Model Bargains Out of Jail

Former supermodel Naomi Campbell struck a deal with prosecutors that will keep her out of jail.

Originally charged with second-degree felony assault on her maid Ana Scolavino, which carries a sentence of to two to seven years in prison, Campbel pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault which carries a much lesser penalty.

Campbell admitted throwing the cell phone which struck Scolavino in the back of the head but insisted it was an accident because she did not mean to hit her.

In exchange for her plea, Campbell with pay Scolavino's medical expenses of of $363, complete five days of community service and attend a two-day anger management program.

As is said, money talks, or in this case, takes the catwalk.

Minimum Wage Opponents Missing Point

Opponents of raising the federal minimum wage cite all kinds of statistics supporting their view, as do proponents.

Guys like George Will and Rich Lowry claim the minimum wage only affects a small number of Americans, but claim that raising it will cause all kinds of economic damage to business, including causing some of them to lay off workers or go out of business altogether.

We'll let others argue those points.

But Lowry says, "The effect of the hike basically will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summers or after school."

What's wrong with that?

With the cost of college tuitions increasing dramatically every year, and the cutback of grants and loans available for students, many teens are working to help pay their way through college.

They need all the help they can get and deserve a chance to make enough money to better themselves.

The problem with guys like Will and Lowry is that they have either forgotten what it's like to struggle to get ahead, or never had to in the first place. Now they want to deny that opportunity to others.

Spring Break Plans May Include DUI Lawyer

Several of my son's friends were over the other night talking about going to California (specifically San Diego) for Spring Break, and boys being boys, they got to talking about getting rowdy.

Now they know not to drink and drive, but being young and thinking they are invincible, these boys (young men really) do not always make the right decisions.

That's when I told them it might be wise to know about a San Diego DUI Lawyer before they make the trip. So they got on the Web and found Rick Mueller, who from the looks of his Web site is a fairly competent lawyer when it comes to DUI.

He's got a victory page devoted to cases where he has saved his client's driving privileges. Let's face it, you have to be able to drive in this country, so being able to keep your driver's license is essential.

Another positive point is the page on defenses to California's DUI breath test. Pre-knowledge of one's rights is always a good thing.

Now, I don't expect these guys to get into trouble while in Sunny Southern California, but I'll sleep better knowing that if the worse happens, they'll know who to call.

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Is U.S. Mail Really Private?

The U.S. mail is not private and the government does not need a search warrant to open your mail, according to the latest signing statement by President George Bush. As defined by the Bush White House, a signing statement is something this president uses so he doesn't have to follow the law.

Why haven't the American people heard about this before now since it happened in December? Media Matters for America points out that it's because the issue was largely ignore by most of the major media outlets.

Exerpt:

On January 4, the New York Daily News reported that on December 20, President Bush attached a "signing statement" to a postal reform bill that "quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant." According to the Daily News: "That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it." ABC, CBS, and CNN have largely ignored the story, however, and ABC's Good Morning America reported that Bush "acquired new powers" and suggested that they were "included" the bill.

Have the American people become so numb to the constant law violations of the current administration that we don't care anymore? Are we really that far gone?

Inmates religious rights upheld

From Associated Press:

RICHMOND, Va. - In a ruling favorable to an inmate who sued after a Virginia prison denied his request for kosher meals, a federal appeals court on Friday upheld a federal law that protects the religious rights of incarcerated people.

The state of Virginia had challenged the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act after inmate Ira Madison complained in a 2001 lawsuit that prison officials were violating the act by denying him a kosher diet.

Virginia argued that Congress had exceeded its authority by tying compliance with the act to federal funding for prisons.

But the appellate judges rejected that argument, saying the law does not force states to change prison policies.

More on story

D.A. Facing Ethics Charges

The district attorney in the Duke sexual assault case has been hit with ethics charges by the North Carolina Bar Association.

The bar association opened an investigation of Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong last March shortly after the case began.

"It's hard for me to imagine how he can be effective as an advocate, with either the court or a future jury, when he has ethics charges pending against him ... concerning his conduct of this very same case," said Joseph Kennedy, a University of North Carolina law professor.

The North Carolina bar filed the ethics charges Thursday, accusing District Attorney Mike Nifong of violating four rules of professional conduct by making misleading and inflammatory comments about the athletes under suspicion.

Kennedy said Nifong should recuse himself, but added that the judge overseeing the case could also order his removal. The ethics charges carry penalties that range from admonishment to disbarment.

The bar said it opened a case against Nifong on March 30, a little more than two weeks after a 28-year-old woman hired to perform as a stripper at a lacrosse team party said she was gang-raped.

The rape charges against the three students were dropped earlier this month.

Live puppy OK'd for trial

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Prosecutors won the right Monday to use a live puppy in a demonstration of how another dog suffered before it was stuffed into a searing hot gas oven and killed.

Laura Janssen, the prosecutor, argued that a live demonstration would show how a real dog would react. She said her expert on dog behavior would stop short of any real cruelty.

"It helps the jury to understand," Janssen said.

The puppy pulled from the Fulton animal shelter on Tuesday would be a stand-in for one that was doused with paint, burned, hog-tied with duct tape and then died futility struggling inside a gas oven.

Two brothers, Justin and Joshua Moulder, are on trial in Fulton Superior Court for animal cruetly as well as breaking into and trashing the community center of Englewood Manor apartments in Atlanta.

Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore agreed Monday to allow the dog demonstration over the objections of defense lawyers who argued that trotting out a cute puppy would prejudice the jury.

"This is clearly just an attempt to inflame the jury," said Kevin Schumaker, the lawyer for Joshua Moulder.

Testimony resumed Monday with a series of police witnesses who kicked off the second week of the trial.

The early session witnesses included an Atlanta police supervisor, a crime scene technician and a police sergeant who were all called to the apartments Aug. 21.

They all said they found the apartment community center trashed — computers smashed, books strewn about, paint splattered around and other vandalism — as well as a small puppy that had been duct-taped and gruesomely killed inside the center's gas oven.

MORE

Supreme Court to hear arguments in latest race issue

From AP:

WASHINGTON - Pro-affirmative action demonstrators bearing "Fight For Equality" placards descended on the Supreme Court Monday as justices prepared to hear fresh arguments in cases testing when race may be used as a basis for assigning students to public schools.

Parents in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle are challenging school assignment plans that factor in a student's race in an effort to have individual school populations approximate the racial makeup of the entire system. Federal appeals courts have upheld both programs.

On the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court, several hundred of pro-affirmative action demonstrators marched in a brisk wind to dramatize their issue. A parent-teachers group from Chicago and several civil rights groups were among those sponsoring the demonstration.

Demonstrators chanted "Equal education, not segregation" and "We won't go to the back of the bus, integration is a must." Some held signs that read "Stop racism now." Among the crowd were representatives of the
National Organization for Women, the NAACP and students from Howard University.

"It's ridiculous to separate us. We worked hard to get everyone together. Why separate us now?" said Jade Johnson, 15, of Washington D.C., who attends Theodore Roosevelt Senior High School in the district. Johnson said she came to the demonstration instead of going to school.

Though outnumbered, there were some in the crowd from the other side.

"Regardless of how well-motivated, allowing the state to engineer racial mixing only creates racial stereotypes and increases racial tension," said Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm. "The court needs to put an end to state-mandated tinkering with race."

The school policies in contention are designed to keep schools from segregating along the same lines as neighborhoods. In Seattle, only high school students are affected. Louisville's plan applies systemwide.

From a NY Times editorial:

The Louisville and Seattle plans are precisely the kind of benign race-based policies that the court has long held to be constitutional. Promoting diversity in education is a compelling state interest under the equal protection clause, and these districts are using carefully considered, narrowly tailored plans to make their schools more diverse.

It is startling to see the Justice Department, which was such a strong advocate for integration in the civil rights era, urging the court to strike down the plans. Its position is at odds with so much the Bush administration claims to believe. The federal government is asking federal courts to use the Constitution to overturn educational decisions made by localities. Conservative activists should be crying “judicial activism,” but they do not seem to mind this activism with an anti-integration agenda.

If these plans are struck down, many other cities’ plans will most likely also have to be dismantled. In Brown, a unanimous court declared education critical for a child to “succeed in life” and held that equal protection does not permit it to be provided on a segregated basis. It would be tragic if the court changed directions now and began using equal protection to re-segregate the schools.

LA cops file suit over ticket quotas

As reported by the Los Angeles Police Protective League:

Los Angeles Times

By Patrick McGreevy
Times Staff Writer

A group of Los Angeles police officers in the north San Fernando Valley has filed a class- action grievance alleging that they have been improperly pressured by the command staff to meet quotas in writing traffic tickets.

The grievance was raised by the Police Protective League on behalf of 30 officers working at the Los Angeles Police Department's Devonshire Division.

Hank Hernandez, a lawyer for the union, confirmed Friday that the grievance was filed with the division because of concern that officers were facing potential harm to their careers if they failed to increase the number of tickets they wrote.

"It's an attempt to coerce and threaten officers to get them to write more tickets," Hernandez said.

And we were always told there are no quotas in writing traffic tickets.

Texas Legislators Attack Illegal Immigrants

From the New York Times:

HOUSTON, Nov. 15 — In a sign of rising passions over immigration issues, Texas lawmakers prepared for the 2007 session this week by filing a flurry of bills that would deny public assistance and other benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, tax money transfers to Mexico and the rest of Latin America and sue the federal government for the costs of state border control.

At the same time, a Dallas suburb, Farmers Branch, became the first Texas municipality to enact measures fining landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, authorizing the police to seek certification to act on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and declaring English the city’s official language.

Many of the bills are unlikely to become law, but, combined with the Farmers Branch action, they have raised questions about whether Texas, where almost a third of the population was listed as Hispanic in the 2000 census, is about to get caught up in the kinds of legal fights about illegal immigration that have occurred elsewhere.

“It’s awful,” said Brent A. Wilkes, the national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s largest and oldest Hispanic rights group. “Texas for a long time has avoided this anti-immigrant hysteria.”

We must remember this is the state that has executed women, children and the mentally challenged.

Rapist to be slapped

Another reason it's good to live in America.

Upset with a police investigation into an alleged rape of a deaf, mute woman, village elders in India took matters into their own hands.

Lacking arrest powers, the elders nonetheless found the man guilty of rape, levied a fine and sentenced him to be slapped in public 51 times.

Police say their investigation is continuing.

Curtains for 'See Clearly Method'

Vision Improvement Technologies, Inc. has been ordered by an Iowa court to pay $200,000 in consumer restitution for consumer fraud.

Exerpt:

The court order resolves a consumer fraud lawsuit filed last year by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, which alleged that the company could not substantiate claims that the "See Clearly Method" improved people's vision so much that they would no longer need glasses or contact lenses.

The "See Clearly Method" was a kit of manuals, charts, videos and audio-tapes demonstrating eye exercises and other techniques, such as focusing eyes using special charts or props, facing a bright light with eyes closed at a distance of a few inches, covering eyes with hands for sustained periods, and applying hot and cold wash cloths over closed eyes.

The company sold tens of thousands of the kits for about $350 apiece.

"The company made dramatic claims for its product that it could not substantiate," Miller said.

"They represented that consumers who used the method could quickly and easily free themselves of having to wear glasses or contact lenses. They used illegal tactics including exaggerated claims of effectiveness, false implications of scientific validity, and misleading consumer testimonials in advertising," he said.

Read Article

Law Denies Benefits to Newborns

Seems that the Deficit Reduction Act, passed last February is being used by the federal government to deny medical care to babies born to illegal immigrants, according to an article in The New York Times.

Exerpt:

Marilyn E. Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Medicaid program, said: “The federal government told us we have no latitude. All states must change their policies and practices. We will not be able to cover any services for the newborn until a Medicaid application is filed. That could be days, weeks or months after the child is born.”

About four million babies are born in the United States each year, and Medicaid pays for more than one-third of all births. The number involving illegal immigrant parents is unknown but is likely to be in the tens of thousands, health experts said.

Doctors and hospitals denounced the policy change and denied that it was required by the new law. Dr. Jay E. Berkelhamer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the policy “punishes babies who, according to the Constitution, are citizens because they were born here.”

New Jersey Considers Ban on Aluminum Bats

In an effort to cut down on the possibility of traumatic brain injuries, shattered faces and other injuries during Little League baseball games, New Jersey is considering a ban on aluminum bats.

As one would expect, bat makers, Little League officials and others are against it.

Stephen D. Keener, president and chief executive officer of Little League Baseball and Softball, said rules requiring metal bats be similar to wooden ones have cut injuries to pitchers hit by batted balls. He said Little League had 170 million at-bats last year and 22 injuries to pitchers, down from 145 in 1992.

“If this was in our opinion a safety issue, we should be leading the way on changes,” Keener said. “There is an insignificant difference between the non-wood bats that are used today and the wood bats they are tested against.”

Former major league catcher and Princeton University baseball coach Scott Bradley said banning metal bats would cut participation in youth baseball.

“I think we’re going to take a lot of opportunities and a lot of fun away,” Bradley said.

In our opinion, the prevention of a major injury to a young child is worth the ban.

Police Kill Teen with Stun Gun

From the Associated Press:

JERSEYVILLE, Ill. - A teenager carrying a Bible and shouting "I want Jesus" was shot twice with a police stun gun and later died at a St. Louis hospital, authorities said.

In a statement obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, police in Jerseyville, about 40 miles north of St. Louis, said 17-year-old Roger Holyfield would not acknowledge officers who approached him and he continued yelling, "I want Jesus."

Police tried to calm the teen, but Holyfield became combative, according to the statement. Officers fired the stun gun at him after he ignored their warnings, then fired again when he continued struggling, police said.

Holyfield was flown to St. Louis' Cardinal Glennon Hospital after the confrontation Saturday; he died there Sunday, police said.

Florida executes serial killer

Florida seems to have more than its fair share of executions and serial killers.

Yesterday, they executed Danny Harold Rolling, who was convicted of killing, sexually assaulting and mutilating the bodies of five college students in Gainesville in August 1990.

Read the story.

24, That's How Long

Update to yesterday's post:

Jeffrey K. Skilling, former Enron CEO sentenced to 24 years in prison

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.

Former Enron CEO to find out how long

Ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling will find out today just how long he will have to spend in prison for his part in the financial collapse of Enron.

Ken Lay showed him a way out:

His co-defendant, Enron founder Kenneth Lay, died from heart disease on July 5. Lay's convictions on 10 counts of fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks in two separate cases were wiped out with his death.

Hmmmm......

Seven guilty pleas in corpse scheme

Seven funeral home directors secretly entered guilty pleas in a plot to steal tissue and organs from corpses to sell to biomedical companies, according to prosecutors in Brooklyn, NY.

Neither the charges nor their names were released. They are cooperating in the investigation.

Exerpt:

The seven entered their pleas in closed courtrooms and their names were withheld, but defense attorneys said that among those cooperating was the director of a funeral home that took parts from the body of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004.

The four original defendants in the case pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to enterprise corruption, body stealing and other charges in the new indictment. If convicted, they face up to 25 years in prison. All remain free on bail.

Prosecutors allege Michael Mastromarino, owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., and three other men secretly removed skin, bone and other parts from up to 1,000 bodies from funeral homes, without the permission of families. They have accused the former oral surgeon of making millions of dollars by selling the stolen tissue to biomedical companies that supply material for common procedures including dental implants and hip replacements.