Legal News Update
[Guest post by DRJ]
It’s a big day for law-related news:
The Supreme Court will hear cases on lethal injections and Voter IDs.
A blogger described as an “election law vigilante” has filed an FEC complaint in connection with Rudy Giuliani’s discounted NY Times’ ad.
Michael Vick and 3 others have been indicted on Virginia charges for “beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs and engaging in or promoting dogfighting,” but were not indicted on more serious animal cruelty charges.
Finally, Houston, Texas, homicides have declined 14% during the past 9 months, which “corresponds with a continuing decline in the number of [Katrina] evacuees living in apartment complexes where much of last year’s violent crime was concentrated.” In New Orleans, homicides are up 14% in the past 6 months.
— DRJ
That right there composes a DAMNING set of statistics…
Scott Jacobs (425810) — 9/25/2007 @ 11:05 amSo the next Kurt Russel movie has a title; Escape from LA!
Techie (c003f1) — 9/25/2007 @ 11:45 amWasn’t Lane Hudson the shady Democrat operative who was involved in leaking the Foley e-mails to the public last year instead of turning them over to the authorities?
daleyrocks (906622) — 9/25/2007 @ 11:46 amI wish Sharpton/Jackson would address Houston/New Orleans statistics.
Tregg Wright (aaab81) — 9/25/2007 @ 11:55 amMuch as I dislike what Vick did, the indictments in Virginia are classic CYA piling on. This is the same legal system that would not execute a warrant to search the property, and where a sheriff said something to the effect of he doesn’t understand why the Feds are getting involved – nothing really happened.
great unknown (d671ab) — 9/25/2007 @ 12:06 pmHardly.
Fed charges often lead to state charges…
Scott Jacobs (425810) — 9/25/2007 @ 12:09 pmIF the facts given in the great unknown post #5 are true, it would be a case of federal charges forcing state charges rather than leading to them. If the local authorities knew about the dog fighting enterprise in their midst and did nothing about it (so as not to embarrass the great Michael Vick or because they don’t consider dog fighting a real crime)it must have been quite a shock to have the feds show up acting interested in it. They’d have to do something to cover their posterior portions – with the voters at least.
quasimodo (edc74e) — 9/25/2007 @ 12:32 pmRe: Michael Vick Fed and State charges – someone explain how the state gets around the double jeopardy clause. The fifth admendment says that an individual can’t be tried for the “Same Offense” – granted the statutes he is being prosecuted under are separate statutes, one a fed statute and one a state statute. I can partially understand in Vicks case since there were multiple events, ie the criminal activity occured on numerous multiple days. Compare and contrast with the rodney king beating whereby the the police officers were tried under both fed and state statutes for one single event/offense. Does the bill of rights only extend partially to the states? I will let the constitutional experts explain.
joe - dallas (0388d7) — 9/25/2007 @ 1:32 pmjoe – dallas, the double jeopardy clause has long been interpreted as meaning that one can’t be tried twice by the same soverignty ie., can’t be tried twice by the Federal judiciary, or twice by a state judiciary, for the same offense. So Federal and state prosecutions for the same criminal acts are permitted under that interpretation.
This was really less of an issue in the past, when few crimes were “federalized” and fewer crimes crossed state boundaries.
SPQR (6c18fd) — 9/25/2007 @ 2:15 pmNew crime novel: “The 14% Solution.”
Patricia (4117a9) — 9/25/2007 @ 3:34 pmSPQR – thanks for the interpretation – However, while I see how the different “soverignties” get to prosecute for the “same offense” – yet I dont understand the legal rationale on how to get around the plain meaning of the “double jeorpardy clause” of the fifth admendment.
joe - dallas (0388d7) — 9/25/2007 @ 3:56 pmJoe-Dallas,
You’re right to wonder about double jeopardy, and it’s not an easy concept for lawyers or laymen. This earlier Patterico post might be helpful.
DRJ (ec59b5) — 9/25/2007 @ 4:07 pmRe: Double Jeopardy
Another Drew (8018ee) — 9/25/2007 @ 4:23 pmSince SCOTUS extended the Bill of Rights to the States, has anyone challenged this practice?
If not, it would seem to be an area ripe for the picking by the Defense/ACLU Bar.
Voters in the state of Hawaii have been required to present photo IDs in order to vote for as long as I can remember, maybe 30 or 35 years, and nobody gives it a second thought. I’ve never heard of anyone here complaining that it’s an unreasonable burden that keeps poor people from voting, and I can assure you we have some very poor neighborhoods. At one election, when I served as a precinct official and checked people in to sign the voter registration book, I occasionally noticed that the street address on the photo ID (usually a driver’s license) was outside our district. However, we did not check to see whether these people were voting illegally in the wrong polling place nor did we ask whether the address on the ID was correct. It could have been a business address or a post office mail box and entirely legitimate. We merely verified that the picture and name on the ID matched the appearance and name of the person who was signing in to vote. Basically, everyone considered it no big deal.
Iapetus (ea6f31) — 9/25/2007 @ 9:18 pmI saw that coming (the complaint against Guiliani.)
And justified too according to the law.
Christoph (92b8f7) — 9/25/2007 @ 9:38 pmHello, very nice site, keep up good job!
Stasigr (0552d6) — 10/30/2007 @ 2:34 pmAdmin good, very good.
Hello, very nice site, keep up good job!
Stasigrii (0552d6) — 11/4/2007 @ 3:58 amAdmin good, very good.