"...It appears that what Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Republican Party, the Republican Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a guy who used his 2nd amendment right to try and stop an oppressive government. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of American government; big government, high taxes, governemnt spending, more and more regulations, communism, socialism, nazism, liberals.

Four cops shot.

Cops shot in police station

And when his plane blows up?? Is he going to sue the terrorists?

He was a Navy SEAL. He'll just snap their necks.

He'll just tell them, "I ain't got time to bleed".

TAMPA, Florida — The wife of a military officer shot and killed her son on the way to soccer practice, then drove to their upscale home and shot her daughter in the head while she studied at her computer, police said Friday. Afterward, the woman told detectives she killed the teens for being "mouthy."

Julie Powers Schenecker admitted the slayings after officers found her covered in blood on the back porch of her home Friday morning, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. Schenecker's mother had called police from Texas because she was unable to reach the 50-year-old woman, who she said was depressed and had been complaining about her children.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41319561/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

How awful. The article mentions that she was in a serious car accident a month ago. Could she have suffered a brain injury? I can't imagine any other way a mother could so cold-bloodedly murder their children.

Video of Police Station shootout

Plot to blow up Dearborn mosque foiled by tip to police
Man arrested in Dearborn served time for threats against Bush
Jennifer Chambers and Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News
Dearborn — A decorated Army veteran accused of plotting to blow up a Metro Detroit mosque served time in federal prison for threatening to kill President George W. Bush and bomb a Vermont veterans' clinic in 2002.

Roger Stockham, 63, who flew 600 combat helicopter missions in Vietnam, is behind bars in Michigan after he drove from his home in California last week and parked a car with a trunk full of explosives outside the Islamic Center of America, authorities said.

Acting on a tip, Dearborn police thwarted the alleged plot by arresting Stockham outside the sprawling religious center, one of the largest mosques in North America. At the time, 500 members were attending a funeral at the mosque.

Stockham had high-end fireworks outside the 70,000-square-foot mosque, which has a 150-foot dome height and 10-story-tall minarets, said Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr.

"The kind that are illegal here and if used in a building would cause tremendous harm," O'Reilly said Sunday..
Full Article

Unfortunately some police are bullies. Once it was determined no crime was being committed they should have left the house. Sadly they got in a p****g match with the man and were not going to leave until they found a reason to assault him and arrest him. So it goes. Of course if my cheating wife had called the police because I wouldn't give her back her cell phone I rather think after I got out of jail and the hospital I might be looking for a new wife.
Audio Recording may overturn conviction

Can you beleive this? He will never learn.

Updated Feb 14, 2011 3:03 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)
Former Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter, whose NFL career was derailed by a gambling addiction, was charged Monday with stealing more than $1 million from a 68-year-old woman in suburban Columbus.

Schlichter has offered to cooperate with an ongoing police investigation into the sale of Ohio State football tickets and 2011 Super Bowl tickets, according to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, who didn't provide details on how the theft charge was related to the ticket investigation.

msnbc.com and NBC News updated 2/25/2011 7:46:51 PM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida authorities say a 26-year-old man raped a 2-year-old girl at SeaWorld Orlando and saved pictures of the crime on his cell phone, local media reported Friday.

Michael Grzybowicz of Cocoa Beach, Fla., has been held without bail in the Brevard County Jail since Saturday, Orange County sheriff's deputies said.

Grzybowicz is accused of raping the child on Feb. 17 after her mother had asked him to briefly watch the toddler inside the theme park, according to Orlando TV station WESH.

Pictures of the alleged rape were found on Grzybowicz’ phone and sent to his e-mail account, the sheriff's office said.

Sounds like something that would happen in this part of Arizona.

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, has ruled that the incredibly offensive protest staged by Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church at the Kansas funeral of Matthew Snyder – a marine killed in Iraq – was a legitimate exercise of free speech.

In 2007, Matthew’s father, Albert Snyder, sued Westboro Church, and its leader, for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy after Westboro members picketed the funeral with signs expressing slogans such as ”Thank God for dead soldiers,” “You’re Going to Hell,” “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

SC Decision

Dying Man's ID of Killer Is Admissable, Court Rules
(CN) - Michigan prosecutors were allowed to use a dying man's last words in which he identified his attacker in a murder trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 6-2, on Monday. In a sharp dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision leaves the constitutional Confrontation Clause "in a shambles" and demeans the court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the court's majority opinion, which reverses the finding of the Michigan Supreme Court that the identification amounted to inadmissible testimony.

Detroit police spoke with the victim, Anthony Covington, as he lay on the ground of a gas station parking lot, dying of a gunshot wound to his abdomen in April 2001. Covington told police that he was shot after having a conversation with "Rick" through the back door of Rick's house. He drove to the gas station after he was shot through the door while leaving the property, Covington had said.

SC Decision on Admissible Testimony

As long as the victim was of sane mind, I don't understand how the dying man's statement would NOT be admissible. I don't see justification for throwing it out? If I were dying from a gunshot and let it be known who did it, I would like to think it would matter.



TIS

Perhaps the actual legal experts can chime in but my understanding is that it's (or rather it WAS) problematic to allow that into the courtroom because the accused can no longer challenge his/her accuser.

And, from what I know of our legal system, perhaps it's because the Accuser can't be cross-examined. Still, to think it just doesn't matter seems unfair.

TIS

Well, deathbed confessions have been admissable for decades. However, such a confession is not automatically admissable. Its admissability must be adjudicated. It's apparently the same for assailant identification. The "confrontation" clause of the Constitution (like most of the Constitution's clauses) have been qualified in our Nation's 200+ years of history. Just to illustrate, one can be convicted of murder without producing a body. In the extreme, a defendant could argue that the absence of a body precludes the defense from confronting the facts associated with the corpse.

The trial of James Ray, the spiritual guru involved in the sweatlodge deaths, opened yesterday in this county. It's being televised. His attorneys are claiming that Ray wasn't negligent int he deaths--the deaths and illnesses were caused by "toxins" in the wood and stones used to heat up the sweatlodge.

A Dodge County mother and father have pleaded guilty in connection with charges that they traded sex with their 14-year-old daughter for monthly payments on the family minivan.

Sandra Davis, 37, of Dodge County, pleaded guilty to child molestation in Dodge County Superior Court on Monday and was sentenced to eight years in prison, Oconee Circuit District Attorney Timothy Vaughn said.

She also must serve 12 years on probation.

Although Davis didn’t physically abuse her daughter, she admitted trading sex with her for the van payments, Vaughn said.

The girl’s father, 39-year-old James Clarence Davis, and 67-year-old Robert Wayne Bearden, pleaded guilty to child molestation and were sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years on probation, Vaughn said.

Dodge County sheriff’s investigators have said the girl’s parents made her perform “sexual favors” for Bearden, who was manager of Shorty’s Used Cars in Eastman in 2010, so they wouldn’t have to make the $281 payments on their 1998 Dodge Caravan.

The girl, now 16, spoke at the sentencing hearing...
Parents sell daughter's services

I swear, I just threw up after reading that, Lilo. I've heard of addicts trading their children for drugs, but cold-blooded and sober?? I'm sure they'll find out what sexual molestation feels like shortly, but that's not enough justice.

God bless that poor child and help her heal. The only good to come out of this is that they can't contact her until she's in her 30s, at which point they'll hopefully never be able to find her.

The trial of James Ray, accused of manslaughter in the infamous sweat lodge deaths in Sedona last year, is being held here. So far the prosecution is painting a picture of a man who was utterly without any concern for health and well-being of his "samuri's." Defense is trying to maintain that everyone had free choice, and could have left if they wanted. Prosecution counters that Ray's total command over his accolytes intimidated them into endangering themselves. We'll see.

BY BRIAN McCOLLUM
DETROIT FREE PRESS POP MUSIC WRITER

The Supreme Court has quietly handed a major victory to Eminem in a much-watched case involving online royalties.

In a triumph for the Detroit star and his former production company, the court today declined to hear an appeal filed by Universal Music Group in a dispute over payments for downloaded tracks and ringtones.

The court let stand an appeals-court ruling against the record company — the world’s biggest — and set the stage for a potentially massive payout to the rapper and Ferndale’s F.B.T. Productions.

“For us, this is probably a $40 million to $50 million issue,” said Joel Martin of F.B.T., which filed the lawsuit in 2007. “Every artist who has this sort of language in their contract is now going to go back to their record company and say, ‘OK, so what do you want to do about (download royalties)?’”

F.B.T. administered Eminem’s deal with Universal in 1998, on the cusp of the MP3 revolution, and still has royalty rights in his work. The firm, which includes the well-known brother team Jeff and Mark Bass, has shared the rapper’s recording contract for some of the best-selling releases of the modern era, including albums such as “The Marshall Mathers LP” and last year’s “Recovery.”

Eminem was not a direct party in the suit, and has not publicly commented on it.

The Supreme Court has sent the case back to a trial court to determine damages. If Universal and F.B.T. cannot settle on a figure, a judge or a jury would decide what is owed.

At issue was the royalty rate for tracks distributed via online services such as iTunes. Universal claimed it owed F.B.T. the same royalty it paid for physical sales: 18% of the suggested retail price.

Eminem’s team argued that because Universal’s online agreements are actually licensing situations, not unit sales, a different type of calculation should kick in: 50% of net revenue. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in September, reversing an earlier jury decision.

There has been sharp disagreement about the ruling’s broader impact.

Universal and some industry observers have said it will have few ramifications beyond Eminem. Most current hit artists already have contracts that explicitly spell out download royalties, and many other deals have been reworked in recent years.

In a statement today, Universal spokesman Peter Lofrumento said: “The case has always been about one agreement with very unique language. As it has been made clear during this case, the ruling has no bearing on any other recording agreement and does not create any legal precedent.”

But other experts have said the ruling will have profound effects on an industry that has already seen massive upheaval in the past decade. With the Supreme Court’s tacit endorsement in hand, artists with older deals may feel empowered to attain higher payments for download sales.

That might include Motown performers seeking to address their royalty rates with Universal, parent company of Motown Records, guided by the same arguments that worked for Eminem.

“We’ve been waiting for this from the Supreme Court, but we’ve been talking with the artists about it, and they’ve been very interested,” said Billy Wilson of the Motown Alumni Association, which had filed an amicus brief in the case. “And it’s not just Motown artists, but many others in the same situation, who now have the same opportunity to renegotiate their contracts — and renegotiate the structure of the music industry, really.”

Royalities Ruling

When I was draft eligible during the Vietnam war, I got it into my tiny little head that the draft was unconstitutional because it constituted "involuntary servitude," banned by the 13th Amendment. I asked all my lawyer and law school acquaintances about it, not realizing how specialized the practice of law is--and how few specialize in constitutional law. I got interesting answers: Constitution gives Congress power to raise and maintain armies; President is Commander in Chief; 13th Amendment applied to "Negro slavery," not Selective Service, etc. Finally figured out, many years later, that I should have been looking at the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment. Selective Service had "due process" because you could appeal your classification--to your local board, to a larger board or to the President.

But, an underlying issue was: a man was a civilian until the moment he took the step forward at induction, yet Selective Service was run by the Defense Department and imposed military legal procedures on civilians. Most lawyers at the time didn't want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. Muhammed Ali's law team won a major victory for civilian law when the Supreme Court overturned his draft-dodging conviction.

TB, my understanding is that SS is a civilian operation whose director is selected by the President.

I'm a little late to this thread, but the Federal Rules of Evidence, as well as the evidentiary rules of the states, preclude hearsay testimony in order to serve, in part, the interests of the confrontation clause. However, there are dozens of specified exceptions to the hearsay rule, which allow the testimony to be admitted. Among them is the dying declaration. Essentially, the declarant must have presence of mind that he is about to die; the statement must be related to his pending death; and he must die.

The reasoning is that someone facing certain death would not lie about the circumstances that brought about his death. The statement, like all others in a jury trial, must be judged by the jury. A dying man, who utters, "Geoff just shot me," gets the statement admitted in the murder trial against Geoff. If he said, "Geoff robbed the First National Bank in Trenton," under the same circumstances, then the statement is precluded as inadmissable hearsay against Geoff in the robbery trial. In the latter case the probative value of the utterance is less reliable than that of the former.

Thanks Kly! I guess that makes sense. Just a thought... How awful if someone is so cold or wants to frame someone so badly that they lie as they die.

TIS