arms.”

Mr. Waitkus survived. Ms. Steinhagen was found to be insane and spent three years in a mental hospital. And if this story sounds very familiar, yes, this was the basis for Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, which was in turn made into the movie starring Robert Redford.

The “Theodore” in the quote above is John Theodore, who wrote what sounds like an interesting non-fiction book about the incident, Baseball’s Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus.

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

Some people have all the luck.

Friday, March 15th, 2013

For example, former Harris County DA Pat Lykos, who escaped grand jury indictment once again.

The Harris County grand jury’s decision to end its term without action ends a yearlong probe. It was initiated when the Texas Rangers asked for a special prosecutor to look into allegations that members of the Lykos administration had investigated members of another grand jury who spent six months looking into evidence collected by the Houston Police Department’s troubled breath alcohol testing vehicles.

More background is available by clicking the “HCDA” category. Also, Murray Newman has a few words to say.

Posted in Clippings, HCDA, Law | Comments Closed

…saves you from trial!

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

A while back, I wrote about the case of Robert Carroll Gillham, who set fire to a Gallery Furniture store, doing $20 million in damage, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor while awaiting trial.

The HouChron has an update on the case. Good news: Mr. Gillham’s brain tumor was removed.

Good or bad news, depending on how you look at it: Mr. Gillham probably will never stand trial on the charges.

“An expert has found him incompetent and unlikely to regain competence and neither side is disputing that,” said Brett Podolsky, his attorney. “Both sides are working on an agreed order for a lengthy civil commitment.”

Summarizing, the damage that the tumor did before it was removed, the side effects of the removal, and Mr. Gillham’s age have left him in a state where both sides agree he’s not competent to stand trial.

Noted:

Gallery Furniture and [Jim] McIngvale, its colorful pitchman, are well-known Houston icons. He said Wednesday he was disappointed by the development, but had no quarrel with the criminal justice system.
“We wanted to get this behind us, and get some closure on this,” McIngvale said. “But the court system is the court system and if they say he’s incompetent, we certainly respect whatever the court system rules.”

That’s actually a pretty classy statement for a man who had $20 million worth of stuff burned up.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Neuroscience | Comments Closed

Banana republicans on trial: March 14, 2013.

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

The jury is still out in the Bell trial.

The LAT‘s “LA Now” blog ran an article yesterday speculating on the possibility of deadlock.

Over the last 2-1/2 weeks, they have struggled to reach a verdict that would answer the basic question: Could those salaries — which approached $100,000 — be excessive and still be legal?

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

The general rule of thumb when it comes to deliberations tends to be one day for every week of testimony, said veteran defense attorney Paul Wallin. Anything longer, he said, is a strong sign of a hung jury or at least a deadlock on some counts.

Yesterday was day 13 of deliberations, according to the LAT. (It looks like they’re not counting the week of deliberations which ended with one juror being replaced and the judge ordering a restart.)

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

And as long as we’re on the subject of California…

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

I have often heard the accusation that the Better Business Bureau is more interested in money than protecting customers. That is, if you’re a business that pays enough money to the BBB, you’re guaranteed a high rating, and customer complaints against you might just magically disappear.

I’ve never been able to prove that to my satisfaction. But in at least one case, I don’t have to.

The BBB of the Southland was expelled Tuesday from the national organization, losing the right to use the BBB name and logo.

The BBB of the Southland is the branch that covers LA and the surrounding area. Why did they get kicked out? Some folks may remember this:

In 2010, a group of Los Angeles business owners that had been critical of the BBB conducted a sting operation by paying dues for fake companies, including one named after the Palestinian organization, Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist group.
The fake businesses were all accredited and given ratings, according to the ABC News report. Hamas received an A-minus rating.

Ken over at Popehat covered this in more detail at the time. I haven’t seen an update from him, but I don’t blame Ken, as he’s been tied up with the whole Prenda Law saga. (If you haven’t been following Prenda Law, I recommend checking Popehat; the entire saga is way to complex for me to summarize here, and Ken’s done a pretty good job of doing so over there.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Banana republicans on trial: March 12, 2012.

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

I’ve been thinking about posting an update for a couple of days now, but have held off. Why? The update boils down to: the jury is still deliberating.

Today’s events: one of the jurors is sick, so they’re taking the day off. More updates will follow as things happen. At this point, I’d bet on a mistrial.

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

If I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat.

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Back in the old days, before he was driven from office by prosecutoral misconduct and later killed in a plane crash, Ted Stevens managed to get a prototype “amphibious assault vessel for the Navy” diverted to Alaska. The plan was to use it as a commuter ferry between downtown Anchorage and suburbs to the north of Anchorage. (Wait. Anchorage has suburbs?)

A $4.5-million passenger terminal was constructed for the state-of-the-art, ice-capable catamaran, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough proceeded with big plans to expand its port, link it to an interior railway and foster communities in the remote farm fields that surround the proposed ferry landing — defying critics across the country who held up the “ferry to nowhere” as an example of wasteful federal pork-barrel spending.

None of this ever happened.

The end of Stevens’ reign in 2008 meant no more federal handouts, leaving little money to build landings, insufficient cash to subsidize operations and no means of convincing Anchorage to build a dock on the other side.

Now the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is offering the boat for free to any “government entity” that wants it. Guess who is in “very preliminary discussions”?

“We think a ship like that could provide us with a versatile public safety asset for emergency response, mainly to Catalina Island, where the ability to move people and equipment and firefighting apparatus is currently a challenge,” said Ryan Alsop, Los Angeles County assistant chief executive officer.

I wonder; if it didn’t work for suburban Anchorage (which apparently needs a $750 million bridge), is it going to work out for Catalina Island?

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

Gales of derisive laughter, Bruce.

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Beyond.com has been sending me emails with “recent opportunities and information”. Here’s a screen shot of one I got yesterday:

scooter

(Click to enbiggen.)

What’s so funny about this? Note the subject line, and the bottom listing. (I cut off the rest, as it wasn’t relevant.)

Note that the Scooter Store was raided by Federal agents on February 20th.

Late Friday afternoon, The Scooter Store’s chief executive notified employees that — effective immediately, but “with certain exceptions” — they’d been placed on unpaid furlough.
In an email, CEO Martin “Marty” Landon told employees not to return to work unless they receive notice from the company’s human resources department.

I wonder if they’re still looking for a sysadmin. (Not that I would apply; I’m not all that interested in working for a company that’s been raided by the Feds. Even if I was, San Antonio/New Braunfels is too far for me to commute.)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Schadenfreude | Comments Closed

Crime of the century!

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Somebody, or a group of somebodies, stole eight – that’s right, eight – school buses from a Chicago area bus yard last night.

The people who stole the buses drove them to a scrapyard, where they were shredded.

“There was a pile of shredded school buses about two-stories high,” one police official said. Some pieces were large enough that police could see the “Sunrise bus logo,” the official said.
Engines and transmissions from the buses had already been cut in half, and the seats tossed in a “big pile of scrap.”

(The linked article includes some photos of the pile of scrap.)

Apparently, the buses were stolen sometime between 7 PM last night (when the yard was closed) and 5 AM this morning (when the theft was discovered). So are scrap yards typically open after 7 PM on a weeknight? And wouldn’t you figure that someone would ask questions when eight school buses were driven in for scrap? Or was there more going on?

When officers arrived, several people who apparently worked in the scrap yard ran into a building, police said. Officers initially apprehended one person and later took two others into custody. The owner was arrested in the afternoon.

(This could also double as important safety tip #18 17:

The buses were all equipped with GPS tracking devices, and police were able to track “their entire movement” to the scrap yard on the West Side, police said.

Don’t steal stuff with GPS tracking devices, or stuff that you might think has GPS tracking devices. Among the things that you might think have GPS tracking devices, if you’re a criminal mastermind:

  • Airplanes.
  • Expensive cars.
  • Government vehicles, including police cars.
  • School buses that carry children.

That’s just a partial list. I’m sure others can think of more examples, but those should suffice for the crackheads in my audience.)

Posted in Clippings, GPS, Law, Safety | Comments Closed

Important safety tips (#15 and #16 in a series)

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Three in one day? I know. But there’s a story in the NYT that offers some instructive lessons.

Chris Huhne was a British political figure. The NYT describes him as “a fast-rising politician with fashionably left-of-center views on social issues and a background in high finance that had yielded a multimillion-dollar fortune“.

He also had a lead foot. He was caught speeding by a roadside camera back in 2003, and he had three previous convictions prior to that. If he had been convicted on the 2003 charge, he would have been banned from driving and fined.

So he got his wife to say she was driving instead.

Safety tip #15: the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

Had he pleaded guilty at the time, he would have faced a $100 fine and been barred from driving for six months to a year; by lying in the case, he ultimately lost his cabinet post, the first politician in British history to be forced from office by a criminal prosecution, as well as his parliamentary seat, and, British pundits say, any prospect of a future political career.

Huhne pled guilty to a charge of “perverting the course of justice”. He hasn’t been sentenced yet, but the judge in his case has indicated Huhne will probably serve time.

Vicky Pryce, Mr. Huhne’s wife at the time, was convicted of the same charge, and will probably serve time as well.

How did things fall apart?

Ms. Pryce stuck with the deceit over the speeding ticket for more than seven years until Mr. Huhne, faced with the imminent exposure of an extramarital affair with one of his political aides by a London tabloid, abruptly walked out of the 25-year marriage.
The court heard that Ms. Pryce learned the news from her husband when he confronted her during a halftime break in a Saturday-afternoon telecast of a World Cup soccer match in 2010, announcing that he needed an immediate separation to save his cabinet post.

Tip #16: if you’re going to ask your wife to cover-up your crime, treat her well. Don’t plan on divorcing her, unless you’re sure the statute of limitations has run out. And I’d check with a lawyer first, just to make sure you haven’t overlooked some crime that you could possibly be charged with.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Safety | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »