“The New York Police Department is trying to give back about 6,000 cars that were confiscated in the last five years or so from suspects in drunken driving and other criminal cases, city officials said yesterday.” The city’s practice of seizing vehicles in the absence of any finding of guilt — and sometimes notwithstanding actual acquittals of the drivers (see Jan. 31, 2000 and links from there) — fared badly before judges. Among those who deserve credit for correcting the abuses are federal judge Michael Mukasey, who handed down rulings chastising the city for its failure to observe due process, and Tom O’Brien, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society who filed the original challenge in 1999. (Susan Saulny, “City Police Giving Back Seized Cars”, New York Times, Mar. 9)(via Vice Squad)(more on forfeiture/seizure: Mar. 19-20, 2001; May 25, 2000; Jul. 21, 1999).
Posts Tagged ‘crime and punishment’
Traffic-cams vs. motorist safety
Beware contingency-fee law enforcement: Radley Balko (Mar. 4) has an update on the controversial ticketing machines discussed in our posts of Sept. 6, 2001, Apr. 8-9, 2002 and Apr. 19-21, 2002.
If the doorbell rings…
…and a team of federal investigators is standing there, just tell them: “I’m not talking to you”. Such may be the basic lesson of Martha Stewart’s conviction, various observers seem to think. See Steve Bainbridge (Mar. 8, Mar. 6 (& scroll down)); Eugene Volokh; Tung Yin; Instapundit. For earlier coverage, see Jan. 27, Oct. 14 and links from there.
Light sentence for false accusers
Following up on our Feb. 24 report: “Three 12-year-old girls whose lies put an innocent man in jail for eight months pleaded guilty Thursday and were sentenced to Juvenile Hall and community service. Two of the girls must each serve 45 days and the third must serve 30 — the shorter sentence granted because she was considered less culpable, her lawyer said after the closed-door Orange County Juvenile Court hearing. The girls have already served most of their time while waiting in custody since their arrest Feb. 9. … The Orange County district attorney’s office had pressed for the Garden Grove girls to serve eight months and 13 days on criminal conspiracy charges, one day more than 36-year-old drifter Eric Nordmark was incarcerated.” (Claire Luna, “Girls Given Sentences for Lying”, Los Angeles Times, Mar. 5)
Foiled our son’s school-shooting plan? We’ll sue
This February, Sacramento and Elk Grove police arrested two 15-year-olds who were allegedly planning a Columbine-style attack at their high school. After a tip from a fellow student, they found evidence that the two had attempted to burglarize a sporting goods store for weapons, and one of the them had admitted to his father and others that he intended to shoot black students.
They’ve been rewarded with a $6 million claim that is the precursor to a lawsuit. The school district is being blamed for failing to provide adequate counseling in advance of the incident, and the Sacramento police are being sued for their comments on the case. “Either the police and now the DA have made a mistake on the hate-crime motivation, or the minor is lying to his parents and to me,” the lawyer, J. Jeffries Goodwin of the law firm California Fen-Phen Litigation Associates, explained. (Ramon Coronado and Gwendolyn Crump, “Accused student is called victim”, Sacramento Bee, Feb. 19; Ramon Coronado, “Students face racial charges”, Sacramento Bee, Mar. 2; Sam Stanton, Emily Bazar and Michael Kolber, “Plan to attack school alleged”, Sacramento Bee, Feb. 11) (via Jacobs).
U.K.: “Union tells teachers to end all school trips”
Britain’s “second biggest teaching union advised its 223,000 members yesterday to stop taking children on school trips because ‘society no longer appears to accept the concept of a genuine accident’.” Members of the NASUWT union have been blamed, and in one instance sentenced to a prison term, after students drowned on outings in two separate incidents. “Because of growing allegations of abuse, the union has also advised members not to give children a lift in their own vehicles, not to place themselves in a ‘one-to-one situation’ with a child and not to drive a minibus on an educational visit.” The largest British teacher’s union, NUT, disagrees with NASUWT’s stand and says it continues to view field trips as essential. (John Clare, Daily Telegraph, Feb. 19).
Lurid murder trial
According to Susan Wright’s attorney in her Houston murder trial, her husband Jeffrey pulled a knife on her, she wrestled it away from him, and killed him in self-defense. Unfortunately for this theory, the medical examiner testified that the autopsy shows that Mr. Wright was stabbed more than 200 times while his arms and legs were tied down to the bed; melted candle wax was also found on the body. (The defense admits that Ms. Wright tied her husband’s arms to the bed with neckties, but says this happened in the midst of the stabbing.) Ms. Wright’s attorney explains that the former topless dancer’s painting and bleaching the bedroom, dismantling of the bed, and burying the body underneath the backyard patio (before it was unearthed by the family dog), was a reflection of “post-traumatic stress syndrome”; it’s not clear if he also claims this for Ms. Wright’s application for money from the state crime victim’s compensation fund two days after the killing. (Andrew Tilghman, “Doctor: Man tied down in Wright attack”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 27; KHOU, Feb. 27; Andrew Tilghman, “Wright jury hears 2 sides of `terror'”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 26; Andrew Tilghman, “Jury selected for woman’s murder trial”, Feb. 25; KHOU, Feb. 24; video of courtroom reenactment) (via Daily Legal Newswire).
March 5 Update: Guilty. (Andrew Tilghman, “Wright gets 25 years in prison for murder,” Houston Chronicle, Mar. 4).
Karma ran into her dogma
“Wisconsin’s state Attorney General [Peg Lautenschlager], who pushed hard for a .08 BAC limit in the state, was arrested for drunken driving Monday night. We don’t know what her BAC was, because she refused to take a breath test (by the nature of the accident, I’d guess it was far higher than .10). Wisconsin is one of 37 states to adopt a measure championed by MADD that’s truly one of the most hysterical drunk driving laws on the books — the state actually imposes a harsher sentence for refusing to take a roadside breath test than it does for taking one and failing it.” (Radley Balko, Feb. 25) See Phil Brinkman, “Lautenschlager gives emotional apology, takes no questions”, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 27; Steven Elbow, “AG cited in drunk driving”, Capitol Times (Madison), Feb. 24 (in 1981, state’s then-AG was picked up driving with BAC above legal limit; was easily re-elected the next year); Elbow, “AG’s alcohol level was 0.12”, Feb. 25.
False accusations? Just a phase they’re going through
Three Garden Grove, Calif. schoolgirls, worried about having to explain getting home late after school, concoct a tale about being assaulted by a man in a park. 36-year-old drifter Eric Nordmark is arrested and thrown in jail where, after the girls tell various colorful lies, he spends more than half a year, planning to commit suicide if he is convicted. Then the girls’ story falls apart, and the principal accuser admits the attack never occurred. (L.A. Times coverage: H.G. Reza and Joel Rubin, “Young Accusers Arrested, Led From School in Cuffs”, Feb. 10; Christine Hanley and Joel Rubin, “No Jail Time Expected for 3 O.C. Girls”, Feb. 11; “2 Preteen Accusers to Stay in Custody”, Feb. 12; H.G. Reza, Christine Hanley and James Ricci, “Drifter Jailed on Girls’ Lies Set Course of Desperation”, Feb. 23). Curmudgeonly Clerk (Feb. 12) writes that “some of the reactions reported in the aftermath of this event simply take my breath away”. Such as? Quoting the Los Angeles Times: “Attorneys Lee [Patti Lee, the managing attorney in the juvenile division of the public defender’s office in San Francisco] and Earley [Jack Earley, an Orange County defense attorney and president of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice] said the girls may not be guilty of anything more than being immature, and simply doing what a lot of kids their age do when they get in trouble: lie to get out of it. ‘It sounds like an adolescent tale gone awry,’ Lee said.” Historical echoes: Tawana Brawley (whose best-known advocate, lest we need reminding, is still running for president); and the English folk song “Fanny Blair” (text and tune with MIDI; background at Musical Traditions site)
Another idea: don’t accept rides from fugitives
In September 1997, Evanston, Ill. police sought to arrest Tracy Parham, who was wanted on charges including theft and narcotics. Parham led them on a high-speed chase that ended when he crashed his sport-utility vehicle into a building. Two teenagers in the back seat of Parham’s SUV were injured and sued the city of Evanston. In 2002 a jury awarded one of the teenagers, Salonica Prado, $11 million, in a verdict now on appeal; the other passenger’s suit is pending. Evanston says the verdict is likely to cut into the city’s services budget and that it may dip into the proceeds of a $9 million bond issuance to pay that and other lawsuit payouts. (Manya A. Brachear, “Lawsuits adding up, Evanston officials say”, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 18). Richard Ryan, attorney for Evanston, “said he felt frustrated because the jury had not been allowed to hear much of the City’s evidence.” (Mary Gavin and Alan Worley, “City Zapped with $11 Million Judgment in Lawsuit over Car Chase”, Evanston RoundTable, Jun. 19, 2002).