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Criminal Law Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 20, 2017 25 Comments
When a teenage Muslim girl was killed in Virginia recently, some people speculated that it could be a hate crime due to her religion. It turns out however that the suspect is believed to be an illegal immigrant who was triggered by road rage. The Fairfax County Police Department blog reports:
Road Rage Leads to Murder of Reston Teenager: Evidence in case does not point to hate crime An autopsy this afternoon revealed the body recovered from a pond in Loudoun County is that of a Reston teenager who went missing early Sunday morning. The victim has been identified as Nabra Hassanen, 17, of Reston. The autopsy results show Nabra suffered from blunt force trauma to the upper body after a road rage incident. Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, of Sterling, is charged with her murder.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 14, 2017 21 Comments
A doctor in the Detroit, Michigan area has been charged with performing female genital mutilation. Her victims were six to eight years old. WXYZ News reported:
Detroit emergency room doctor charged with child genital mutilation A Henry Ford Hospital emergency room doctor has been arrested and charged in connection to performing female genital mutilation on young girls.

Posted by Andrew Branca on April 03, 2017 48 Comments
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 is an extensive discussion of the history and legal significance of a suspect not obeying instructions and returning to his vehicle.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 30, 2017 19 Comments
The Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra of California has invented a new crime: Performing Undercover Video Journalism While Not a Democrat. Of course, he didn't call it that. Nor did his predecessor, now U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, when she launched an investigation of the undercover video operation to expose alleged fetal body part sales by Planned Parenthood. That investigation resulted in 15 felony charges that were just announced, as we covered the other day, California’s AG Charges Undercover Reporters Who Exposed Planned Parenthood Baby Part Selling.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 18, 2017 26 Comments
In late December 2016, a woman was brutally murdered in Washington State, shot to death with a note from the murderer attached to her body with a knife. Her name was Jill Sundberg.
Jill was born on Aug 4, 1985 in Quincy, WA to Greg and Janet (Zimbelman) Sundberg. Jill lived her entire life in Quincy, graduating from Quincy High School in 2004. After graduation, in addition to raising her family, she worked various jobs in Home Health Care and food services.

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.
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