Jackson Trial Update
Wednesday May 11, 2005

Actor Macauley Culkin took the stand today at Michael Jackson's trial and denied the actor molested him. He called the charges against Jackson "absolutely ridiculous."

by TChris

If an agent of the FBI or DEA wants to question you -- or worse, to enter your home without a warrant -- do two things. First, just say no. Second, call the agent's boss to make sure the agent is who he claims to be.

Why is the second piece of advice important?

Federal agents arrested a man on Monday, charging him with possessing and selling more than 1,300 counterfeit badges representing 35 law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency said.

The phony badges mimic real badges from agencies such as the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Customs, Drug Enforcement Agency, Treasury and New York Police Department, Ficke said. Some even had a signature from the company that makes the real badges.

Agents also confiscated NYPD uniforms and firearms.

by TChris

Maybe Los Angeles Sheriff's deputies had a good reason to fire 120 shots at a car they were chasing in Compton, but since the driver was unarmed, the seemingly reckless use of a massive amount of firepower will be difficult to justify. The driver was wounded, as was an officer, "possibly by friendly fire."

After a 12-minute car chase, officers surrounded the vehicle and opened fire, an event captured on video by by a news photographer alerted to the incident by a police scanner. The sheriff said the vehicle was moving backward toward deputies at one point during the incident.

Innocent bystanders report that their houses were hit by stray bullets. Would the deputies have endangered neighborhood residents with 120 bullets if they had been in Beverly Hills rather than Compton?

by TChris

After 29 hours of deliberations, a hung jury caused Judge Charles Schneider to declare a mistrial in the prosecution of Charles McCoy Jr. McCoy was charged with 24 crimes arising out of "sniper-style shootings" at vehicles in Ohio. He was facing the death penalty.

McCoy's lawyers argued that McCoy suffered from a serious mental illness that prevented him from appreciating the difference between right and wrong.

McCoy was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1996, and even prosecutors acknowledged the severity of his mental illness, in which he claimed to hear voices and believed cameras were watching him.

Psychiatrists for both sides agreed he suffered auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions that McCoy felt could only be silenced by carrying out the shootings.

Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron O'Brien said the state presented the best case it had, and may not pursue the death penalty if the case goes to trial a second time.

The lawyer pastor for runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks held a press conference Thursday and read her long- awaited statement of regret. Ms. Wilbanks said she didn't get cold feet. She wanted to get married. She had "other issues." What they are, she's not saying. Nor should she have to.

She also offered to make financial restitution:

Her attorney Lydia Sartain told CNN earlier Thursday that her client intends to "make amends" for the money and time spent on the search.

She apologized. But, of course, for the court of public opinion, presided over by talk show hosts and news anchors who serve as judge and jury, and current and former prosecutors who argue guilt before they know the facts, it's not enough. Did they expect a public self-flagellation? There is no compassionate conservativism in this day and age, there's only blame, retribution, punishment and revenge. Maybe that's all we should expect from inhabitants of the prison nation we've become.

Jackson Trial Update
Thursday May 5, 2005

The Judge denied Michael Jackson's motion for acquittal today, saying the issues were factual and therefore up to the jury. Jackson lawyer Robert Sanger nicely summed up a major problem with the case: the timeline is absurd.

"Sanger argued ....prosecutors were asking jurors to accept the far-fetched claim that Jackson's camp had been thrown into a panic after a 2003 televised documentary aired showing him holding hands with his accuser and defending his practice of sharing his bed with children."

"It was only then, with the world watching and his career in the balance, that prosecutors claim Jackson abused the boy, a recovering cancer patient, Sanger said. "The timeline is inherently preposterous," he said."

The defense has begun presenting its case. The first witness was Wade Robson who said that he had slept in Jackson's bed 20 times as a child and Jackson never molested him or touched him inappropriately.

50 years later, there may be justice for Emmett Till. The FBI has agreed to exhume the body of the brutally murdered 14 year old to determine his cause of death.

Emmett, who was raised in Chicago, was kidnapped, beaten, shot to death and dropped in the Tallahatchie River in 1955, reportedly after he whistled at a white woman in Money, Miss., while visiting relatives. Two white men who were acquitted in the case by an all-white jury and later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview. Both are now dead.

Major credit for the FBI decision goes to documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, whose film and life were the subject of a lengthy New York Times article that I quoted here.

Beauchamp grew up in Lousiana and when he was 10 or 11, he found a picture of the mutilated body of Emmett Till. He has been obsessed with the case ever since, spending the last six years filming and tracking down witnesses.

The trial took place in Tallahatchie County which at that time only had all white juries even though the population was two-thirds black.

Jackson Trial Update
Wednesday May 4, 2005

The prosecution rested today in the Michael Jackson trial. Every reporter I've seen (except one I muted because she's been overly biased since day 1 and isn't really a journalist, she just plays one on tv) has said the prosecution fell way short of what it needs to get a conviction against Michael Jackson.

My view: Terrible job by the prosecution. They didn't fulfill the promises they made in opening and just about every one of their witnesses had enough baggage to sink the Titanic. If there's a "man overboard" here, it's DA Tom Sneddon, not Michael Jackson.

The only thing that could redeem this case from the garbage dump is if Michael Jackson testifies and comes across poorly. Earth to Michael: Stay off the stand.

The runaway bride story still has legs in the 24/7 cable news cycle. The groom still wants to marry her. Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter, who as we reported yesterday, did not think charges should be brought against sheriff deputies who tasered a handcuffed and foot-bound man five times in 60 seconds, after which he died, is considering whether to charge the runaway bride with a crime.

What crime fits? Porter says either false reporting of a crime (the kidnapping) or making false statements to Georgia police. The reasoning seems to be that the bride should be accountable for the expenses incurred by police in searching for her and the anguish she caused people in the community.

Neither of those are elements of the crimes under consideration. Nor are they valid reasons to charge either crime.

This is becoming like a soap opera. The last time we checked in with Tommy Chong, he had opted out of the Marijuana-Logues because he was on supervised release and feared that second hand smoke from the audience might have landed him back in jail.

But, now he's facing a lawsuit because he's refusing to go back to the show after he gets off supervised release. Now, Chong says it would interfere with his attempt to expunge his record by sending the wrong message to officials.

“I don’t feel comfortable because I’m trying to get my record expunged. I’d still be thumbing my nose at the government [that] just finished putting me in jail.”

The producer of the show is not amused. and has filed suit. Tommy says he may countersue.

How many stories about the missing bride, whom we now know fabricated her abduction, have you seen in the past three days on cable news?

Where is the coverage of Barbara Dehl, the one-time Bush administration crusader against domestic violence, an Ashcroft appointee to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women, now charged herself with kidnapping and methamphetamine offenses.

Barbara Dehl, 49, conspired with her live-in boyfriend and another man to abduct a young couple after the three found money, jewelry and drugs missing from Dehl's safe, police said in court documents....Dehl was indicted by a grand jury this week on two felony counts of kidnapping and one count of trafficking methamphetamine. The men also were indicted on a variety of charges.

Will she blame it all on an abusive boyfriend?

Rush Limbaugh lost his medical records appeal. This isn't just a blow for Rush Limbaugh's privacy, but for all citizens of Florida.

In October, Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the state did not violate Limbaugh's privacy rights when it seized his medical records with a search warrant. Limbaugh's lawyer, Roy Black, has argued that using a warrant gave Limbaugh no opportunity to challenge the seizure.

Here's Roy Black's statement: