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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 14, 2014 96 Comments
What a nightmare Ferguson has become. Five days after the fatal shooting of unarmed teen, Michael Brown, and there's still no consensus as to what actually happened. If you're just jumping into this story, check out previous posts here and here.

Dorin Johnson's Attorney

Yesterday I mentioned that the St. Louis Police who are handling the Ferguson cluster, have not yet interviewed Dorin Johnson, who claims he was with Michael Brown when Brown was gunned down by law enforcement Saturday. Johnson appeared on MSNBC in an interview with Chris Hayes, accompanied by his lawyer, Freeman Bosley, Jr. Bosley is an interesting character himself. The former St. Louis mayer seems to have a checkered past, with "ethics violations" being a reoccurring theme. Last year, Bosley sent fundraising letters soliciting donations to cover his daughter's college tuition. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, "Bosley said his daughter worked hard to finish in the top two percent of her graduating class at St. Elizabeth Academy. He said she deserves to go to a private school." When the odd fundraising request was brought to light, Bosley vowed to return any donations received. Earlier this year, the board governing Missouri lawyers moved to suspend Bosley's law license for two years. The list is a pretty great read. Misuse of client funds and malpractice make appearances more than once.

St. Louis Police Department Hacked by Anonymous 

Originally, the St. Louis Police Department planned to release the name of the law enforcement officer who shot and killed Brown. As violence escalated, SLPD opted not to release the identity of the officer in order to protect him. So Anonymous, the infamous hacking conglom got involved and called for a "Day of Rage," because that's helpful. According to CNN, Anonymous has the name of the officer, but CNN refused to announce the officer's name on air.

Should The Public be Privy to the Officer's Name?

Kevin Williamson at National Review has an interesting take on this question:

LATEST NEWS

Posted by David Gerstman on August 14, 2014 3 Comments
Yesterday the Washington Institute for Near East published Six Ways Hamas Hamas Could Limit Civilian Casualties in Gaza by Jeffrey White. All of White's suggestions involve separating the combatants from civilians, but as White acknowledges, "... there is little chance the group will implement any of these measures." And why would Hamas change? Human shields have been an effective strategy protecting its fighters. White concludes:
As long as the world sees Israel as the primary mechanism of civilian casualties, and as long as many Gaza civilians continue to be more concerned with "resistance" than their lives, Hamas has no reason to change its way of war.
Though White doesn't write it explicitly, the media has a responsibility to tell the whole story and not just the one that Hamas tells or allows them to. Oren Kessler says this explicitly in Reporters Have Finally Found Hamas. What Took So Long? that was published in The New Republic.
Let me be clear: I admire the bravery required of war correspondents, and I recognize the onerous conditions under which they work. I see no conspiracy behind the inability of many of them to adequately cover Hamas. Instead, I see a collective failure by much of the world’s press to give an accurate rendering of one party to the Gaza fighting, and to lay bare—whether explicitly or more subtly—the restrictions it enforces upon them in so doing.
Take for example, As war with Israel shatters lives, more Gazans question Hamas decisions that appeared in The Washington Post. While there is important information in the report - that Hamas has been alienating the civilian population of Gaza - the report always reminds readers that Gazans resent Israel more. For example:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 14, 2014 27 Comments
There are more apparent rifts between Israel and the U.S. administration, this time over an interruption of Hellfire missiles at the request of the White House and State Department. Normal channels apparently were followed, but the administration reportedly has its nose out of joint because the U.S. has been sidelined as Israel and Egypt work together, and Israeli press leaks painted the Obama administration as hopelessly naive and incompetent. The alleged confrontation has become a hot political issue in Israel, where tension with the U.S. always works against a politician. The Wall Street Journal reports:
White House and State Department officials who were leading U.S. efforts to rein in Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip were caught off guard last month when they learned that the Israeli military had been quietly securing supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon without their approval. Since then the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. But Israeli and U.S. officials say that the adroit bureaucratic maneuvering made it plain how little influence the White House and State Department have with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu —and that both sides know it.... Then the officials learned that, in addition to asking for tank shells and other munitions, Israel had submitted a request through military-to-military channels for a large number of Hellfire missiles, according to Israeli and American officials.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 14, 2014 18 Comments
Opponents of Wisconsin's voter ID laws won a small victory yesterday when U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman denied the state of Wisconsin's request for a stay of his decision forbidding the enforcement of voter ID laws. Judge Adelman rejected the petition because he felt that the state was unlikely to overturn on appeal his original ruling blocking the requirements from going into effect. Wisconsin's voter ID laws are currently under fire in both state and federal courts. Last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the laws as constitutional, but this did not convince the District Court to set aside its original ruling. Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, however, is optimistic about his chances on appeal. He has already filed a petition with the U.S. Seventh Circuit asking the Court to allow Wisconsin's voter ID provisions to go into effect for the November 2014 elections.

Posted by A.F. Branco on August 14, 2014 3 Comments

Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source.  To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 13, 2014 19 Comments
We have been covering extensively the issue of denial of due process to male students on campus accused of sex-related infractions and/or crimes. One of the cases we reported on regarded campus "conviction" of a male athlete at Columbia, where the female accuser took several months to complaint, and there were contemporaneous electronic communications reflecting that the conduct may have been consensual. See, Suspended Columbia athlete files federal lawsuit over campus sexual assault conviction. The same attorneys alerted me to a new lawsuit filed on behalf of a student at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. The Complaint reads like so many of the others -- allegations of consensual sex for which there were later regrets coupled with a university witch hunt to convict the male student almost in disregard of the evidence and without proper procedural protections. The Boston Globe summarizes the Complaint:
The recent lawsuit against UMass Amherst contends that the male student, a Connecticut native and a sophomore at the time, met the female student, identified in the suit as Jane Doe, at a party in a friend’s dorm room. During a night of drinking, playing card games, and dancing with friends, the two students became friendly and flirted, and she later invited him to her room to have sex, the lawsuit said. They had consensual sex, and the female student at no point showed signs of intoxication, according to the suit. The next day, the female student could not remember what had happened, according to the lawsuit. At her roommate’s urging, the female student went to the campus health center for an evaluation. The following day, she filed a complaint with the dean of students’ office.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 13, 2014 155 Comments
The situation in Ferguson, Missouri has gone from bad to worse following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen Saturday afternoon. Protests and riots persist, cops dressed in full riot gear are working to curb the violence, community leaders are encouraging peaceful protests, and there's still no clear picture of what actually transpired Saturday when Michael Brown was shot and killed. There appear to be conflicting reports from law enforcement and supposed eye witnesses regarding what actually happened. Law enforcement claim Brown assaulted the cop that took his life. Dorin Johnson who claims he was with Brown at the time he was shot has a very different story. Johnson says he and Brown were minding their own business when a cop rolled up, told them to get on the sidewalk, then proceeded to assault Brown and eventually kill him. Johnson's story seems to corroborate with another supposed eye witness, Piaget Crenshaw. Even more curious is that Johnson claims he, by way of his attorney, has reached out to local law enforcement to provide his account of the story, and Ferguson police are refusing to interview him. Chris Hayes interviewed Johnson and has a great summation of the various accounts:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 13, 2014 4 Comments
The current 72-hour Gaza truce expires at 5 p.m. Eastern today. There are completely mixed signals being reported as to whether there is progress on a longer-term ceasefire, and if not, whether Hamas will attack again when the current truce expires. We will update as events clarify, and you can follow at the live video and Twitter feeds at the bottom of the post.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 13, 2014 27 Comments
What happens in Courtroom 478, located within the bowels of City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the stuff of dystopian nightmares. Using a legal device called "civil forfeiture," government prosecutors confiscate property under the guise of "cracking down on crime." In a nutshell, civil forfeiture is a legal device that prosecutors use to confiscate property associated (however tenuously) with a crime under the fiction that the property itself is guilty of a crime. Even if the property owners themselves are never accused or convicted of a crime, or have no knowledge of a crime, they're required to attend a series of hearings to prove their innocence. If the property owners lose, the government gets to keep the property---and the profits. From the Institute for Justice's "End Forfeiture" site:
Philadelphia’s automated, machine-like forfeiture scheme is unprecedented in size. From 2002 to 2012, Philadelphia took in over $64 million in forfeiture funds—or almost $6 million per year. In 2011 alone, the city’s prosecutors filed 6,560 forfeiture petitions to take cash, cars, homes and other property. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office used over $25 million of that $64 million to pay salaries, including the salaries of the very prosecutors who brought the forfeiture actions. This is almost twice as much as what all other Pennsylvania counties spent on salaries combined.
This is why the Institute for Justice is helping families in Philadelphia file a class action lawsuit against the city on behalf of all Philadelphians whose property is currently threatened by civil forfeiture. IJ is challenging several aspects of Philadelphia's civil forfeiture law, including:
  • "Seize and seal" without notice,
  • The requirement that citizens to give up the right to challenge the forfeiture if they want to "unseal" their home,
  • Lack of prompt post-seizure hearings,
  • Policy allowing prosecutors and police to use all of the cash and property seized to pad their budgets, and
  • Lack of judicial oversight
IJ put together a great video explaining the ins and outs of fighting a civil forfeiture claim, and I highly recommend watching it:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 12, 2014 8 Comments
Lois Lowry's well-loved classic, The Giver, hits the silver screen Friday, August 15. Well produced, beautifully filmed, and featuring big name celebrities like Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Taylor Swift, and Katie Holmes, the cinematic adaptation of The Giver has created a buzz in the conservative community, but does it live up to the hype? I cringed when I heard the conservative community touting The Giver as a great film. I read the book in grade school, loved it, and naturally assumed the desperation for an ideologically friendly film would've produced the epic suckage we've come to see in releases like Atlas Shrugged. I figured rather than making a movie that subtly blended favorable ideological tones with great story telling, we were getting yet another awful conservative film; one so hell bent on brow beating conservatism, it sucked the joy right off the screen. I was very wrong. Set in a community genetically and physically designed to achieve absolute equality, the film opens with three teenagers preparing for their assignment day. "From great suffering came a solution, communities," Meryl Streep's character explains. Everyone in the community is assigned family units, clothes, jobs, and pretty much everything else that could possibly be assigned. Designed to be devoid of almost all emotion, the entire community merely exists. There is no love, no human connection, no pain, no living. Sameness was meant to protect humanity from pain, jealousy, envy, greed, the unexpected, and everything that ails the human condition. As events unfold, it's evident that despite their best intentions, the desire for sameness comes with calamitous consequences.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 12, 2014 25 Comments
We mentioned earlier today, in our post about the federal court suit by Brett Kimberlin, that some bloggers also were subject to suit in a state court case as to which the trial was ongoing. Dave Weigel from Slate.com was at the trial, and just tweeted: Robert Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar react:

Posted by New Neo on August 12, 2014 20 Comments

Suicides, whether famous or not, leave behind a legacy of pain for their families and friends....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 12, 2014 8 Comments
Some of you may be aware that Brett Kimberlin has sued numerous conservative bloggers and media figures (Michelle Malkin, Twitchy, Glenn Beck, Redstate, etc.) alleging, to the extent it can be discerned, a wide range of purported violations, including, incredibly, violation of the Ku Klux Clan Act and the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, as well as a variety of other conspiracy and defamation related claims It all relates to criticism of Kimberlin and exposure of his criminal record and other legal problems he has had over the decades, and reporting on the issue of "swatting" (falsely calling in a report of someone with a gun at a location to get the police Swat Team to arrive, guns drawn.) Two of the defendants are Patrick Frey (of Patterico) and Mandy Nagy -- yes our Mandy Nagy -- unrelated to her work for Legal Insurrection. The case is filed in federal Court in Maryland, and has had a bizarrely active and unproductive docket, with over 180 entries to date, many of which were precipitated by Kimberlin's serial filing and requests for permission to file, amended complaints. Kimberlin now is on his 2nd, and according to the Court, final, Amended Complaint. Many defendants have moved to dismiss, and now so too have Patrick and Mandy, jointly represented by Ron Coleman (who also represents Legal Insurrection when needed, which fortunately is rarely). Ron is a great friend to bloggers. My take? Having read through the various complaints, including the latest, I'm wondering how in the world the case could survive. But I've learned not to bet on court cases, we can only hope that justice is done, and promptly. There's also a separate trial underway in a different state court case involving some but not all of the same defendants (Frey and Nagy are not part of that). Dave Weigel is attending the trial and reporting. Stacy McCain, a defendant in the state and federal cases, is reporting on his own trial as well. I've split the Motion to Dismiss in the federal case into the Memo of Law and the Affidavit and Exhibits. Here they are:
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