Former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager has been sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to Federal civil rights charges in the April 2015 killing of Walter Scott, reports ABC News and other sources.
The sentence was based upon Slager’s pleading guilty to a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242, Deprivation of...
Attorney Alan Gura has scored another huge win for civil rights in today’s Wrenn v. DC decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal District of Columbia Circuit (you know, the one Harry Reid blew up the fillibuster for in order to load it up with Progressive...
Two years ago tomorrow University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing, who is white, shot and killed black motorist Sam DuBose during a traffic stop.
The stop, DuBose’ attempt to drive away while dragging Officer Tensing down the road, and the fatal shot were largely captured on Tensing’s body-cam. Today, after trying...
“Stand-Your-Ground” was back in the headlines against over the just-concluded Independence Day weekend, thanks to a 14-page decision by Miami-Dade Circuit judge Milton Hirsch that recent legislative changes to Florida’s self-defense immunity law were unconstitutional, reports the Bradenton Herald newspaper and other sources. (That decision is embedded below.)
Specifically, the recently signed law...
Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into a law a modification to the state’s self-defense immunity statute, according to Reuters and other news sources.
The self-defense immunity, generally mis-identified by media as a “stand your ground” law, provides for criminal and civil immunity for a use of force that is determined to...
Yesterday, Tulsa OK Police Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, was acquitted of first-degree manslaughter charges arising from the September 16, 2016 shooting death of Terence Crutcher, who was black, according to reports by CNN and local Tulsa television news station KTUL.
Before issuing a verdict Wednesday night, the nine white jurors and...
Yesterday morning, Bob Owens—a husband, a father, my friend, and a tireless defender of our Second Amendment rights—took his life. We are all diminished as a result.
I don’t suppose we can ever really know what drives a person to make such a decision. Their pain must be unimaginable. Whatever the cause,...
Former police officer Michael Slager has accepted a Federal plea bargain deal in which he concedes to having violated the civil rights of Walter Scott when he fatally shot Scott five times as the apparently unarmed Scott fled from him. The shooting occurred in April 2015 in Charleston SC. Slager is...
Some of you may be aware that the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) has licensed my book, “The Law of Self Defense, 3rd Edition.” They’ve added their own cover, and a foreword by their CEO, Tim Schmidt, but otherwise it’s the same book. I’m also a member of USCCA’s Legal...
Back in September 2016 Terence Crutcher — a quite large black man — was shot and killed by white police officer Betty Shelby in Tulsa OK.
I covered the case evidence in a prior post, Legal Game Changer: Terence Crutcher had “High Levels” of PCP when shot by OK police. Included in that post...
Curtis Reeves has been denied legal immunity from prosecution and civil suit over his fatal shooting of Chad Oulson, in an order issued today by Judge Susan Barthle (that order is embedded at the bottom of this post).
Reading Judge Barthle’s order, however, suggests that her legal analysis may be sufficiently defective...
It was three years ago last month that retired police officer Curtis Reeves, then 71 years old, shot and killed 43-year-old Chad Oulsen in a Florida movie theater. The case became known as the “popcorn shooting” because the shooting allegedly happened over spilled popcorn.
Reeves has been charged with second degree murder and aggravated battery....
So, this happened: the 4th Circuit released an en banc decision involving a traffic stop in which a concealed carrier passenger was frisked by police, and much of the gun owning community lost its mind in a manner reminiscent of Rachel Maddow.
The gist of much of the media coverage–particularly the coverage from the...
I’ve spent the last week at the gun industry SHOT Show convention in Las Vegas, and I’m pretty sure I need a hip replacement after walking mile after mile of exhibits of guns, guns, more guns, related gun stuff, and guns.
Perhaps the biggest gun-related news event of the week, however, wasn’t...
It couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
A Federal judge has ruled that Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby may be civilly sued for malicious prosecution by the police officers she targeted following the in-custody death of Freddie Gray, reports the Baltimore Sun.
Gray’s demise was followed by days...
For those of us in the gun rights and concealed carry community (and old enough to have been around) the 1990s was a pivotal decade.
When it began, there were only 15 states that would issue concealed carry permits to private citizens based on objective criteria and just one that required no...
No charges are to be filed against the police officer who shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott last September in Charlotte NC, announced Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray today, reports CNN and other news outlets.
Both Scott and the officer who shot him, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officer Brentley Vinson, are black.
As has...
