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masterofd1saster · 5 months

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CJ current events 18jan24

Weird English case

Three men were acquitted of stabbing a man to death after a jury forewoman made a "mistake" in a £1million trial. Brothers Paul and Matthew Yusuff and their friend Moussa Traore were initially found not guilty over the death of 32-year-old Adrian Keise in October 2022. Keise's family left were tearful and shaken after leaving court on Wednesday. The jury, which was reduced from 12 to 11 following a death before Christmas, deliberated for 10 hours and 46 minutes when the court assembled for what many anticipated would be a clear majority verdict. However, the jury forewoman was twice asked if verdicts had been reached. The defendants, all from south London, were initially found not guilty. Judge Charles Gratwicke, who came out of retirement to hear the case, reassembled the court shortly after the jury was discharged. He received a jury note indicating a "mistake" had been made. The decision to recall the jury and question the forewoman was opposed by defence barristers. However, Judge Gratwicke asked if she had made a "mistake" when she said the jury had reached unanimous verdicts.*** [They eventually] found Paul Yusuff not guilty of possessing a blade or point. Jurors were unable to agree on verdicts in relation to two other charges.*** CCTV footage from the incident allegedly showed the three defendants surrounding the victim. https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-news-knife-crime-old-bailey-jury-adrian-keise

Very different in America. SCt has said

It has been half a century since we first recognized that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial following a court-decreed acquittal, even if the acquittal is “based upon an egregiously erroneous foundation.” *** A mistakenacquittal is an acquittal nonetheless, and we have long held that “[a] verdict of acquittal ... could not be reviewed, on error or otherwise, without putting [a defendant] twice in jeopardy, and thereby violating the Constitution.” *** Our cases have applied Fong Foo 's principle broadly. An acquittal is unreviewable whether a judge directs a jury to return a verdict of acquittal, ***or forgoes that formality by entering a judgment of acquittal herself. **** And an acquittal precludes retrial even if it is premised upon an erroneous decision to exclude evidence, ***; a mistaken understanding of what evidence would suffice to sustain a conviction, ***; or a “misconstruction of the statute” defining the requirements to convict, ***. In all these circumstances, “the fact that the acquittal may result from erroneous evidentiary rulings or erroneous interpretations of governing legal principles affects the accuracy of that determination, but it does not alter its essential character.” Evans v. Michigan, 568 U.S. 313, 318 (2013)

The Court is currently considering a bizarre case from Georgia in which the jury's conviction on one count was inconsistent with the acquittal on the other count. Based on that, the trial court vacated the verdicts and ordered a new trial on both charges.. McElrath v. Georgia, No. 22-721 was argued Nov. 28, 2023. The decision could come any day now.

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Weirder English case

Police are investigating the first case of rape in the metaverse after a child was 'attacked' in a virtual reality video game. The girl under the age of 16 is said to have been left distraught after her avatar – her digital character – was gang raped by the online strangers. The headset-wearing victim did not suffer any injuries as there was no physical attack. But officers said she suffered the same psychological and emotional trauma as someone who has been raped in the real world as the 'VR' experience is designed to be completely immersive. It is thought to be the first time in the UK that a virtual sexual offence has been investigated by police. *** https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12917329/Police-launch-investigation-kind-virtual-rape-metaverse.html

Pedoverse, anyone?

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Who never learns?

DENVER (KDVR) — Details are emerging about a 37-year-old man who police say hit and killed a mother and son near Broomfield High School on Dec. 12, 2023. Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas is facing charges of vehicular homicide, driving under the influence and aggravated habitual offender driving with a revoked license after he allegedly hit a vehicle with Melissa Powell, 47, and her son, Riordan Powell, 16, at an estimated speed of 100 miles per hour. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told FOX31 that Menjivar, an El Salvador citizen, had been removed from the U.S. four times before the deadly crash. The agency said Menjivar “first entered the country at an unknown time and place without inspection by an immigration official.” The agency further shared that an immigration judge issued a final order of removal on April 14, 2009. Menjivar was removed from the U.S. in June 2009, June 2012, November 2014 and January 2015.*** According to Colorado court records, Menjivar has four convictions from Boulder County for alcohol-related driving offenses. These are Aug. 4, 2007, Dec. 7, 2016, and May 7, 2019, for driving while impaired and Sept. 16, 2007, for driving while under the influence of alcohol. According to the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, Menjivar pled guilty to three separate cases involving impaired driving. The Boulder DA’s Office said one of the office’s prosecutors argued on Dec. 8, before the deadly Dec. 12 crash, that Menjivar should be sentenced immediately to serve one year in jail because he could be a danger to the community. Instead, the judge ordered 365 days of work release, with two years of probation, at the December hearing.*** https://kdvr.com/news/local/suspect-in-deadly-broomfield-dui-crash-previously-deported-4-times-ice/

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One tweaker costs $35M?

The Arizona man accused of breaking into the Colorado Supreme Court’s building earlier this month caused an estimated $35 million in damage and rendered three floors unusable, State Court Administrator Steven Vasconcellos said during a legislative hearing Friday. Brandon Olsen, 44, is accused of shooting his way into the Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center around 1:15 a.m. on Jan. 2, threatening an unarmed security guard and then starting a fire on the seventh floor of the courthouse before eventually surrendering to police. Olsen told police he was hallucinating during the incident after smoking methamphetamine and taking fentanyl pills. The seventh-floor fire was extinguished by the building’s sprinklers, which ran for a couple of hours and caused significant water damage, Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Boatright said Friday during the legislative hearing at the state Capitol. Vasconcellos said there was ankle-deep water in the building and that three floors were largely destroyed. The fifth, sixth and seventh floors “will have to be rebuilt from scratch,” he told lawmakers on the Joint Judiciary Committee.*** A less-redacted version of the affidavit obtained from Denver County Court on Friday reveals that Olsen told police officers that he’d taken several fentanyl pills and smoked methamphetamines before the incident, and that he felt like people were chasing him. “This was a very random act,” Boatright said. “It had nothing to do with the recent court cases we had. I’ve told people we could have been a Walmart and it wouldn’t have mattered.”*** Olsen told police he struggles with addiction and has relapsed in the past.*** https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/12/brandon-olsen-colorado-supreme-court-break-in-meth-fentanyl/

Perhaps he's not struggling hard enough.

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old, but surprisingly bad

[2 November 2021]

The mother of the 15-year-old boy who dressed in a skirt and raped a female classmate in the girl's bathroom and was then charged with sexually assaulting another girl months later says her son doesn't identify as a female, and it wasn't just some disguise to slip into the girl's bathroom. Speaking exclusively with DailyMail.com, the mother, who asked not to be identified for the sake of her underage son, defended his actions as that of a heterosexual, hormonal teen who, in the case of the rape, had consensual sex with the girl twice before.*** The story exploded when Scott Smith, the father of the rape victim, was dragged out of a school board meeting with a bloodied mouth on June 22 after listening to school officials deny that a girl had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom after his daughter had reported the rape. *** One involved an incident from fifth grade, when the boy was 11 and sent nude photos of himself to a female classmate. Sources told DailyMail.com that police got involved but that the girl's parents decided against pursuing charges, so long as the district kept him away from their daughter.*** He followed her into the bathroom a second time that afternoon. 'It started with, 'Are you feeling okay' and her responding that she was feeling much better than this morning,' she said, relaying her son's account. 'And he advanced.' He depicted the rape as an accident, telling his mother he didn't mean to insert himself in her anus and was surprised when it caused her pain. 'He said he was intending for vaginal and it ended up for 10 seconds as anal,' the mom recalled. 'He knew she was in pain,' she said. 'He said,' 'Are you okay?'' She said that hurt. And he's like, what kind of pain?'*** Then she proceeded to berate the girl, expressing doubts even after a judge found her son guilty. 'If I was in a position where I was about to be raped, I would be screaming, kicking, everything,' she said. 'You're 15. You can reasonably defend yourself. You're not just going to sit there and take it. And so, because there wasn't a presence of a fight, he felt it was okay to keep going.' She said the girl didn't immediately report it. First, the two went to study hall where she told a girlfriend what happened, the mom said. The girlfriend became furious and confronted him. He in turn confronted the victim, asking what she'd said. A short time later, she went to the principal's office to report the rape.*** [After that - on Oct 7,] Her son allegedly dragged a girl into a classroom and inappropriately touched her, she said. Police were called and he was arrested the same day. His mother said she didn't get notified until that evening. She blamed politics for the 'quick processing' of the second incident, and said that was also likely a factor in why they delayed alerting her.***

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Crush & spread body parts and you only serve four months?

The family of a Jefferson County man who was murdered almost five years ago is alarmed that a woman who helped dispose of the victim’s dismembered body is being considered for parole just months after she was sentenced to six years in prison. Lila Atencio, 22, is scheduled to go before the Colorado State Board of Parole on Wednesday, five years almost to the day after Joseph Brinson was shot to death at his rural Jefferson County home on Jan. 16, 2019. Atencio, who was 17 at the time, was not present during the slaying but helped two men load Brinson’s dismembered body into trash bags and then dump the remains in a remote part of eastern Arapahoe County. “Justice has not been served for Joe when it comes to Lila,” said Amy Frost, Brinson’s aunt. “The other two perpetrators, they’re in prison. One is spending life in prison; one has 46 years in prison. That is all good. That is not what keeps me up at night. What keeps me up at night is Lila. And the fact no one is holding her responsible for what she has done and she can continue to break the law.”*** Around 3 a.m. on Jan. 17, 2019, Quinlan called Atencio and told her “it happened,” she told investigators. He asked her to come help him clean up, and to bring trash bags. Atencio stopped by a Walmart in Westminster and purchased the “biggest, thickest” trash bags she could find, along with some drinks, and drove out to the home, according to an affidavit. There, she held the trash bags while Quinlan put other bags — full of Brinson’s body parts — into the bags she held. She helped to tie up the bags. Later that day, Quinlan and Atencio drove out to an area south of Byers, east of Denver, and ditched the bags under a large pine tree. That night, the pair went to an Applebee’s restaurant and paid with Brinson’s credit card, court records show. Later, Atencio grew concerned that Brinson’s head could be used to identify him. She returned to the dump site and removed Brinson’s head from the trash bags. She tried to pull out his teeth with pliers, and then ran over the head with her car before moving it alone to a new site about a half-mile away from the rest of Brinson’s body, court records show.*** https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/14/lila-atencio-parole-hearing-joseph-brinson-murder/

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Do you enjoy killing, Canada?

Fentanyl for minors Scrolling through headlines, there’s one question I find myself asking more and more often: What the heck is going on in Canada? From race-based criminal sentencing to media censorship, Canada seems determined to become a world leader in progressive illiberalism. Thankfully, we have one of the great explainers of Canadian craziness on staff here at The Free Press: the mighty Rupa Subramanya. Rupa has covered a lot of big north-of-the-border stories for us, including the furor over the truckers’ protest and Canada’s rapidly expanding euthanasia industry. And so when I read about a scheme in British Columbia that provides minors access to fentanyl without parental consent—yes! For real!—I asked Rupa to explain what was going on. Here’s her report: Since 2020, British Columbia has made a point of providing a “safer supply” of fentanyl to addicts—and, more recently, it has loosened the rules, making it easier for doctors and nurses to prescribe the highly addictive drug to even more people. That includes minors, who do not require a parent’s permission to get a prescription. The provincial government did not publicize this change—which took effect in August 2023—and most Canadian media has steered clear of the story. That could be because many Canadian parents are worried about their children getting hooked, or overdosing, on fentanyl. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death among 10- to 18-year-olds in British Columbia. In April of last year, a five-year-old girl in Nanaimo, British Columbia, just west of Vancouver, accidentally stumbled on a packet of fentanyl at school. Thankfully, her mother found the drugs before anything happened. British Columbia’s fentanyl policy is in keeping with other Canadian innovations such as medical assistance in dying (MAID), Canada’s euthanasia program that, come March, will be available to those suffering from psychological disorders like anorexia and may be extended to “mature minors” in the future. (I wrote about MAID for The Free Press in 2022.) The new fentanyl policy also dovetails with a British Columbia pilot program launched in January 2023 that legalized small amounts of drugs such as heroin, meth, crack cocaine, and ecstasy. With a population of roughly five million—a little less than one-eighth of Canada’s population—British Columbia has accounted for about a third of all 32,000 drug-related deaths in Canada since 2016. Julian Somers, a clinical psychologist at Simon Fraser University, just outside Vancouver, told me that the new British Columbia fentanyl policy—distributing a highly addictive drug at pharmacies and clinics—has never been tried anywhere else. “Rather than taking steps to actively reduce risks, which we’re clearly not doing—it’s not even discussed—our current policies have the appearance of actively contributing to increased risk,” Somers said. https://www.thefp.com/p/trump-iowa-emmys-canada-fentanyl

***Wed

Weapons retention, weapons retention, weapons retention

BROOKLYN - Two NYPD officers have been shot during the same incident in Brooklyn, and a suspect is in custody, according to police sources. At 3:01 p.m., 73rd precinct patrol officers responded to a 9-1-1 call to an apartment on Bergen Street in connection to an assault that was in progress. The female occupant of the apartment told 9-1-1 that she was being physically assaulted by her son. Four officers responded to the scene and found the suspect, Melvin Butler, a 39-year-old man with six prior arrests in New York City and a history of resisting arrest and domestic violence. Officers told Butler he was under arrest, and Butler resisted. At some point, Butler grabbed hold of an officer's service weapon and shots were fired. One officer was shot in the left hand, another was shot in the left thigh. Police sources say the suspect grabbed one cop’s gun and took it away from him. Then, that's when the other cop on the scene shot the suspect. *** https://www.fox5ny.com/news/2-brooklyn-officer-shot-nypd

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California, where the socks are behind bars and the criminals are free

Various stores for months have been locking up some beauty, hygiene, and cleaning products to prevent retail theft. Some Bay Area stores are now even securing socks and underwear to keep shoplifters from stealing them. Shoppers are getting accustomed to seeing high-ticket items like electronics and even toiletries under lock and key, but many customers thought they would never see the underwear aisle impacted. "It comes to the point of how ghetto does it look that they have to lock up the socks or whatever it is that they have under the key," shopper Olga Leon said.*** At least two East Bay Target stores -- one in Richmond and the other in Pleasant Hill -- have started locking up their undergarments. A customer had to wait 10 minutes to open up the case so he could buy some boxers. Shoppers are also discovering buying underwear at Walmart is not easy anymore. A Hilltop Walmart has their underwear locked up and clerks said shoplifters are striking the store nearly every day. Richmond City Councilmember Cesar Cepeda said the growing retail theft trend is alarming. He fears we will see more stores shutting down.*** https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/target-walmart-retail-theft-underwear-locked/3420271/

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Border Patrol admin v. Border Patrol Officers

CV NEWS FEED // The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, ordering the state to cease its occupation of a border park where many migrants illegally and frequently cross. Last week, the Texas National Guard took control of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass. The park is a city property situated on the Rio Grande. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the move, which Eagle Pass’ Democratic mayor sharply criticized. “The recent actions by the State of Texas have impeded operations of the [U.S.] Border Patrol,” stated the Sunday letter signed by DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer.*** Border Patrol’s official labor union expressed support for Abbott’s decision to mobilize the state National Guard to Shelby Park. “Governor Abbott is not harming Border Patrol operations, he is enhancing them,” stated the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) to FOX News’ Bill Melugin Thursday. “Seizing control of Shelby Park allows our agents to deploy to troubled spots that experience high numbers of gotaways,” NBPC added. “Governor Abbott’s actions should be seen as a force multiplier.”*** https://catholicvote.org/biden-admin-orders-texas-national-guard-to-leave-eagle-pass-park-where-many-migrants-cross-border/

Those pesky unions!

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Taste the feeling!

Special counsel David Weiss roundly rejected Hunter Biden’s arguments that the gun-related criminal charges against him in Delaware should be dismissed, according to court documents filed Tuesday. Prosecutors working for Weiss wrote in the filings that they have “overwhelming” evidence to support charges that President Joe Biden‘s son unlawfully purchased and owned a gun in 2018 while he was addicted to drugs. “The strength of the evidence against him is overwhelming and distinguishable from any other person who was not prosecuted for similar crimes,” they wrote. The prosecutors revealed for the first time that federal investigators pulled Hunter Biden’s gun from a sealed evidence bag in 2023 and tested what they found to be a powdery white substance on the gun case. They said an FBI chemist determined it was cocaine. “To be clear, investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant kept his gun,” the prosecutors wrote. They highlighted instances in which Hunter Biden admitted to excessive and illicit drug use in 2018 in his memoir.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2800741/special-counsel-david-weiss-cites-overwhelming-evidence-against-hunter-biden-in-gun-case/

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When did we turn into China?

January 17, 2024 Brooke Singman Fox News

EXCLUSIVE: Federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like "MAGA" and "Trump" as part of an investigation into Jan. 6, warning that purchases of "religious texts" could indicate "extremism," the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday. Fox News Digital has learned the committee also obtained documents that indicate officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops and more. The House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have been conducting oversight of federal law enforcement’s "receipt of information about American citizens without legal process and its engagement with the private sector." House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan said the documents obtained by the committee indicate that after Jan. 6, 2021, the Treasury Department’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, distributed materials to financial institutions that outlined "typologies" of "various persons of interest" and provided the banks with "suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement." The materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like "Trump" and "MAGA" to "search Zelle payment messages" as well as a "prior FinCEN analysis" of "Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators." "According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views,’" Jordan detailed in a letter to the former director of FinCEN, Noah Bishoff, a career employee. "In other words, FinCEN used large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression," Jordan wrote.*** https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alarming-surveillance-feds-asked-banks-search-private-transactions-terms-maga-trump

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