Gun Sales: Will The "Loophole" Close?

From 60 Minutes:  In the national debate over the right to bear arms, the election of Barack Obama was seen as a victory for those who want stricter gun controls. 

But so far, things haven't worked out that way. The president recently signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks. 

Membership in the National Rifle Association, the NRA, has been rising and, as 60 Minutes and correspondent Lesley Stahl first reported in April, the financial crisis is having its own rather surprising effect: in past downturns people stocked up on things like canned soups, but this time it's guns. And even as the stock market was plummeting, shares in Smith and Wesson were going through the roof. 

When Stahl showed up at the weekend gun show in Richmond, Va., the line to get in went around the building.

"How many guns will be sold at a show like this over a weekend like this?" Stahl asked Philip Van Cleave, the president of Virginia's largest gun-rights group.

"Probably thousands," he estimated.

Full video here.

Caution in Interviewing Child Witnesses

Here is an interesting, disturbing, story from New Orleans in the last few weeks...A public defender and an investigator were held in contempt of court for trying to interview a 12-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister in connection with a rape case without permission from the children's mother. The investigator was apparently a new investigator. The story serves as a reminder that when interviewing witnesses, it is important to follow any court rules, statutes, and regulations on the interviewing of witnesses, especially minors. Of course, when police are conducting interviews, especially when the juvenile is a suspect, often the police are not required to contact parents. Nevertheless, ending up in jail doesn't help any client out. The next hearing on this case is in August and will be interesting to watch. Full article here:

The arrest silenced the courtroom briefly, as a deputy escorted the young woman to Central Lockup. She was released on a $4,000 personal recognizance bond within a half-hour, court records show.

Beasley, who only weeks ago walked through graduation ceremonies at Tulane University, started working for the Orleans Parish public defenders program on June 9.

A month later, she broke the rules of criminal court procedure by interviewing the two girls without parental consent, Judge Frank Marullo ruled today after a five-hour hearing.

"I think the Constitution speaks loud and clear on the rights of victims," Marullo said. "It says in there they can refuse (interviews). They're talking directly to the child. I find that really egregious."

Marullo set the contempt sentencing for Aug. 12. Attorney Kendall Green, a senior public defender, and Beasley face up to six months in jail for the contempt finding. Public defender Dan Engelberg, also accused with contempt by prosecutors, was acquitted by Marullo.

Open Government Blog

Found an interesting blog for people interested in Washington State Government, Open Government Blog. Here is the blog description:

"Og-blog” stands for “open-government blog” and that’s what we do: tell people about open-government issues of interest to regular citizens, media, trade associations, and government agencies. We find interesting stories and court cases from Washington State and other places about the Public Records Act, Open Public Meetings Act, access-to-court rulings, and media law.

It has many useful references and links to open government in Washington.

Sealing of Los Angeles Courtroom in Wrongful Death Suit of Jewish Defense League Member Has First Amendment Implications

A Los Angeles Federal Judge closed a two-day trial this week in a highly unusual and controversial order. The trial is a civil wrongful death action involving the 2005 prison killing of Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel. Earl Krugel was imprisoned in the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Phoenix for plotting the bombing of a Culver City mosque and an Arab American politician's office. Three days after Krugel's arrival, David Frank Jennings, a tattooed racist housed in the general population of the medium-security facility, used a paving stone from the prison recreation yard to bludgeon Krugel to death with five blows to the head. Thirty-five years was added to Jennings sentence for the murder. Krugel's widow brought a wrongful death suit. Prison officials requested the closure claiming sensitive information related to gangs and security in inmate management and prison security. Previously, the United States Supreme Court has rejected prison security as a reason to close a trial in a case involving racial segregation in California prisons. An excerpt from the article (full article here):

Constitutional scholars and press-freedom advocates deemed the broad secrecy accorded the trial by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson perplexing -- and a likely violation of the 1st Amendment.
Wilson issued a protective order covering U.S. Bureau of Prisons policies and practices in evaluating inmates for gang affiliation and potential to harm others. In deference to the order, Wilson banished media and spectators from the courtroom Tuesday and Wednesday, from the swearing in of the first witness through closing arguments.His ruling late Thursday was filed under seal.
"This is outrageous. This is not Russia, North Korea or Iran. This is the United States," said Benjamin Schonbrun, attorney for Krugel's widow, Lola, who was seeking damages for the wrongful death of her husband at the hands of a known white supremacist.

Mandatory Minimums and Unintended Consequences-Sentencing Commission Data

On July 10, 2009, the United States Sentencing Commission provided a statistical overview of statutory mandatory minimum sentencing using fiscal year 2008 data to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in light of its July 14, 2009 hearing entitled "Mandatory Minimums and Unintended Consequences."

Here is a highlight from the report:

In the Commission’s fiscal year 2008 datafile, there were 31,239 counts of conviction that carried a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. Because an offender may be sentenced for multiple counts of conviction that carry mandatory minimum penalties, these 31,239 counts of conviction exceed the total number of offenders (21,023 offenders, as reported below) who were convicted of statutes carrying such penalties.
Of these 31,239 counts of conviction, the overwhelming majority (90.7%) were
for drug offenses (24,789 counts of conviction, or 79.4%) and firearms offenses (3,527 counts of conviction, or 11.3%). Most of the 171 mandatory minimum provisions rarely,if ever, were used in fiscal year 2008, with 68 such provisions not used at all.

Even more interesting is the race/ethnicity data with regards to mandatory minimum sentences:

[O]f offenders sentenced in fiscal year 2008 for which the relevant sentencing documentation was received to determine race or ethnicity, nonwhite offenders comprised 74.0 percent of offenders convicted of a statute carrying a statutory mandatory minimum penalty. This is slightly higher than the percentage of nonwhite offenders in the Commission’s overall fiscal year 2008 datafile, which was 70.2 percent. Black offenders are the only racial/ethnic group that comprised a greater percentage of offenders convicted of a statute carrying a mandatory minimum penalty (35.7%) than their percentage in the overall fiscal year 2008 offender population (24.0%).

Racial Profiling?

Racial Profiling was in the news this past week due to the already infamous story of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s arrest. The Professor was arrested after police came to his home to respond to a 911 call that two black men were attempting to enter the house. Turns out the two men were Professor Gates and a cab driver, who was helping the Professor into his home after returning from a trip. Here is an interesting take on the issue of racial profiling from the ACLU.

Hotel Room Security

Normally when we deal with hotel room searches, we are not dealing with the Hilton of San Francisco! In this interesting defense win, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held last week in United States v. Young that a hotel search violated the Fourth Amendment.

Mr. Young was given a hotel room key that opened another guest's room. Later, when the other guest noticed his laptop and i-pod missing, he called hotel security. When hotel security noticed the mistake, they went to Young's room and, when Young was not in the room, entered with a master key and searched a backpack. Inside the backpack, security found checkbooks for other people, a gun, and the outer key paper sleeve for the other room but none of the stolen stuff from the other room. Hilton security called police. When Young returned to the hotel, he found he was locked out. He then went to the front desk where he was detained and it was discovered that Mr. Young was prohibited from possessing a firearm. The police were told that they could not search the room without a warrant, so the officers had hotel security go back into the room and bring the backpack outside the room, calling it a "plain view" search.

Luckily, both the District Court for Northern California and the United State Court of Appeals disagreed that this search was a plain view search. The Court held: “[B]ecause the hotel did not actually evict Young, he maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel room. We therefore AFFIRM the district court's order granting the motion to suppress.” The opinion has a good discussion on the expectations of privacy the hotel guest has-akin to a lessee of an apartment. Because the hotel did not evict Mr. Young prior to the police involvement, Mr. Young never lost his expectation of privacy. The mystery of the laptop and i-pod was not resolved-goes to show that maybe the hotel safe is not such a bad idea, even at the Hilton. More detailed analysis of legal issues here.

Good work Federal Defenders of Northern California!

One Risk of the Undercover Officer

Last week, a man was killed in Brooklyn, New York when he attempted to roust what he believed to be a homeless man from his mother's front stoop. Turns out the homeless man was actually an undercover cop participating in an undercover drug transaction. Shem Walker was coming to pick his mother up to attend church when he found the homeless man on the stoop and requested that he leave. A scuffle ensued and ended when the undercover officer shot Mr. Walker twice. Full story here.

Problem Employees? It's Not You, It's Them

The Componant Method to Criminal Investigations

The Criminal Defense Investigation Training Council has an interesting collection of resources for the criminal investigators with topics including defense of entrapment cases, the role of the investigator, and this interesting piece entitled "The Component Method: A Comprehensive Approach to Conducting Criminal Defense Investigations". For those of you wondering what the component method is...

The Component Method utilizes accepted and proven investigative procedure in an easy to follow format. Each component of the investigation process is designed to uncover leads and develop questions leading to the next component. The subsequent components support the investigator’s efforts to track leads and answer questions developed in previous components.

It is made up of six parts:

1. Investigative Case Review & Analysis
2. The Defendant Interview
3. Crime Scene Examination, Diagrams & Photography
4. Victim/Witness Background Investigations
5. Witness Interviews & Statements
6. Report of Investigation & Testifying

It's nice to have a framework for an investigation, and the role of experts is touched on as well...

The Component Method also reinforces the investigator’s role as the primary investigator in control of the course of the investigation. Utilization of resources such as forensic experts and specialists to support the primary investigator and his pursuit of the truth is also explored. In addition, the investigator’s responsibility as a thinker and strategist is discussed on an intellectual as well as practical level.

Interviewing Witnesses

Interviewing witnesses-first, hope the discovery is not completely redacted and you have some idea how to find the witnesses on your case. Once that part is done, here is a link to a great article, Interviewing Techniques: Friendly, Neutral, and Hostile Witnesses. The article discusses different techniques for interviewing all types of witnesses. At least the witnesses you can find.

Book Review: What the Best CEOs Know : 7 Exceptional Leaders and Their Lessons for Transforming any Business

In his book, What the Best CEOs Know : 7 Exceptional Leaders and Their Lessons for Transforming any Business, Jeffrey Krames encompasses in the trenches situations and how to approach them. It affirms the good things a CEO might be doing now and offers great tips for how to possibly add a bit more cutting edge. The summary of the starategies:

Michael Dell: Place the customer at the epicenter of the business model.

Jack Welch: Create an authentic learning organization.

Lou Gerstner: Focus on solutions.

Andy Grove: Prepare the organization for drastic change.

Bill Gates: Harness the intellect of every employee.

Herb Kelleher: Create a performance-driven culture.

Sam Walton: Learn from competitors, but remain faithful to the vision.

Policing the Police

From the Center for Justice Newsletter, Justice Calling:

There is an age-old adage that you can't fight City Hall.

But the question that Liz Moore, Shonto Pete, Marianne Torres, Deb Abrahamson, Teresa Torosian, Sandy Williams and others have been putting to the test this summer is whether you can have a meaningful conversation with City Hall.

The dialogue they and other community leaders (representing a wide variety of organizations) have been trying to have concerns civilian police oversight. Since at least 1992, public opinion in Spokane has been solidly in favor of having independent oversight over the Spokane Police Department when it comes to investigating complaints of excessive force. Given the troubling collapse of public confidence in the Spokane Police Department, it doesn't seem like that much to ask. Boise, Idaho, has had an independent police ombudsman for ten years and it has clearly accomplished the main objectives of improving police practices and restoring public trust in the police. In Boise.

Spokane? That's a whole other story. Actually, it's several stories and more than one is required to describe what amounts to a simmering impasse. If city leaders thought they'd placated public mistrust and anger by passing a watered-down ombudsman ordinance last fall, they badly miscalculated. And it didn't help matters when, in mid-June, city attorneys filed a response in the Otto Zehm civil case (the Center represents the Zehm family) asserting that Otto was responsible for his own death in the hands of Spokane police. Just three days later, though, the Justice Department announced that it had criminally indicted Spokane police officer Karl Thompson, Jr., alleging he assaulted Zehm and then made false statements to investigators about the incident.

You can read our account of the Thompson indictment and related developments in the Zehm case here . You can read a related sidebar feature on KREM-2 journalist Randy Shaw's revealing interview with Assistant City Attorney Rocky Trepiedi here .

You can watch the Center's Chief Catalyst, Breean Beggs, offer his frank assessment of the Zehm case and the city's responses to the indictment and related events here .

Our account of the strange and heated June 29th City Council meeting on the Ombudsman controversy and the conditional appointment of Ombudsman Timothy Burns can be read here .

In a case that has similarities to that of Otto Zehm, the Center, at the end of June, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the family of Trent Yohe, who died after an altercation with Spokane County Sheriff's deputies two years ago in the Spokane Valley. You can read about the case here .

Expert Witness in Drug Case

Located out of New Mexico, Kendal Johnson is a former DEA Agent that is available as an expert witness in drug cases. An excerpt from his expert posting:

HR Legal Consultants & Investigations will provide Expert Consulting and Expert Witness testimony in federal and state court on drug law enforcement matters with expertise in Title III authorized Wire Intercepts (wiretaps), Surveillance, Management of Undercover and Informant Operations, Criminal Enterprise Investigations and Murder and Violence in furtherance of the Criminal Enterprise, Asset Forfeiture Investigations based on Facilitation and Drug Proceeds, Complex Conspiracy Investigations, and State/Local drug seizures and resulting investigation (Interdiction Cases).

The website HG Experts has a listing for just about any type of expert witness you might need.

Interesting Article in Forbes About the Jail Crisis and How to Solve It

This interesting article on Forbes.com posted last week is worth a read. The article starts with discussion of the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, one of the largest jails in the United States. Last year, the Harris County Jail held an average of 10,000 inmates per day. Even more shocking, according to the article, is the Los Angeles County Jail which has the largest daily jail population of 19,836 in 2008. The budget costs of this type of incarceration is staggering:

Houston is far from alone. Amid budget crises, falling tax revenue and national unemployment approaching 10%, jails--usually city- or county-run holding facilities for those serving short sentences or awaiting trial--saw their populations grow nearly twice as fast as state and federal prison populations during the first half of the decade, according to a 2008 report by the Justice Policy Institute. The report says that local governments spent $97 billion on criminal justice in 2004, up 347% since 1982, while detention expenses climbed 519% to $19 billion.

The article goes on to discuss some alternatives being suggested as a means to lower pretrial costs and to lower the jail population. The National Association of Counties, for example, is calling on communities to invest more into pretrial services so that people charged with non-violent offenses who don't need to be confined can be quickly vetted for community programs and the mentally ill can get services.

Idiocy

FBI Agent Explains How To Spot Liars

Teddy Ruxpin has Gone Bad...

Thirty-three pounds of Heroin worth an estimated $30 million were seized by Drug Enforcement Administration agents over the weekend.

DEA agents say they arrested 12 suspects in the Bronx who were allegedly using Build-A-Bear stuffed toys to conceal baggies of heroine.

Investigators believe the suspects were selling hundreds of thousands of bags stamped with brand names such as "Barack Obama" and "Swine Flu."

DEA Special Agent in Charge John P. Gilbride stated, "To transport heroin, which is poison to our children, in teddy bears is an indication of how those arrested devalue the life of our children."

On Friday, a team from the DEA's New York Drug Enforcement Task Force-comprised of DEA Special Agents, New York Police Department detectives and New York State Troopers--- and Investigators from the Special Narcotics Prosecutors Office's, seized approximately $150,000 in United States currency, 15 kilos of heroin and arrested 12 defendants.

Full story here.

British Spy Chief's Cover Blown on Facebook

(Reuters) - The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain's global intelligence-gathering organization.

In what the Mail on Sunday called an "extraordinary lapse," the new spy chief's wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are.

The details could be viewed by any of the many millions of Facebook users around the world, but were swiftly removed once authorities were alerted by the newspaper's enquiries.

"There were fears that the hugely embarrassing blunder could have compromised the safety of Sir John's family and friends," the newspaper said.

Publishing the story on its front page and the pictures on a double-page spread, the Mail on Sunday said the information "could potentially be useful to hostile foreign powers or terrorists."

It was the latest in a string of security blunders, lapses and leaks by British officials that have embarrassed the government of embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Full article here.

How To Work For An Idiot

From Forbes:

Idiot bosses exist only to stomp the life out of their intellectually superior and more innovative subordinates.

This keeps many good workers up at night. Some can't figure out why their ideas are rejected and their work is denigrated. Others sink into cynicism about their careers. A few devote all their energy to plotting revenge against the dummy in the corner office.

Instead, use a little jujitsu: Turn your boss's cluelessness to your advantage. Call it idiot engineering.

The rare non-idiot boss does a genius thing: talk to employees, ask about their job and how it can be done better. Jack Welch, former head of General Electric nailed it.

Full article here.

Tips on how to deal with seven types of idiot bosses.

The Bronx Defenders

Only in the Bronx