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

Category: Legal

  • Convicted felon wants a gun

    A convicted felon and his lawyer have decided that the Heller vs. DC Supreme Court decision applies to the rights of felons to protect themselves in their home according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette;

     James F. Barton Jr. argues that the court’s opinion lifting the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. — and the assertion that the possession of guns in the home is an individual right — must be applied to all people.

    Senior U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch has scheduled a July 31 hearing on the matter .

    On its face, Mr. Barton’s argument appears to have no merit because the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller specifically noted: “[Nothing] in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill … .”

    But it’s precisely because of that language that attorney David B. Chontos, who represents Mr. Barton, filed his motion to dismiss.

    Several legal scholars agree that the instruction in the opinion is nothing but dictum, merely a statement by the court that is not binding as a precedent in lower courts or for the future Supreme Court.

    But Mr. Chontos based his argument on language included in the Second Amendment, which reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

    Mr. Chontos argues that the phrase “the people,” must mean the same as it does in other amendments, including the First, which guarantees free speech and freedom of religion, and the Fourth, which guarantees privacy and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

    Well, then eight-year-olds should take to the courts, too, because surely, and eight-year-old might have the occasion to defend themselves in their homes. Eight-year-olds are people, too. An eight-year-old lacks the judgment to safely own a handgun…and a convicted felon lacks the judgment to safely own a handgun.

    Stupid ambulance chasing lawyers.

  • DC’s handgun dilemma

    By now, you’ve heard that the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia’s draconian gun laws last month. This caused DC’s government to go into closed-door sessions to rewrite the law. Yesterday, they outlined the new law which is not much different from the old law and the DC government thumbs it’s nose at the Supreme Court and the rights of it’s citizens (Washington Post link);

    The legislation does not lift restrictions on semiautomatic handguns, a move that will probably land the District back in court, according to the lawyer who successfully challenged the gun ban.

    Announcing the regulations yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty was clear about what might be ahead.

    “We think we have struck the delicate legal balance,” he said during a news conference. “While we will have lawsuits, we think we stand on solid legal ground.”

    (more…)

  • Losing our 1st Amendment rights in foreign courts

    Senators Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman write in the Wall Street Journal about foreign courts eroding our own rights to free speech with specious judgments against Americans;

     Under American law, a libel plaintiff must prove that defamatory material is false. In England, the burden is reversed. Disputed statements are presumed to be false unless proven otherwise. And the loser in the case must pay the winner’s legal fees.

    Consequently, English courts have become a popular destination for libel suits against American authors. In 2003, U.S. scholar Rachel Ehrenfeld asserted in her book, “Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It,” that Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz helped fund Osama bin Laden. The book was published in the U.S. by a U.S. company. But 23 copies were bought online by English residents, so English courts permitted the Saudi to file a libel suit there.

    Ms. Ehrenfeld did not appear in court, so Mr. Bin Mahfouz won a $250,000 default judgment against her. He has filed or threatened to file at least 30 other suits in England

    It also has stunted the spread of the Left’s writers as well as the Right;

    Fear of a similar lawsuit forced Random House U.K. in 2004 to cancel publication of “House of Bush, House of Saud,” a best seller in the U.S. that was written by an American author.

    So what do the Senators propose to remedy the problem?

    To counter this lawsuit trend, we have introduced the Free Speech Protection Act of 2008, a Senate companion to a House bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete King (R., N.Y.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.). This legislation builds on New York State’s “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” signed into law by Gov. David Paterson on May 1.

    Our bill bars U.S. courts from enforcing libel judgments issued in foreign courts against U.S. residents, if the speech would not be libelous under American law. The bill also permits American authors and publishers to countersue if the material is protected by the First Amendment. If a jury finds that the foreign suit is part of a scheme to suppress free speech rights, it may award treble damages.

    For decades, our enemies, from Nazis to Communists to jihadists, have found ways to circumvent our laws by using our own Constitution against us. This looks like a good commonsense solution to plugging one hole in the dike. My senators will hear from me this morning, bright and early although I can’t imagine even a pair of partisans like Carden and Mikulski being against  this common sense protection of Americans’ rights.

  • USSC beat them to it

    By way of the Drudge Report, I read that the Spanish Parliament voiced it’s support for  extending human rights to apes;

    Spain’s parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

    My first thought was “So what. The Supreme Court has been doing that for non-humans since last week.” Here and here.

  • Gopher vs. Supreme Court

    I’m sure you all remember Fred Grandy who played the character “Gopher” on the TV series “Love Boat”. You probably know he went on to become a Republican Congressman, and now he has a conservative radio program here in DC on WMAL 630 with a co-host Andy Parks, a local radio icon.

    The other day, Fred took on the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Fifth Amendment rights to terrorists in a remarkable essay on the subject;

    …it was 1950 and the Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. Eisentrager that non-Americans (in this case German nationals) held in a prison in then American-occupied Germany did not have a Fifth Amendment right of habeas corpus. In fact in a 6-3 decision the high court held  that to rule otherwise would effectively give enemy aliens engaged in “unlawful hostile action against us” immunity from military trials, putting them in a more protected position than our own American soldiers.  Here’s how they expressed it.

    But even by the most magnanimous view, our law does not abolish inherent distinctions recognized throughout the civilized world between citizens and aliens, nor between aliens of friendly and of enemy allegiance, nor between resident enemy aliens who have submitted themselves to our laws and non-resident enemy aliens who at all times have remained with, and adhered to, enemy governments.

    So here is my question to the five eminent justices who saw fit last week to effectively overturn Johnson v. Eisentrager  and extend Fifth Amendment protections to enemy combatants which will, of course, grant them access to civilian courts, allow them to lawyer up, seek favorable venues, file motions to delay, and otherwise manipulate the American legal process to their own advantage:

    The piece is worth a thorough read. Communists, hippies and terrorists have all used our system against us to some degree, depending on the magnanimity of our civil rights commitment and the fairness of our court system – which is why we’ve become like the world’s school nerd. Everyone knows they can pick on us and get away with it. hell, this morning, I read that Ahmadinejad  bragged that he foiled a US plot to kidnap him while he was in Iraq and that the Islamic Republic has faced down the US in a nuclear standoff and won. As if….

    Now we’ve decided we’re going to give these filthy animals Fifth Amendment rights so they can get another shot at killing more Americans? Hell, give them a shot at killing their own people trying to bring civilization to their own countries. I think we’ve reached the limits of our generosity. But, if a Democrat gets to appoint Supreme Court judges for the next four years, I’m sure we’ll get to see a lot more wrong-head and ill-fated decisions in our future.

  • LTC Chessani cleared!

    My email box is filling up, Rush Limbaugh’s talking about it, it’s all over the news, so I guess I’d better tell ya’all (CBS News link);

    A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

    Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

    The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement.

    There were 9 Marines charged and we’re down to one Staff Sergeant. I wonder if Murtha is writing his resignation.

    UPDATED: My post at Eagles UP! Talon deals with this subject and Murtha.

  • Safety vs. Civil Rights

    ph2008060903128.jpg

    Memorial Day weekend there were 9 shootings in Washington, DC’s “Trinidad” neighborhood of the Northeast quadrant of the city in the 5th District. The police solution to the problem was to cordon off the neighborhood with police barricades this last weekend. The Washington Post explains;

    D.C. police stepped up efforts last night to curb violence in the hard-pressed Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast Washington, choking off access to several streets there to force drivers to pass through the new anti-crime checkpoint, Chief Cathy L. Lanier said.

    The Montello Avenue checkpoint, where police demanded that motorists account for their presence in the neighborhood, was set up Saturday night for the first time, but some drivers circumvented it by using nearby streets to enter Trinidad, Lanier said.

    She said police were “going to be narrowing the funnel a little bit” by guiding the flow of traffic toward Montello Avenue. However, it appeared that the number of officers assigned last night was insufficient to fully implement the plan, and the strategy took on many aspects of a work in progress.

    “We’re looking at different ways to control traffic patterns,” Cmdr. Melvin Scott said.

    The police questioned people for their purpose of being in the neighborhood and turned back those who couldn’t verify their reason for entering the neighborhood;

    On Saturday, those who told police that they were going to visit a relative were turned away if they did not provide the relative’s phone number so officers could verify their claim, Hughes said.

    Leaders at the American Civil Liberties Union, who have criticized Lanier’s effort as heavy-handed, were in Trinidad on Saturday night. They questioned the statistics provided by police and said they estimated that 90 percent of cars were turned away.

    “Our analysis is different from theirs,” said Johnny Barnes, executive director of the ACLU’s Washington office. “We think most people were turned away.”

    He said it became a joke among his workers when they saw police stop an ice cream truck. It was eventually let through.

    So to what extent should we allow the government to go to protect us? Certainly they have the responsibility to control access to our international borders, but controlling travel within our own communities? The District of Columbia has been cavalier about rescinding the Second Amendment for it’s citizens so I guess they figure they can just revoke Fourth Amendment protections, too.

    On it’s face, the Metro police have overstepped their bounds, but Trinidad residents have refused to cooperate with the police investigation of the murders as well as countless property crimes in the neighborhood. Yet they demand that the police solve the crimes and prevent further crimes – but no one wants to help.

    There were even protesters at the police barricades according to the Post;

    About 15 demonstrators decried the checkpoints, saying they violate the residents’ rights. “Trinidad, yes; Baghdad, no!” they yelled. “Don’t turn Trinidad into Baghdad!”

    Well, it’s hardly Baghdad, but it’s un-American, nonetheless, on both sides. The police shouldn’t be restricting travel of citizens, but those citizens have a responsibility to police their own neighborhood instead of sitting on their behinds hoping someone else will do something to protect them. This sort of dependency on the government to protect us, without us lifting a finger to help ourselves is what got people killed in the New Orleans hurricane a few years back.

    Crossposted at Eagles Up! Talon

  • Blackfive: Marine Jailed Over Memorial Day Weekend…

    Blackfive has a long post up about “Marine Jailed Over Memorial Day Weekend for Exercising 5th Amendment“;

    First of all, Sergeant Jermaine Nelson needs our support.  Second, he needs some help.  If anyone knows of a habeus corpus specialist in DC, email me.  More details on support are at the bottom of the post.

    I have a few things brewing right now and this is one case where I need all of you to help out.  If you google about this case, you’ll find a lot of information that contradicts the facts.  In fact, a few media stories have the incident in the wrong battle of Fallujah and have claimed that the house where the incident occurred was demolished, when in fact, it was not.  It’s actually been reoccupied by it’s original owners and visited by NCIS investigators.

    Read the whole thing and help where you can…I know of three or four readers out there who know something about some of this. The rest of you, don’t be stingy.