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Criminal Law Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 15, 2017 27 Comments
The governments in Florida, Washington, and Alabama have begun to consider passing legislation that will allow it to overrule "certain state court decisions." However, some have concerns over this due to separation of powers. Florida GOP Rep. Julio Gonzalez filed two bills that gives the Florida government or the U.S. Congress the ability "to override or nullify court decisions." House Joint Resolution 121 will add an amendment that allows lawmakers to take that step "by a two-thirds vote of each chamber for up to five years after a decision at any level - county, circuit, appeal or supreme court." His House Memorial 125 aims at "Congress to propose a similar amendment, but to the U.S. Constitution, granting Congress the power to nullify federal court decisions." The Washington bill will also allow its legislators "to vote to 'reject the determination of the court,'" if a court rules an act unconstitutional. In Alabama, two legislators have proposed legislation that will not allow a judge to impose the death penalty if the jury recommends life imprisonment.

Posted by New Neo on January 07, 2017 37 Comments
Despite some initial hesitation by Chicago authorities to call the torture of a mentally disabled white man by four young black people a hate crime, they were charged with committing one, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's office. Additional charges were: "aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint, [and] aggravated battery...[one was also charged with] robbery and possession of a stolen motor vehicle...[and three] also were charged with residential burglary." Many of the details of what happened to the victim can be found in this post by Professor Jacobson. This would appear to have many of the elements of the type of offense known as a hate crime, obligingly documented and disseminated by the alleged perpetrators themselves.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 02, 2017 14 Comments
That strict gun control in Chicago has obviously worked. America's third largest city had 762 homicides in 2016, the most in two decades and more than New York and Los Angeles combined. It also saw 3,500 shooting incidents, which is 1,100 more than it had in 2015. From WGN:
According to the Chicago Police Department, there were 762 murders in the city in 2016 and 3,550 shooting incidents with 4,331 shooting victims. A department spokesman says more than 80% of the fatal and non-fatal shooting victims were previously identified by police as being likely to be involved in an act of gun violence, either as a victim or an offender. Most of the murders occurred on the city's South and West Sides.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 27, 2016 7 Comments
Donald Trump earned tremendous support from the law enforcement community by promising to stand up for its members. They need an advocate like Trump in the White House. Recent reports indicate that the number of police deaths has risen significantly since 2015. FOX News reported:
60 law enforcement officers fatally shot this year, 20 in ambushes, report says A total of 60 law enforcement officers have died in firearms-related incidents in 2016, marking a 67 percent increase since 2015, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 08, 2016 43 Comments
Voters in California and Nebraska will be deciding more than who goes to the White House. Ballots in both states include a question on whether or not to repeal the death penalty. The Washington Post reports:
Voters in California and Nebraska will decide whether they want to keep the death penalty When voters head to the polls in California and Nebraska on Election Day, they will get to weigh in on whether their states should abolish the death penalty. These two initiatives, along with another ballot measure in Oklahoma, represent a sort of microcosm of where things stand nationwide on the death penalty. Most states still have the practice on the books, even if a dwindling number of states actually seek to carry out executions...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 16, 2016 37 Comments
Earlier this month we reported on a beating of a female Chicago police officer by a suspect, and how the officer didn't use her service weapon because of fear of how the public would react to a shooting of a black man, Chicago’s Top Cop: Police are ‘Second-Guessing Themselves’: Chicago Superintendent Eddie Johnson said one of his officers didn’t defend herself against the man who beat her unconscious because of the backlash she and the department might receive:
“As I was at the hospital last night, visiting with her, she looked at me and said she thought she was gonna die, and she knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to because she didn’t want her family or the department to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,” Johnson said while attending a public ceremony honoring heroic officers and firefighters.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 19 Comments
The New York State Attorney General's office has been on an over 10 year long jihad against former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg over alleged accounting fraud. Though he now is age 90, Greenberg continues to fight
Standing on principle may be partly generational. Mr. Greenberg is one of a dwindling number of “the Greatest Generation,” as Tom Brokaw called World War II veterans who grew up during the Depression and fought “because it was the right thing to do.” Mr. Greenberg spent much of his childhood on a small farm in an impoverished area of the Catskills near Liberty, N.Y. His father died when he was 6, and his mother worked as a manicurist. At age 17, he dropped out of high school and lied about his age to enlist in the Army, where he learned “discipline, focus and loyalty,” Mr. Brokaw wrote in his 1998 best seller.
The ongoing trial has the bizzarre aspect that the AG's office is trying to use Greenberg's military service against him by claiming that the military precision with which he ran the company made him culpable for the acts of underlings. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 20, 2016 15 Comments
Earlier this week, we highlighted the case of a sailor in the U.S. Navy who was being prosecuted for using his phone to take pictures in a nuclear submarine. His lawyer cited Hillary Clinton as a defense. At the time, I said:
Cases like these highlight the growing feeling among many Americans that there are two sets of rules in this country and that some people are above the law if they have the right connections.
Unfortunately for the sailor, the Clinton defense didn't work. U.S. News and World Report has the story:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 16, 2016 50 Comments
A sailor in the U.S. Navy is facing prison for using his phone to take pictures inside a nuclear submarine. He claims that he just wanted to share the photos with his family and that he deserves leniency. His lawyer is citing Hillary Clinton as a defense. Politico reports:
Citing Clinton, sailor seeks leniency in submarine photos case A Navy sailor facing the possibility of years in prison for taking a handful of classified photos inside a nuclear submarine is making a bid for leniency by citing the decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over classified information authorities say was found in her private email account.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 05, 2016 6 Comments
A series of unsolved shootings in Phoenix, Arizona has led local authorities to believe they're dealing with a serial killer. Few things capture the eerie side of the American imagination like a a person who hunts and kills other humans. Countless books and films have been based on the subject. Still, it's a horrifying thing when it's actually happening. CNN reports:
Phoenix police: Suspected serial killer linked to 9 shootings, 7 deaths This time, the target was a car with a 4-year-old boy and his young father inside. The same man who has killed seven people has struck again, Phoenix police said Wednesday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 23, 2016 12 Comments
Just when you are ready to give up on California, there is a sign that some sanity still remains in Sacramento! In April, a 2-member California parole board authorized the release of former Manson Family killer Leslie Van Houten. The decision to go forward with this recommendation rested with Governor Jerry Brown, who was sent a petition signed by over 140,000 people to discourage his signature on the release when it arrived on his desk. This time, Brown made the good choice.
Gov. Jerry Brown denied parole Friday to Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted along with other members of Charles Manson's cult in the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 13, 2016 37 Comments
A cafeteria worker at Yale's Calhoun College named Corey Menafee "resigned" from his job last month after using a broom handle to smash a window. The stained glass image in the window depicted slaves working in a cotton field. Menafee, who is black said the image angered him and that "we shouldn't have to see that." The New Haven Independent reported:
An African-American dishwasher lost his job after losing his cool and breaking a stained-glass panel in Yale’s Calhoun residential college dining hall that depicted slaves carrying bales of cotton. The dishwasher, Corey Menafee, said he used a broomstick to knock the panel to the floor. He said he was tired of looking at the “racist, very degrading” image. Yale University Police arrested Menafee, who now faces a felony charge. The university, meanwhile, has cut ties with him....

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 21, 2016 10 Comments
We recently reported that some law professors of the American Law Institute wanted to expand the concept of sexual consent in a way which would make it easier to define people as criminals. The proposals were outrageous and would have put people at risk of being legally guilty of rape even if their partners consented. Proponents of the changes were largely left wing professors who undoubtedly agree with the progressive concept of rape culture. The good news is that the institute rejected the proposal. Bradford Richardson of the Washington Times:
American Law Institute rejects affirmative consent standard in defining sexual assault In a rebuke to a feminist idea that has migrated from college campuses to mainstream culture, an influential legal group overwhelmingly rejected Tuesday a provision that would have endorsed an “affirmative consent” standard for the purpose of defining sexual assault.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 18, 2016 21 Comments
The defense in the “Freddie Gray” trial of Officer Edward Nero rested today, the trial’s fifth day. Closing arguments are anticipated tomorrow, and trial Judge Barry Williams has announced that he expects to return a verdict on Monday, May 23. There hasn’t been much substantive reporting on the defense’s case the last two days, and of course there aren’t cameras in Maryland courtrooms, but the following is based on live-“tweeting” of the trial by the Baltimore Sun.

Trial Day #4

The defense primarily brought as witnesses police officers who either were somehow involved or a witness to Gray’s arrest and transport, who trained Officer Nero, or who otherwise are experts on police procedure.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 17, 2016 39 Comments
First, my apologies for not getting this post up last night--I'm in the process of riding the motorcycle to the NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, and various delays just pushed last night's arrival to too late an hour. Yesterday the State presented the remainder of its case against Officer Edward Nero, and rested. The prosecution's case turns out to be just as weak and ridiculous as every reasonable person has long since perceived.  In essence, the prosecution's theory of criminal liability for Nero rests on the fact that when his superior officer, Lieutenant Brian Rice, radioed for assistance in chasing down a fleeing Freddie Gray, Nero complied with that request without first making an independent evaluation of whether reasonable suspicion existed for the stop or probable cause for the arrest. Of course, such automatic good faith compliance with fellow officers in a pursuit and arrest is precisely what police are trained and expected to do.  If the officer requesting assistance is later unable to articulate reasonable suspicion or probable cause, that's on the initiating officers, not on those who come to that officer's assistance in good faith.  The notion that the assisting officers should face years in prison for such good faith conduct is utter madness.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 15, 2016 27 Comments
Sexual consent laws on college campuses are already reaching absurd levels, but if the American Law Institute has its way and loosens the concepts of consent, it will easier to accuse participants of crimes. Stuart Taylor Jr. writes at Real Clear Politics:
Legal Group Weighs Radical Expansion of Sex Crimes Imagine the following case: Two recent college grads meet in a bar, talk, begin kissing, and go to her apartment. After a little more talking, they resume kissing there. He undresses her and initiates sexual intercourse. She neither objects nor resists. He leaves, and they have no further contact. A month later, she files a criminal complaint with police, complaining that this was rape because she never expressed verbal consent and was physically passive.

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 10, 2016 18 Comments
I know many of you have been wondering where the heck I've run off to from the pages of Legal Insurrection, so I want to immediately dispel the most common rumor:  No, Professor Jacobson and I have not broken up. :-) More seriously, the reason for my absence has been that I've been hard at work finishing the thoroughly updated newest edition of my book, "The Law of Self Defense, 3rd Edition," which I'm proud to announce published last week.  Further, I learned this morning that we've already achieved the number one position in Criminal Law new releases at Amazon.com, at that we're #6 in the Criminal Law category overall. And today we also became #1 in the Hunting & Shooting category at Amazon.
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