Interesting post on a wrinkle and possible double standard with the onerous Illinois wiretapping law. I don’t have the law in front of me at the moment (I’m at the airport, WiFi is spotty), but I believe there’s an exception for people who reasonably believe they’re recording criminal activity. The problem of course is that if that you can’t use video to show you weren’t doing anything criminal. And if you record on-duty cops engaging in activity you think is criminal, you do so at risk of getting hit with a felony charge.
I’ll be writing about this in my column on Monday, but here’s another study showing problems with the use of police dogs. My favorite bit is how the tests designed to fool the handlers were twice as likely to produce false alerts as the tests designed to fool the dogs.
Father gets a $275 ticket for not wearing a helmet at a skateboard park. It apparently doesn’t matter that he wasn’t skateboarding.
Man convicted of murder despite no body, no physical evidence of a crime, and no proof the alleged victim is actually dead.
One of the victims of the Tucson shootings issues death threat to a Tea Party leader. I don’t really know what to make of this. Other than that it’s sad.
Cop’s dash video differs from police report in alleged police brutality case. Naturally, they fought like hell from releasing the video to the guy filing the civil rights suit.
So I am quite literally snowed in right now. Front door won’t open. It’s been crazy. Photos and videos of puppy snow frolicking forthcoming.
In the meantime….
Actual sentence from an actual news story: “It’s designed for young girls ages 8 and older, but some say the mysterious product is a “dangerous spiritual game” that opens up anyone, particularly Christians, to attacks on their soul.”
Looks like the former DA Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed to head up the state’s forensics panel is doing all he can to make sure the panel does nothing to help the state’s forensics system.
Here’s a good cop story: Bozeman, Montana cop buys food for man caught shoplifting school supplies for his kids.
Bruce Schneier: “Only one carry on? No electronics for the first hour of flight? I wish that, just once, some terrorist would try something that you can only foil by upgrading the passengers to first class and giving them free drinks.”
Gay rights, leftist groups in D.C. fight other gay rights, leftist groups in D.C. over right of anti-gay rights groups to take out ads on the city’s Metro trains. Good on the pro-speech folks.
Federal judge won’t toss the obscenity charges against John Stagliano. I think his attorney is right. This is a good chance to bring Miller v. California into the Internet age. “Community standards” means something quite a bit different now than it did then.
This smug op-ed by the guy wrongly arrested in the Snowball Fight Heard ‘Round the World is almost enough to make me support the gun-waving cop.
Congratulations, Democrats. You’ve proven you can pass a major piece of legislation by buying off votes with last minute pork projects and special favors, then shoving it through the Senate in the middle of the night just as well as the Republicans. You’re an all-growed-up corrupt ruling party, now. (CORRECTION: As noted in the comments, the bill didn’t pass, the Dems were just able to force cloture.)
The D.C. cop who drew his gun at a snowball fight this weekend is now international news. This will make it somewhat more difficult for MPDC to continue lying about the story.
Prosecutors are still whining about the Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz decision from last term, arguing in a brief for a similar case next term that the decision “is already proving unworkable.” Oh. Well in that case, sure. Let’s go ahead and scrap the constitutional right to confront one’s accusers because, you know, it’s really, really inconvenient to the government to respect it. I always forget about that footnote to the Bill of Rights that says, “*Unless respecting these rights makes the jobs of government employees more difficult.”
A grand jury has ruled that the police shooting and killing of Georgia pastor Jonathan Ayers was justified. I’ll have more on this terrible story in coming weeks.
Eliot Spitzer’s call girl now has an advice column with the NY Post. First question: How can I turn a life turning tricks into an advice column gig with the NY Post?
So the Max Baucus nominating his paramour to be a U.S. Attorney scandal is getting pretty interesting. Turns out she at one point was also sleeping with a forensic pathologist who had a history of questionable diagnoses in infant death cases. Oh, and he was a state medical examiner for the state of Mississippi in the 1980s. Why am I not surprised?
The L.A. Times rounds up the many incidences in which Joe Arpaio has launched investigations into people who have dared to question his tactics. Scariest line from the story: “Though he has said he’s not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.”
Yahoo, Verizon refuse to release information related to their capability of and cooperation with the government for the purposes of spying on their customers. Their reasoning? Releasing the info would “shock” and “confuse” their customers.
Police enter home unannounced after receiving reports of a neighborhood prowler, shoot and kill family dog. No prowler.
Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley, a frontrunner for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, was the AG who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that forensic experts shouldn’t necessarily be subject to cross examination. Apparently, she didn’t do so well. Coakley has also been aggressive in the crackdown on prescription pain medication and has defended the controversial “recovered memory” sex abuse scandals from the 1980s and 90s.
British towns requiring parents to pass a criminal background check before being allowed to supervise their own children on public playgrounds.
New study further discredits the value of bite mark evidence. Every one of the cases where it has been used needs to be reviewed.
Kentucky Supreme Court rules the state’s sex offender law violates the Ex Post Facto clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Oklahoma sheriff, undersheriff get 27 months in prison for stealing money from motorists in a forfeiture scam. Have to say, though, the difference between legal forfeiture and what the sheriff was doing is pretty slight. Main difference here is that some of the money went directly into the sheriff’s pocket instead of the department’s forfeiture fund. Good on the feds for investigating and setting up a sting, though. We need more federal investigation of local civil rights abuses.
