Category: crime

"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers." Part 2

From The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Justices dismiss ‘absurd’ sex prosecution of pregnant 13-year-old girl:

The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a sex-abuse finding against a then-13-year-old Ogden girl who became pregnant by her 12-year-old boyfriend, ruling unanimously that treating her as both a victim and a perpetrator for the same act had created an “absurd result.”

The girl, identified as Z.C. in court records, was found guilty of violating a state law that prohibits sex with someone under 14. She also was the victim in the case against her boyfriend, who was found guilty of the same violation by engaging in consensual sexual activity with her.

Writing for the court, Justice Jill Parrish said the Utah Legislature “clearly could have intended some degree of simultaneous culpability for both Z.C. and the 12-year-old boy under the fornication statute in order to discourage their admittedly reckless and age-inappropriate behavior.”

However, she added, legislators could not have meant to punish both adolescents for child sex abuse. “The primary fail-safe against the absurd application of criminal law is the wise employment of prosecutorial discretion, a quality that is starkly absent in this case,” Parrish wrote in a footnote.

Matthew Bates, an assistant state attorney general, said that neither adolescent was charged with a crime.

Rather, Weber County prosecutors filed delinquency petitions against the girl and boy as a tool to get services for them, he said. “The intent from the beginning was to help these kids,” Bates said.

What a bunch of geniuses. Now if only the courts in Georgia had this much sense. And Mr. Attorney General maybe you should check the definition of “delinquency” with which these two kids were charged with.

  • From Black’s Law Dictionary (Third Pocket Edition): delinquency, n. 1. A failure or omission; a violation of a law or duty.
  • From Juvenile Justice: Policies Programs, and Policies (First Edition): Delinquent act – Any behavior committed by a juvenile that would have been a crime if committed by an adult.

There are other ways to provide services to these two kids than charging them with a crime.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ

Doing the kidnapping and selling into prostitution that Americans won’t do…

From NBC 4 in Washington, D.C.:

Police said the people who allegedly kidnapped two teenage girls earlier this week planned to take the girls to Florida and sell them into prostitution.

[…]

Investigators said the girls had apparently been involuntarily taken or lured from the home.

The FBI and the U.S. Marshal’s Service assisted in the investigation, and investigators located both girls at a home in Mableton, Ga., just after 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, police said.

Javier Ronal, 21, of Dumfries, Va., Erick Estrada, 23, of no fixed address, and a 17-year-old Dumfries girl were arrested in connection with the case. Police said each is charged with two counts of abduction with the intent to defile. Police said at least one of the suspects is linked to the MS-13 gang.

Authorities said the three charged are being held in Cobb County, Ga., pending extradition.

No word yet if they are illegal entrants but I’m betting they are. For those who didn’t know, illegal “immigrants” with gang affiliation would have become legal if the (hopefully) now dead immigration bill had passed (scroll down to point 7).

Slavery is Freedom?

From The Guardian:

“Big Brother” plans to automatically hand the police details of the daily journeys of millions of motorists tracked by road pricing cameras across the country were inadvertently disclosed by the Home Office last night.

Leaked Whitehall background papers reveal that Home Office and transport ministers have clashed over plans for legislation this autumn enabling the police to get automatic “real-time” access to the bulk data from the traffic cameras now going into operation. The Home Office says the police need the data from the cameras, which can read and store every passing numberplate, “for all crime fighting purposes”.

But transport ministers warn of concerns about privacy and “the potential for adverse publicity relating to plans for local road pricing” also due to be unveiled this autumn. There are already nearly 2,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in place and they are due to double as road pricing schemes are expanded across the country.

[…]

The leaked Home Office note emerged yesterday as it was announced that the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, had waived Data Protection Act safeguards to allow the bulk transfer of data from London’s congestion charge and traffic cameras to the Metropolitan police for the specific purpose of tracking potential terrorists in and around the capital. Transport for London was very reluctant to hand over the data without the home secretary issuing a special certificate exempting it from legal action from motorists worried about breach of their privacy.

[…]

“Civil rights groups and privacy campaigners may condemn this as further evidence of an encroaching ‘big brother’ approach to policing and security, particularly in light of the recent e-petition on roads pricing,” says a Home Office note on its ‘handling strategy’ for the issue in reference to the runaway success of a petition on the Downing Street website against road charging. “Conversely, there may be surprise that the data collected by the congestion charge cameras is not already used for national security purposes and may lead to criticism that the matter is yet to be resolved.”

[…]

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the “unintended act of open government” had revealed the disingenuous attitude of ministers towards public fears about a creeping surveillance state: “No wonder Douglas Alexander was keen to tone down these proposals, since he must know that public resistance to a road charging scheme will go through the roof if it is based on technology which poses a threat to personal privacy. Bit by bit, vast computer databases are being made inter-operable and yet the government seems to running scared of a full and public debate.”

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “It is one thing to ask the public for special measures to fight the grave threat of terrorism, but when that becomes a Trojan horse for mass snooping for more petty matters it only leads to a loss of trust in government.”

Nope, nothing Orwellian about that…

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

Terrorists? What terrorists?

From The Dallas Morning News: Women arrested after police standoff:

It started with a routine domestic disturbance, except that the pair involved has recently been under investigation by federal terrorism officials.

Before the day ended, Arlington police had negotiated a six-hour standoff, their robot had been shot at with a paintball gun, and they had called in a bomb squad over four potentially explosive devices.

Kimberly Al-Homsi called 911 about 12:40 a.m. Monday. She said her friend, Aisha Hamad, had threatened her with a knife. The two are noteworthy because a few months ago, they were seen at Dallas Love Field, both dressed in camouflage pants under traditional Muslim robes, conducting what appeared to be surveillance, officials said.

Police say that Monday morning, when an officer came to the door, Ms. Hamad threatened to shoot him. She told him the only way she would leave was in a body bag.

So began the standoff, during which she fired a paintball gun at a tactical robot and missed, police say, and at the end of which a negotiator persuaded her to come out peacefully. Once outside, Ms. Hamad, 50, fought with them while they tried to handcuff her, police say, so they used a Taser on her.

[…]

Meanwhile, police searched the home on Wembley Road and found four explosive devices, one of which was sitting on a bedroom table.

Citing an ongoing investigation, Arlington Assistant Fire Marshal Stephen Lea would not say what the devices were.

“We do not know whether they would function as [explosive] devices until we have time to study them and look at them and test the materials,” Mr. Lea said. “I can tell you this; there wasn’t anything in there that would have blown her house to pieces.”

[…]

The terrorism angle stems from Feb. 25, when the two women were spotted at Love Field acting in a way authorities found suspicious. Surveillance video showed one of them walking back and forth, apparently pacing off distances.

When confronted, the women told officials they were looking for the Frontiers of Flight museum.

Two days later, the pair was spotted at the airport again. This time Ms. Al-Homsi, 42, was sitting on the hood of a car looking through binoculars at airplanes. Dallas officers stopped the car nearby, but the women refused to let police search it, authorities say.

The women also came under scrutiny after they were reported driving near the runways at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on July 4.

Dallas police and federal terrorism officials have acknowledged investigating the pair, but police officials have said they had no direct evidence the women have ties to terrorism. The women have accused authorities of violating their rights and of religious and racial profiling.

In 2005, Ms. Al-Homsi was accused of waving a fake grenade at a motorist on Central Expressway during a spasm of road rage. Officials charged her with a bomb hoax, and she was placed on probation. She is said to have long-range assault rifle and explosives training, according to a Dallas police intelligence bulletin issued March 5.

Such evil racial profiling, they just had paintball guns (Virginia Jihad Network anyone?), explosives, and were casing a airport in camouflage gear. Nice to see the feds are on top of things, ever heard of something called a search warrant?

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that there is dog fighting going on here!”

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Vick indicted in dogfighting case:

NFL quarterback Michael Vick and three others were indicted this afternoon by a federal grand jury in Richmond on charges of interstate conspiracy to sponsor a dogfighting venture, authorities said.

The others named in the indictment are Purnell A. Peace, Quanis L. Phillips and Tony Taylor.

The indictment comes as part of a federal investigation into alleged dogfighting activities at a property owned by Vick in Surry County.

The investigation began more than two months ago when a cousin of Vick’s was arrested on a drug charge in Hampton. The cousin gave as his address a house owned by Vick in rural Surry.

Well, obviously it is just because he’s black as Vick’s attorney has previously pointed out. Or maybe because you can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich”?

I’m guessing the phrase “equal protection” doesn’t mean anything to you…

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Kaine: fees only for Va. motorists:

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s office was behind the exclusion of out-of-state motorists from new hefty driving fees that have generated considerable outrage around the state.

Republican members of the General Assembly have taken most of the heat, but their original transportation bill in this year’s General Assembly session included out-of-state motorists.

[…]

“We feel Virginians’ concerns,” said Hall, who added that Kaine would work with the assembly next year in trying to find a way to include out-of-state motorists.

[…]

The fees cover not only serious driving offenses but many misdemeanors. For instance, a reckless-driving conviction mandates $1,050 in fees over a three-year period — as does a misdemeanor conviction for failure to give a proper signal.

Any felony conviction results in $3,000 in fees, in three annual payments, on top of court-imposed penalties. Most misdemeanors, including driving with “below-standard tires,” amount to $900.

The fees have stirred outrage and an online petition drive that has garnered close to 100,000 signatures. Petitioners appear most upset that the fees apply only to in-state motorists.

[…]

Albo and others have been promoting bad-driver fees for three years. Kaine endorsed them last year and again this year in his State of the Commonwealth address.

What a bunch of geniuses. I hope, Governor, that you have set aside some money for the (hopefully) soon to be filed federal lawsuit. Not to mention, that the fines that would normally go to the local jurisdiction will probably be suspended by the judge now. Nothing like a Northern Virginia/Hampton Roads money grab.

For those who didn’t know, Delegate David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), is a lawyer, and co-founder of a law firm that specializes in the defense of traffic offenses. No conflict of interest there, eh?

Showing why D.C. shouldn’t have voting rights…

From the AP via FindLaw.com: D.C. to appeal its right to ban unlicensed handguns to the Supreme Court:

Plagued by high homicide rates, officials in the U.S. capital said Monday they will petition the Supreme Court as they seek to defend Washington’s 30-year-old ban on most handguns.

A federal appeals court panel struck down the law in March, rejecting the city’s argument that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which upholds people’s right to bear arms, applied only to militias. The full appeals court refused to reconsider the decision in May. The law has remained in effect during the appeals process.

“We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended,” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said in a statement Monday.

“The handgun ban in the District of Columbia has saved many lives since then and will continue to do so if it remains enforced,” he added.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier said 75 of Washington’s 97 homicides this year were committed with firearms.

Washington’s gun law dates back to 1976, and bars residents from keeping handguns in their homes and carrying a gun without a license. Registered firearms must be kept unloaded and disassembled. The city’s sweeping gun ban is matched only by Chicago among large U.S. cities.

[…]

D.C. officials say the law is necessary in a city that has been plagued by high homicide rates.

Are these people dense? 77.3% of your homicides are committed with firearms and you think the ban is working? You have had some of the highest murder rates per capita anywhere and you want to continue with a policy that bans firearms from law abiding citizens? Bravo, D.C., bravo.

And some humor from The Onion.

Looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…

It must not be a duck, from Los Angeles’ CBS 2: Rape Trial Order Angers L.A. Victim’s Family:

The father of a San Fernando Valley college student said his daughter is being railroaded by a Nebraska judge who has ordered her not to use the word “rape” on the witness stand at the trial for a man accused of having sex with her against her will.

[…]

Last week in Lincoln, Neb., Tory Bowen was ordered by a judge to sign a written order that would compel her not to use the word rape at the retrial of the man accused of having intercourse with her when she was intoxicated.

[…]

A jury at his first trial could not return a verdict, and at a pretrial hearing for the retrial, Lancaster County District Court Judge Jeffre Cheuvront ordered all witnesses to avoid the words victim, assailant and rape, and to not use the terms sexual assault kit or sexual assault nurse, at the second trial.

George Orwell would be proud.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ

Caroline Deputies Catch Internet Predator

From WTVR CBS 6 in Richmond [photo credit: Ibid]:

Caroline County Deputies catch a 21-year-old man trying to solicit sex from a teenager over the internet. And James Street admits he did it to CBS 6 News.

“I’m just a young guy who was kinda bored at home and you know nothing really to do and got on a chat room,” James Street says.

“I’m so upset at myself. I know better and it just sucks,” he went on to say.

He’s knows better? To do it or get caught?

Caroline Sheriff Tony Lippa says Street thought he was talking to a 13-year-old girl, but it was really a Caroline Deputy. After two hours of sexually explicit chat, deputies set up a meeting time and place. Street never showed up, but the sheriff says they had enough to arrest him anyway. It’s against state law to try to solicit sex from a teen over the internet, and a felony.

“I’m not a predator. I’m just a young kid who made a mistake. I mean it’s not like, it’s not like I was really going to pursue anything,” Street tells CBS 6.

You’re not a predator? You’re a 21-year-old that attempted to solicit a 13-year-old. I think your picture is in the dictionary under the word “predator”.

He’s charged with indecent liberties and using a computer to solicit sex from a minor. Even worse, Street works at a local camp with teens. He’s free on bond.

Good job Caroline Sheriff’s Office.

Hat tip: Tom James’s Caroline County, VA JUSTICE Blog

As a bonus, here’s his interview with Jon Burkett of WTVR: [googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3216419653316809793]