Army Officer Capt. Rogelio Maynulet was convicted at his courts martial trial this week of assault with intent to commit involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi teenager. His penalty: dismissal from the army, no jail time. The offense carried a possible penalty of ten years in prison.

American soldiers fired on a car, wounding the driver and a passenger. Captain Maynulet, 30, of Chicago, said he then shot and killed the driver to put him out of his misery.

"He was in a state I didn't think was dignified - I had to put him out of his misery," Captain Maynulet said in his defense, the military's newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, reported.

The teen was 16-year-old Qassim Hassan, who was working with relatives collecting rubbish. The Geneva Convention prohibits shooting wounded persons.

Two soldiers previously were convicted in the shooting death, receiving a one year and three year sentence respectively.

Is this just another exception from the Administration's respect for the culture of life?

The New York Observer has some fascinating details of how wealthy Rudy Giuliani has become since leaving the Mayor's office.

Mr. Giuliani has become a tycoon. In a 2002 divorce filing, he estimated his income from paid speeches alone—unadulterated Rudy— at $8 million. His business, dismissed at first as a resting place for his political ambitions, grossed tens of millions of dollars last year with more than 50 employees and marquee clients like Merrill Lynch. A sense of the firm’s scale emerges with the fact that it recently acquired a midsize investment bank with 140 employees. On March 29, Mr. Giuliani announced that he’d also become a partner in a Houston law firm.

My favorite tidbit is that he charged $100k for giving a tsunami aid speech in South Carolina in February - forking over $20k of his fee as a chartiable contribution -- when other celebrities like Clinton, George Bush I and George Clooney donated their time. The author writes it is indicative of his lack of understanding of sensitive political issues:

by TChris

What lesson does a troubled 13-year-old kid learn when his father, using a "scared straight" approach to crime prevention, turns him over to prison guards who brutalize him?

Anthony Donald Sr. ... placed the youngster, who has never been charged with a crime, in the hands of two friends who are Shuman guards. ... Donald Jr. said the guards ordered him to strip in a public place and put on a uniform. When he refused, he said, four guards forced him to the ground, beat him and stripped off his pants.

The four guards, employed by the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in Pennsylvania, are designated as "child care workers." Child abusers would be a more appropriate title. They've been charged with unlawful restraint and false imprisonment, as well as a variety of other crimes, including assault, child endangerment and making terroristic threats. The father is charged with conspiracy and child endangerment.

The boy's mother legitimately wonders how the guards treat children who are actually detained in the facility if this is how they behave with a friend's child.

by TChris

Will Florida ever get it right?

A computer glitch caused Miami-Dade County's electronic voting machines to throw out hundreds of ballots in a special election March 8 and raised questions about votes in five other municipal elections, officials said. The problem came to light when officials noticed a high number of undervotes in the election on whether to have slot machines at tracks and jai alai frontons. That measure was defeated. Undervotes are ballots with no recorded votes.

by TChris

This is what happens when the United States sends troops to Columbia to help fight its unwinnable war on drugs:

Five American soldiers have been arrested for trying to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine into the United States on a U.S. military aircraft, the U.S. military said. The five unidentified Army personnel were detained on Tuesday and are being held in the United States for "allegedly trying to transport approximately 16 kilograms (35 lb) of cocaine," U.S. Southern Command said in a news release late on Thursday.

This isn't the first time that the military's drug warriors have taken advantage of their easy access to drugs.

The wife of a U.S. Army officer who headed anti-drug operations in Colombia was sentenced to five years in prison in 2000 for trying to mail $700,000 worth of heroin to New York. Her husband admitted he knew she was laundering drug proceeds and was sentenced to five months, angering Colombian legal officials who complained this was too lenient.

by TChris

More than 100 organizations have asked the Dept. of Health and Human Services to take down a new website that dispenses helpful advice like this:

"If you believe your adolescent may be gay, or is experiencing difficulties with gender identity or sexual orientation issues, consider seeing a family therapist who shares your values to clarify and work through these issues."

In addition to describing sexual orientation as a "lifestyle," the website promotes abstinence while downplaying the effectiveness of condoms. The organizations are asking the Department to provide accurate information, including the need to use effective contraception if (or rather, when) kids decide to have sex.

by TChris

Inmates serving time or awaiting trial or sentencing have enough problems without these:

• A Union County, New Jersey jail guard has been charged with (among other crimes) sexually assaulting five female inmates while on duty.

• The Perry County Detention Center in Hazard, Kentucky is in such a state of "total chaos" -- dirty, overcrowded, insufficient beds, nonfunctioning fire alarms, and inmates wandering about unsupervised -- that the state pulled 50 inmates out of the institution.

• Part of the Allegheny County Jail had to be quarantined after an outbreak of chickenpox.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture may use its rural development fund, flush with an infusion of cash intended for disaster relief, to loan money to three Virginia counties to pay for a regional jail.

by TChris

A bill that would have replaced Connecticut's death penalty with life imprisonment was defeated in the state's House of Representatives yesterday by a vote of 89-60. The bill would have spared serial killer Michael Ross (TalkLeft background here, here, and here) from execution. One of the persons speaking in favor of the bill was a woman Ross raped in 1983.

"I'm not a killer. I couldn't do it," Vivian Dobson said through tears. "I'm so sorry to the parents [of the murder victims] because I lived and their babies died. And I can't change that. But I don't want to be a part of killing somebody else."

"For 18 years, I've been hiding my feelings and holding in my feelings to help those poor girls that he took away from everybody. And I can't. I can't. I can't do it," said Dobson, who escaped after pulling a knife on him. "I've been carrying guilt because now his blood's going to be on my hands, too. And I can't do it. That's not me."

The execution is scheduled for May 11.

by TChris

An armed robber who stole a bag that a woman was holding while walking her dog was displeased to discover that the bag contained the dog's fecal droppings. Fortunately for the dog (and its owner), the disgruntled robber's gun didn't fire when he tried to shoot the dog.

"The guy got what he deserved, though," [the woman] said.

by TChris

More than 200 lawsuits have been filed against the City of Los Angeles by individuals alleging that they were "framed, shot or beaten by officers in the Rampart division's anti-gang unit."

The scandal once involved the investigation of 82 incidents involving 50 officers and the reversal of more than 100 convictions tainted by police misconduct. Racial profiling, excessive force and the Rampart scandal caused the federal government in 2001 to impose a consent decree on the department mandating reforms.

Only 27 of those lawsuits have been dismissed. The city will end up paying an estimated $70 million to settle the rest.

The average settlement was $400,000 but 30 plaintiffs received $500,000 or more. Javier Francisco Ovando, a gang member who was shot by police and left paralyzed, received the largest settlement — $15 million. He had been sentenced to 23 years in prison after two officers testified he was armed when he was shot. His conviction was eventually overturned.

Taxpayers in Los Angeles might want to ask whether their tax money would be better spent reforming the police department rather than paying for officers' lawless conduct.

by TChris

The idea of rounding up a posse to pursue the bad guys is a popular theme in movies about the wild west, but the modern analog can be found in Arizona, where armed volunteers, recruited by a website, intend to patrol the San Pedro Valley in search of "illegal activity." Calling themselves the Minuteman Project, the volunteers plan to rally in Tombstone before starting their month-long endeavor. They say they'll report their observations to the Border Patrol, and the volunteers have been instructed not to shoot anyone, even if they come under fire. The risk, however, is that some volunteers will decide to take the law into their own hands, bringing a return of "vigilante justice" to Arizona.

[L]aw enforcement officials and human rights advocates are worried about the potential for bloodshed. Critics contend the project may attract vigilantes. At least one white supremacist group has mentioned the project on its Web site.

Given the risk that a whacko or two will join the 800 to 1,000 volunteers that the project expects, the Border Patrol doesn't appreciate the "help" that the untrained volunteers are offering. If the volunteers fear that the Border Patrol isn't doing its job, they should seek a political solution. Running around the desert with guns isn't a productive response.

Update: (TL) David Neiwert explains why this has tragedy and disaster written all over it.

by TChris

Fernando Ferrer, the current front-runner in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, may have been going after the "law and order" vote when he made comments about the Amadou Diallo case that are difficult to justify. (Background on the Diallo case is here.) That strategy appears to have backfired as polls show a four point drop in voter support, including an eleven point drop among African American voters.

Ferrer, a vocal critic of NYPD policies during the Giuliani administration, startled black leaders by telling a police group on March 15 that there was an effort to "over-indict" the cops who shot and killed Diallo and that the shooting wasn't a crime.