What crime?

07-14-2009 • Mark Yannone

Have you been accused of a crime in the United States?  Are you a grand juror?  Have you been selected to serve as a petit juror?  Then you need to know this.

Demjanjuk faces 27,900 accessory to murder counts

07-13-2009 • AP

Nazi-era documents include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at Sobibor saying he was trained at an SS facility. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine [as they did when they misidentified him as Ivan the Terrible.]

Dave Ridley released from jail

07-12-2009 • Blog of Bile video

Jailed for 6 days. Due to judge Edward Burke’s increased restrictions on filming the proceedings of activists in Keene District Court after Burke’s outburst and subsequent publicizing during Ian Bernard’s trial over a couch left on his yard Dave Ridley decided to record the arraignment of Andrew Carroll for marijuana possession regardless of court permission.

NY al-Qaida suspect wants to 'make peace' with USA

07-06-2009 • AFP

A US-educated Pakistani scientist accused of shooting at FBI agents and helping al-Qaida turned a hearing to decide if she's competent for trial into a pulpit for telling anyone who would listen that she doesn't hate America but doesn't trust its courts.

Judge tentatively acquits convicted woman in MySpace case

07-02-2009 • LA Times

A federal judge tentatively threw out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. If she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site's terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor. That would be unconstitutional, he said.

California accuses 22 Midas shops in 'massive' bait and switch scheme

07-01-2009 • www.walletpop.com

California filed a $222 million lawsuit against the owner of 22 Midas Muffler shops after uncover agents discovered a "massive" scheme in which consumers were charged for unneeded repairs, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced.

"These Midas shops were running a massive bait-and-switch scam, in which customers were lured in with the promise of cheap brake specials and then charged hundreds more for unnecessary repairs," Brown said in a statement. "This investigation revealed a shady and deceptive operation that violated the trust of its customers."
During the four-year investigation, agents found shops owned by Maurice Irving Glad regularly advertised sub-$100 brake specials to lure customers into paying for hundreds of dollars of work that was not needed or, sometimes, not even done.

The lawsuit, filed was filed by Brown along with Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff and Fresno County Dis

Harold Fish Self-Defense Conviction and Sentence Reversed by Az. Supreme Court

06-30-2009 • Phoenix New Times

 Citing that expert witnesses and other matters presented to the jury were done so in error, case is sent back for potential re-trial.   Or, Terry Goddard could let Fish go.   Anyone laying bets?

Bernard Madoff gets maximum 150 years in prison

06-29-2009 • Boston Herald

U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to the maximum 150 years in prison today for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, calling the crime: “extraordinarily evil.”

“Symbolism is important,” Chin told Madoff at a New York sentencing hearing.

Earlier, Madoff spoke for the first time about the scam, telling Chin: “I will live with the pain and torment (of hurting people) for the rest of my life.”

“I cannot offer an excuse for my behavior,” Madoff said. “How to do excuse deceiving investors? How do you excuse lying to your sons? How do you excuse lying to your two brothers? How do you excuse lying to a wife who stood by me for 50 years.

“There is no excuse for that,” Madoff told the court. “I made a terrible mistake. . . . I’ve left a legacy of shame for my children and grandchildren. I will live with the pain and torment the rest of my life.”

Then, the scammer turned to victims in the courtroom and

Court rules for white firefighters over promotions

06-29-2009 • Washington Post

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Ali

A Tale of Two Killings

06-28-2009 • Skip Oliva

Let's consider two cases. In the first case, a driver with an elevated blood-alcohol level accidentally strikes and kills a pedestrian who was jaywalking. The driver enters a guilty plea for manslaughter and receives a sentence of 30 days in jail, two years house arrest, 1,000 hours of community service, eight years probation, and permanent revocation of his driver's license. The driver also reaches a financial settlement with the victim's family.

Faulty Science?

06-28-2009 • The Crime Report

Mistaken diagnoses of Shaken Baby Syndrome may have sent thousands of innocent people to prison, according to a new study.

A Happy Ending?...Only if the DA is drop-kicked into Hell

06-28-2009 • Wendy McElroy

Collectively, the court systems in North America are institutionalized travesties that mete out politics rather than justice; many cases are more about career-enhancement for police, prosecutors and judges than they are about weighing evidence. Indeed, IMO, the court system constitutes the largest barrier to true justice in our society.

What do they have over John Conyers?

06-26-2009 • Detroit Free Press

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers pleaded guilty to bribery punishable for up to 5 years in prison, and is free on personal bond.  Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman U.S. Rep. John Conyers

Justices Rule Lab Analysts Must Testify on Results

06-25-2009 • NY Times

Crime laboratory reports may not be used against criminal defendants at trial unless the analysts responsible for creating them give testimony and subject themselves to cross-examination, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision.

Government Wants to Dismiss Geronimo Family Lawsuit

06-25-2009 • AP

Obama's Justice Department asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by descendants of Apache leader Geronimo, whose remains were purported to be stolen long ago by members of a secret society at Yale University.

Hate blogger Hal Turner arrested for alleged threats to judges

06-25-2009 • The Jersey Journal

In the news again, Hate blogger "Hal" Turner was arrested at his home today in North Bergen on federal charges filed in Chicago alleging he threatened to assault and murder 3 federal judges there because of their ruling upholding a handgun ban, officials said.

"We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period," said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois of the comments posted by Turner on his blog earlier this month regarding Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ridley Report’s Dave Ridley found guilty of contempt of court, jailed

06-24-2009 • Blog of Bile

Dave Ridley, the man behind the Ridley Report, has been found guilty of contempt of court regarding his right to record act of civil disobedience. This is the same case which on April 13th, 2009 at his arraignment Sam Dodson along with 6 other activists were arrested on similar charges.

Parolees face challenges paying child support

06-22-2009 • St. Joe News

Re-entry officials say ex-convicts like Mr. McGaughy emerge from prison facing menial employment, lowered earning power and a policy that may whisk them back to prison for debts built while behind bars. That contrasts with a tough prosecutor in St. Joseph who is unapologetic about recovering child support.

Panel Sets Guidelines For Fighting Prison Rape

06-22-2009 • Washington Post

Nearly six years after President George W. Bush signed legislation to reduce prison rape, a blue-ribbon commission is calling on corrections officers to identify vulnerable inmates, offer better medical care and allow stricter monitoring of their facilities.

"Justices" Rule Inmates Don’t Have Right to DNA Tests

06-18-2009 • NY Times

Convicts do not have a right under the Constitution to obtain DNA testing to try to prove their innocence after being found guilty, the Supreme Court ruled. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court found against William G. Osborne, a convicted rapist from Alaska.

Mich. court gives judges power over witnesses' dress

06-17-2009 • AP

Justices heard last month from a Muslim woman who sued [a judge] because her small claims case was dismissed when she refused to remove her veil.

Hamtramck District Judge Paul Paruk told Ginnnah Muhammad he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness. The 45-year-old from Detroit kept her niqab on during the 2006 hearing.

Police K9 Handler Fabricated False Dog Alerts To Get Convictions

06-15-2009 • The Agitator

Police and prosecutors were apparently convicting people of violent crimes based almost exclusively on the “testimony” of a police dog whose handler claimed has extraordinary powers.   Judges and juries apparently bought this crap for years. It finally came to an end when Judge Gilbert Goshorn ordered the dog to perform a basic tracking test after Preston claimed the dog had alerted to a suspect’s scent at a crime scene six months after the murder. The dog failed.