This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Legal

  • Stupid Hippie Thoughts

    One of my ninjas sent this from the facebook page of a person my ninja says is a Code Pink member from Austin;

    Yeah, I don’t think I’d publicly declare that I’m one with a convicted cop killer. But the left has some fascination with black-skinned cop killers for some reason. If you don’t know about the case, our friend Robin at Chickenhawk Express has been writing about it since I’ve known her because the murder happened in her hometown of Savannah, GA.

    I’m not totally down with the death penalty, but you wouldn’t see me emoting like this over a cop killer;

    I like the shit about it being about race…everything is about race these days. In fact I think you guys aren’t clicking my ads because you’re racists. What have you got against third generation Swedish-Americans, anyway?

    Yahoo News asked Georgians what they thought of the case and they seem divided on it;

    – Maryanne Stahl, high school teacher, Savannah

    “I won’t celebrate the execution of Davis. However, I am extremely confident that the justice system has convicted the right man. It is sad that our justice system allows for trials like this one to drag on for 20 years.

    — Colby Self, former training co-ordinator for GA Public Safety Training Center, Savannah

    “There’s never any justification for killing someone. It’s just as wrong for the state to do it as it is for murderers to do it.

    — Roy Tenent, city planner, Augusta

    “It should have been done long before now. Georgia has paid his room and board for more than 20 years. The policeman he shot didn’t get that kind of good treatment.

    The admissible facts of the case have been posted here.

    Someone sent us an opinion piece written by Lou Arcangeli, a former chief of police from Atlanta and printed in the Savannah Morning News this morning.

    And Alec Baldwin went nuts on Twitter after the execution – Somehow your support for the troops is at fault for Davis’ execution and it morphs into a call for the trial of Cheney and Rumsfeld. That Baldwin is a real deep thinker, ain’t he?

  • Appeals court tosses out Padilla sentence

    According to the Associated Press, the 11th Circuit Court has thrown out the sentence for terrorist Jose Padilla who plotted to detonate a “dirty bomb” in downtown Chicago. For once the court goes along with popular opinion tha Padilla’s 17-year sentence was too short;

    A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the sentence imposed by a Miami federal judge was too lenient. The appeals court sent the case back for a new sentencing hearing.

    Padilla and two co-conspirators were convicted in 2007 after a three-month trial in which prosecutors said they sent money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremist groups including al-Qaida. The appeals ruling upheld all the convictions.

    When it wants to, the justice system can work against terrorism, the problem is, the court system never really wants to work against terrorism. I’m pleased that this time it does.

  • Thomas DiGirolamo, another bonehead judge

    This one slipped under my radar last week; A Maryland judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas DiGirolamo, dismissed charges against Aaron Lawless when he agreed with Lawless’ lawyers that the Stolen Valor Act was too broad, according to the Washington Examiner;

    A criminal complaint says Lawless falsely told the gun manufacturer Glock that he had suffered combat injuries in Iraq while serving in the Marine Corps and Army, earning a Silver Star, four Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars. Glock then named him its hero of the year, awarding him a trip to a Las Vegas gun show and engraved pistols.

    Lawless spent 35 days in the Marine Corps until it was discovered that he tried to conceal a previous injury before he enlisted. In other words, he’s a scumbag who tried to con the Corps and then conned Glock to take something of value from a soldier or Marine who actually deserved to be recognized by Glock.

    And this greaseball judge just aided and abetted the fraud.

    “In its present form, the [Stolen Valor] Act punishes all false statements about the receipt of military honors, including the malicious, the reckless, the mistaken and the innocent,” he wrote.

    Yeah, except Lawless’ claims were neither mistaken nor innocent.

    And, oh, yeah, he conned the VFW into vouching for him to his employer for a job. But I guess it’s not fraud, huh, Judge Thomas DiGirolamo? Fucking liberal punk-asses think they sound smart when they defend the First Amendment…well, as long their defense doesn’t have anything to do with that religion part.

  • Brian Terry’s family denied victim status in trial

    Fox News reports that the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has been denied their request to intervene in the case against Jamie Avila, the Pheonix man who purchased the weapon that eventually killed Agent Terry.

    …U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not “directly or proximately harmed” by the illegal purchase of the murder weapon, it does not meet the definition of “crime victim” in the Avila case. Burke claims the victim of the Avila’s gun purchases, “is not any particular person, but society in general.”

    Prominent litigator and the former U.S. Attorney in Florida, Kendall Coffey disagrees.

    “The government apparently is saying they’re not victims, even though it was a federal crime that put the murder weapon in the hands of the killer of Brian Terry,” says Coffey. “They are simply rights of respect, rights of communication and the right to be heard.”

    Obviously, the feds are trying to absolve themselves of any culpability because they allowed that gun to be put in the hands of the criminal who killed Agent Terry in their “Fast and Furious” project which forced United States gun dealers to sell weapons to people the gun dealers knew were supplying Mexican cartels.

  • Bledsoe pleads guilty, gets life

    Carlos Bledsoe pleads guilty today in his trial for the murder of one soldier and wounding another in the parking lot of a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas more than two years ago. Apparently, the prosecutor was prepared to take the death sentence off the table, because Bledsoe was sentenced to life in prison according to CNN;

    [Abdulhakim Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe] faced 12 charges in total — capital murder, attempted capital murder and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle — according to Stephanie Harris, a spokeswoman with the state court system.

    In Arkansas, defendants cannot plead guilty in a case in which the death penalty is a possibility.

    Prosecutors agreed to drop the death penalty in exchange for Muhammad’s plea, Harris said.

    Now we know why there was an abrupt end to testimony last week…the prosecutor needed time to cave.

    The dude was guilty and the prosecutor had a lock on the death penalty, but he blinked. Now this leech will be living off of the taxpayers for the next several decades, unless they blink again and let the POS out on parole.

  • Picking your fights

    Adirondack Patriot sent a link to The Blaze about armless and legless 16-year-old Julia Sullivan who wants to join her school’s cheerleading squad and she’s been rejected three years running. I certainly sympathize with her plight and her desire to be a normal teenage high school student, but she and her parents have sent the ACLU after the school.

    “We would agree that there are some activities such as football where the ability to run and tackle are fundamental to the sport,” Kevin Schneider, the family’s attorney, told the World-Herald. “Making reasonable accommodations and modifications for cheerleading are not fundamental in that same way.”

    What? And jumping around, dancing, twirling and catching your team mates aren’t fundamental to cheer leading? What “reasonable accommodations” should be made? Cyborg arms and legs? I’m sure other girls have been rejected by the team because they couldn’t dance or perform acrobatics well enough to be on the squad, right? That’s pretty standard. The “reasonable accommodations” they want is complete ignorance of the fact that Julia’s not even remotely qualified to be on the squad – anymore than I would be even in my prime.

    Not everything is worth litigation, and the ACLU is doing this just to attract the money that sticking up for the handicapped would garner.

    I know there’s at least ONE cheerleader out there who has a comment. You know who you are.

  • 6th Circuit affirms lower court’s decision to abridge your freedoms

    Now I’m no lawyer, our blog’s regular lawyer is probably rubbing his saddle sores somewhere in Montana at the moment, but this looks like the biggest load of shit ever written by a court in the history of the Constitution. From Ace of Spades who got it from Hot Air (see how I did that Hot Air?);

    Congress had a rational basis for concluding that, in the aggregate, the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care substantially affects interstate commerce. Furthermore, Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care Act’s larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance. Finally, the provision regulates active participation in the health care market, and in any case, the Constitution imposes no categorical bar on regulating inactivity. Thus, the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause, and the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

    If you can’t tell, they’re upholding Obamacare based on the part of the Constitution that says that Congress has the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). As Ace points out, based on this decision, everything else in the Constitution is just so much mumbling, because the “commerce clause” trumps it all.

    The Ninth Amendment? “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Well, since “the Constitution imposes no categorical bar on regulating inactivity”, the commerce clause negates any rights you thought you had – like buying health insurance when you choose to buy health insurance.

    The 10th Amendment? “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” What’s that? Just so much blather when confronted by the commerce clause.

    The part that really burns me up (that’s my grandfather, Oscar, coming through); Congress had a rational basis for concluding that, in the aggregate, the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care substantially affects interstate commerce. Just because the Congress has a “rational basis” for thinking that forcing everyone to buy health insurance will make it universally cheaper, they have the power to do it. If everyone was forced to buy 10mm ammo, mine would be cheaper, too. If everyone was forced to buy a new car every year, cars would be cheaper. Does that make it right? Well, the court seems to be saying that it is right.

    Is this what passes for wisdom these days? Of course, this won’t be the last word, but this word is bad enough.

  • OK, I can admit when I might be wrong

    ROS sent an update on former cadet Richard King who was thumped by Patti LaBelle’s bodyguards. I wasn’t wrong about the clueless college student yapping on his cellphone and not paying attention to where he was going, or what he was doing. Those people just piss me off. But the Houston Police Department’s report is just wrong. Anyone with two eyes can see this is not what went down on the video tape;

    In their report, HPD characterizes King as a suspect who was harassing LaBelle and her entourage, even though the surveillance video shows otherwise. With no arrests and no charges filed against King, Houston police called West Point, where King was a senior. As a result, West Point kicked King out and he will not graduate with his class.

    The video and my initial post is here. If that report is what West Point used to base their decision to suspend King, they were misinformed by a star-struck police department.

    Meanwhile, West Point has not told us whether it has reviewed the surveillance video. They did issue a statement saying it took appropriate action in punishing King. King says he’s bound by the academy’s code of conduct to meet that punishment, which includes up to 18 months in active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. He’s still waiting for his deployment orders.

    Yeah, any other college student gets their Jello-pudding pops privileges pulled for an hour – a West Point cadet gets sent to war. The Houston PD should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the fairy dust to get in their eyes.