Like a good neighbor, Donald Blondin was there. When Sgt. Jeff Shelton of the Snohomish, Washington, Police Department was dispatched to deal with an elderly man, Jack Hawes, who was trying to commit suicide, he was told that Jack had guns.

Shelton found Jack in his car trying to asphyxiate himself, and ordered the old man out. He complied, but failed to show his hands upon command.  So they tased Jack, who fell to the ground, then tased him again while cops piled on. Continue reading →

If the question was posed to a first year criminal law class in law school, one would expect every hand in the class to shoot up, with more than a few making those weird noises that suggest the need for a diet rich in probiotics.  Anyone with their head down has no business expecting to make it to 2L.

From the summary of the 9th Circuit in Dow v. Virga, opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt:

During trial, a detective testified that Dow, rather than his attorney, requested that each of the participants in a lineup wear a bandage under his right eye at the location at which petitioner had a small scar under his; the attorney made this request out of concern that the witness might falsely identify petitioner Continue reading →

When an unnamed DeKalb County, Georgia, police officer saw 16-year-old Marquez Redden running, what was he to think?  Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Police were called to a home in the 2600 block of Streamside Court. A woman who had barricaded herself inside said invaders had broken into her home.

Two alleged burglars were found in the attic, police said. The officers believed as many as two more possible suspects got away, police said. Continue reading →

At the end of my driveway, there is a sign that says “private.” I despise people driving up to the house unannounced and uninvited. I like my privacy, the quiet of the birds and critters. And yet, people routinely ignore the sign.  If I’m around, I greet them unpleasantly, asking why they thought the sign didn’t apply to them.

At Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr raised a very interesting question following on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in Florida v. Jardines, where the Court “indicated that a police officer’s right to walk up to a front door of a person’s home Continue reading →

At A Public Defender, Gideon writes about the lessons he takes from the story told by a first-time criminal juror, Gerald Walker. Walker offers two posts, the first about his experience up to the point of selection, and the second about the trial and deliberations.  Aside from the minor factual inaccuracies of the account (neither 100 nor 111 Centre Street are brick buildings), which can be ignored as literary license, Walker’s account is as revealing in what he doesn’t get as what he does.

Gideon writes about Walker’s perceptions:

Gerry walked into the courthouse somewhat of an idealist and instead left fully aware the system works not on grand notions of truth and justice but rather on the individual perceptions and agendas of everyone with a dog in the fight – and mostly those who don’t have one: jurors. Continue reading →

Among the many lessons Rachel Rodgers has refused to learn, embracing Jay-Z as her ethical muse, in her perky zeal to make promote herself, keeping her personal information private is the newest casualty.  I keep thinking to myself as someone sends me a link to her newest cool promotion that I really don’t want to waste any more time writing about Rachel, but then she manages to come up with something new that compels scrutiny. And boy, did she do so this time.

I share these with you because I wanted to know numbers back when I was starting my virtual law office and they weren’t available. I figure you might find this helpful when deciding whether you want to launch your own. Continue reading →

It was less than a week ago that 6th Circuit Judge John Rogers wrote that the specialty of an Oak Ridge emergency room doc, Michael LaPaglia, sanitized for the opinion as digital rectal insertion at the command of police and for whatever personal reasons may have popped up, was over.  Perhaps LaPaglia took the decision hard, just as he took the order to insert his fingers into the rectums of captive suspects to heart.

Via Knox News:

An Oak Ridge physician named in a federal lawsuit over an invasive rectal examination has been arrested on drugs and weapons charges following a domestic dispute at his Knoxville home. Continue reading →

James Weyant, a 46-year-old with underwear issues, was shot when confronted by an Altoona, Pennsylvania, police officer in an alley at about four in the morning.  It seems Weyant was carrying his pair of guitar hero boxers in his hand because the waist band had stretched some and they no longer stayed put.  The officer, Mark Sprouse, mistook the underpants for a gun and shot Weyant.

Blair County District Attorney Richard A. Consiglio said in June that Sprouse was investigating the “suspicious actions of a civilian in a dark alley” when the officer was confronted by a man holding black underwear that appeared at the time to be a weapon. Continue reading →

Amanda Ripley’s book, The Smartest Kids in the World, and how they got that way, shook the American educational academy to its core because, as it turned out, she wasn’t talking about our kids. As Daniel Willingham explains in his review of the book:

Ripley sets out to tell the education success stories of three countries: Finland and South Korea (whose 15 year olds score very high on the PISA test) and Poland (offered as an example of a country in transition, and making significant progress).

What’s Ripley’s answer to the subtitle? Continue reading →

While the NSA may be good to sell a few t-shirts, it’s small-time.  If you want somebody who knows how to really intrude into your privacy, meet AT&T.  Can you hear me now?  From the New York Times:

The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant. Continue reading →