Tag: police state

Alabama’s next death penalty atrocity: The execution of Casey McWhorter

30 years after a murder committed by three teenage boys, Alabama plans to execute one of them, Casey McWhorter, who was just three months past his 18th birthday at the time of the crime. (McWhorter’s co-defendants were 15 and 16, respectively.)

Any argument in favor of executing McWhorter is undercut by the illogical, unbending brutality of a bright-line legal rule established by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court held the 8th and 14th Amendments prohibit the execution of defendants younger than age 18, but, not the execution of juveniles like McWhorter whom — mentally and emotionally — under any reasonable interpretation, were children at the time of their crime(s). This is because of Roper’s legal fiction that childhood rigidly ends at 18 years of age — on the nose — and not a day, or as in McWhorter’s case, 3 months, older. Describing that period in his life to a reporter recently, McWhorter said: “I had issues in my head that I didn’t know how to work out.”

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House Drops Bombshell Report Revealing Much Deeper Fed Collusion With ‘Free Speech Police’ Than Previously Known

In the runup to the 2020 election, cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and Stanford University decided they had discovered a major problem. 

The issue was not compromised voter rolls or corrupted election tallies but a “gap” in the government’s authority to clamp down on what it considered misinformation and disinformation – a gap identified by DHS officials and interns on loan to the agency from the Stanford Internet Observatory. Given what SIO research manager Renee DiResta described as the “unclear legal authorities” and “very real First Amendment questions” regarding this gap, the parties hatched a plan to form a public-private partnership that would provide DHS with an avenue to surreptitiously censor speech. 

The collaboration between DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the Stanford outfit would quickly expand into a robust operation whose full extent is only now becoming clear. RealClearInvestigations has obtained from House investigators records revealing in previously undisclosed detail the nature and mechanics of the operation – the SIO-led Election Integrity Partnership.  

They show at a granular level the thousands of tweets and Facebook posts on topics from mail-in voting to aberrant election results – arguably core protected speech – that the public-private partnership flagged to social media platforms for censorship, much of which the platforms would suppress. 

The evidence shows EIP – sometimes alongside CISA – pressuring platforms to target speech that included statements by then-President Trump; opinions about election integrity rooted in government records and even think-tank white papers; and speculative tweets from statesmen and everyday citizens alike. RCI details notable instances here. 

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Former Loveland Police officer arrested in sexual assault on teen girl

The Loveland Police Department and the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday that a now-former Loveland Police officer was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault.

Loveland Police Chief Timothy Doran said Dylan Miller was arrested after a 15-year-old girl came forward last month, alleging that he sexually assaulted her in July.

The girl told investigators she had initially been contacted by Miller during a traffic stop earlier in the year, police said. The victim said she next saw Miller in July when she and a friend were at North Lake Park after hours. Miller, who was on duty at the time, contacted the girl and her friend, telling her friend to leave, police said.

The victim’s friend left after Miller told him to, and she told investigators that Miller took her to a secluded area at the park and sexually assaulted her, Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen said.

“The respect that I have at this moment for this young woman and her family to come forward and make this known to us is beyond measure,” Feyen said. 

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U.S. Park Police officer unintentionally fatally shoots fellow officer at Virginia gathering

An off-duty U.S. Park Police officer unintentionally shot and killed another off-duty officer over the weekend in Virginia while pulling a trigger on a gun he thought was unloaded, police said.

Alexander Roy, 25, was charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing 22-year-old Jesse Brown Hernandez while they were at a gathering in an apartment in McLean, Virginia, about 10 miles west of Washington, D.C.

Police were called to the scene shortly after midnight on Sunday.

Two others, including another U.S. Park Police officer, were also at the gathering. Police said alcohol is believed to be a factor in the shooting. Roy is being held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on no bond.

Hernandez was found dead with a gunshot wound to the upper body. The investigation is ongoing and the Fairfax County Police Department is asking anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

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A Short ESG Guide: Introduction

The murky precepts of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) criteria wield growing influence in investing and in regulation. Those who want to understand the reshaping of our financial landscape, especially as a means to resist it, should be familiar with ESG’s terms, goals, vocabulary, and advocates. Below, I sketch out several dimensions.

ESG advocates want to reshape the world in profound ways — from how we travel and heat our homes to what businesses must prioritize and whom global supply chains should benefit. They want to move the world to a “low-carbon” economy built on renewable energy. They also favor dramatic redistribution of wealth and power from the “haves” to the “have nots.” Increasingly, they make business their ally (willingly or unwillingly) in carrying out their plans.

To address these concerns with nuance and thoughtfulness, rather than simply reacting, we must raise  awareness of ESG criteria, how they are being used, and what kinds of problems they will create. ESG will likely be around for a long time, so it’s worth taking some time to understand it thoroughly.

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Covid inquiry hears Matt Hancock wanted to decide who lived and died

Former health secretary Matt Hancock wanted to decide “who should live and die” if the NHS was overwhelmed, the Covid inquiry has heard.

The revelation came to light in evidence presented by Sir Simon Stevens, the former NHS England chief.

In his witness statement, he said Mr Hancock thought he, not doctors or the public, should decide who to prioritise if hospitals became overwhelmed.

Sir Simon said: “Fortunately this horrible dilemma never crystallised.”

He told the inquiry: “The secretary of state for health and social care took the position that in this situation he – rather than, say, the medical profession or the public – should ultimately decide who should live and who should die.”

He added: “I certainly wanted to discourage the idea that an individual secretary of state, other than in the most exceptional circumstances, should be deciding how care would be provided.

“I felt we were well-served by the medical profession, in consultation with patients to the greatest extent possible, in making those decisions.”

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Several Justices Express Dismay at Long Delays in Returning Seized Cars to Innocent Owners

In February 2019, police in Satsuma, Alabama, pulled over Halima Culley’s son and arrested him for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. They seized the car, which belonged to Culley, and tried to keep it under Alabama’s civil forfeiture law. Although Culley ultimately got her car back as an “innocent owner,” that process took 20 months.

That same month, a friend borrowed Lena Sutton’s car. He was pulled over in Leesburg, Alabama, and arrested for methamphetamine possession. Like Culley, Sutton successfully invoked the “innocent owner” defense to get her car back after police seized it. But that did not happen for over a year. In the meantime, her lawyer told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, “she missed medical appointments, she wasn’t able to keep a job, she wasn’t able to pay a cell phone bill, and as a result” she “was not in a position to be able to communicate about the forfeiture proceedings.”

In separate class-action lawsuits, Culley and Sutton unsuccessfully argued that they and similarly situated property owners have a due process right to a prompt post-seizure hearing aimed at determining whether they can keep their cars while a forfeiture case is pending. The issue for the Supreme Court in Culley v. Marshall is which standard to apply in deciding that question. During oral arguments in the case, several justices showed a heartening awareness of the injustices inflicted by civil asset forfeiture, a system of legalized larceny that allows law enforcement agencies to pad their budgets by confiscating allegedly crime-tainted property.

“I’m very sympathetic [to] the problem that you’ve identified,” Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has previously expressed concern about civil forfeiture abuses, told Shay Dvoretzky, the attorney representing Culley and Sutton. “Clearly, there are some jurisdictions that are using civil forfeiture as funding mechanisms,” he noted. They therefore are not keen to expedite innocent owners’ challenges, he said, and may impose onerous requirements, such as telling forfeiture victims, “You can get your car back if you call between 3 and 5 p.m. on a Tuesday and speak with someone who is never available.”

In other words, Gorsuch said, “there are arguments to be made that there are attempts to create processes that are deeply unfair and obviously so in order to retain the property for the coffers of the state.” He also noted “allegations before us” that “some states, because law enforcement uses these forfeitures to fund themselves,” have been known to demand that an owner surrender some of his property in exchange for getting the rest back or “engage in other concessions outside of regular process.” The due process test that Alabama prefers “would seem to strip the courts of tools to deal with those kinds of cases,” he told Alabama Solicitor General Edmund G. LaCour Jr., who argued that “the forfeiture proceeding without more provides the post-seizure hearing required by due process.”

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