Category Archives: legal news

What took so long to charge this cop?

November 25, 2015 kanelis2012

Laquan McDonald was walking down the middle of a Chicago street in 2014. He was carrying a knife with a 3-inch blade.

Some police officers pulled up. One of them got out of his cruiser and then shot McDonald to death. That’s not all he did. He emptied his service pistol into McDonald.

Sixteen rounds, man!

That was more than a year ago.

This week, Chicago authorities have charged former Officer Jason Van Dyke with murder in McDonald’s death.

I’ve seen the dash-cam video of the incident. It’s about 6 minutes long. Having seen it, I am compelled to join many others in asking: What on Earth took ’em so long to charge the officer with a crime?

The video is graphic. It shows McDonald, who was 17 years of age, simply walking past Van Dyke’s SUV cruiser. Remember, he wasn’t packing any firepower; he was holding a small knife.

The officer opened fire.

I must point out here — as if you need reminding — that McDonald was black and Van Slyke is white.

McDonald’s family didn’t want the video released. To its credit, the network on which I saw the video, NBC, had the decency to blur the image of McDonald lying on the ground as he was being hit by the bullets.

According to the Chicago Tribune: “Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said she had decided weeks ago to charge Van Dyke weeks ago but was holding off until federal authorities completed their part of the joint investigation. She said she ‘moved up’ her decision to charge Van Dyke after a Cook County judge ruled last week that the video should be released to the public.”

Van Dyke had been taken off of patrol duty and was working behind a desk for the past year — while drawing his salary. He’s no longer drawing it now that he’s been charged with murder.

Well, OK. But based on what millions of Americans have now witnessed on that hideous video, it seems — to me, at least — that the “joint investigation” could have been wrapped up months ago.

What took ’em so long?

legal news

These charges seem so very appropriate

October 26, 2015 kanelis2012

A woman plowed her car into a Stillwater, Okla., crowd over the weekend.

Four people are dead, including a 2-year-old toddler.

The woman reportedly was drunk at the wheel, although the suspect’s lawyer contends there “absolutely” was no alcohol involved. We’ll have to wait for the tests to come back on that one, counselor.

She is now facing at least four counts of second-degree murder over the carnage she created at an Oklahoma State University homecoming parade.

My initial reaction to the charges being filed? Good!

The rage is palpable in Stillwater toward Adacia Chambers, a 25-year-old resident of the city.

These kinds of tragedies hit us all quite hard. The very idea that a crowd of people enjoying a day of celebration for a college football team could be victimized in this manner by someone who might have been impaired by drugs and/or alcohol simply boggles the mind.

It’s not a “mere” drunk- or reckless-driving case here. If Chambers gets convicted of the murder charges, she’s going away for a very long time. What’s more, several of the people who were injured are in critical condition; if any of them loses the fight for survival, the counts against Chambers could add up to even more prison time in the event of a conviction.

One of the witnesses to the mayhem said, “I’ve lived here my whole life and this blows my mind. This is something that doesn’t happen in Stillwater.”

Tragically, yes it does.

legal news

The law is the law, Mme. Clerk

September 16, 2015 kanelis2012

Kim Davis keeps running into that silly little thing called the law.

The Rowan County (Ky.) clerk who’s made a spectacle of herself because she refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples has been hit with yet another legal setback.

A federal court has denied Davis an exemption from a gubernatorial directive that requires all public officials to comply with federal law. The law in question, interestingly, originated in a Kentucky case when a gay couple sued to have their marriage declared legal under U.S. law. The Supreme Court ruled in the couple’s favor earlier this year.

Davis, though, has resisted, saying she follows God’s law.

Davis defeated by court

God’s law is not the law to which she swore an oath to uphold. That oath involved secular law established by the U.S. Constitution.

I’ve noted already that Davis — who spent some time in the slammer on a contempt of court violation when she refused to issue marriage licenses to anyone — has gone back to work. She still isn’t granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but she’s allowing her deputies to do so.

But she’s running out of legal options to keep fighting the law she vowed to follow.

This sideshow became a media spectacle the moment Davis started this illegal protest.

It’s time for it to end. Do you job, Mme. Clerk, or else walk away. You’ll be allowed to pray real hard for what you believe and you can become an advocate for whatever cause you wish to pursue.

You just can’t do it while you’re being required to serve the public interest.

legal news, Sports news, State news

This ref’s story becomes bigger than the game

September 12, 2015 kanelis2012

Robert Watts no doubt doesn’t want to be remembered this way.

It’s out of his hands now.

He’s the high school football referee who was pummeled late in a game the other evening by two San Antonio Jay High School players. They blindsided him with a hit in the backfield late in a game against Marble Falls.

Watts says he’s going to press charges against the players, who’ve been suspended from school. What’s more, an assistant Jay HS coach, Mack Breed, also has been suspended.

Coach’s conduct in question

Indeed, the focus now is turning to the coach.

Did he encourage the young men to hit the official? Did he actually give them permission to do this deed?

If the answer is yes to either, then the coach needs to face charge of conspiring to commit assault and battery.

It’s been reported that Watts reportedly made some bad calls on the field that went against Jay … and that he allegedly uttered a racial slur in the direction of one, or maybe both, of the players who hit him from behind.

Suppose he did make some bad calls. And let’s suppose further that he said something offensive to the players. Is that how they should respond? By hitting a ref — while wearing body armor — so hard as to potentially inflict permanent injury?

The University Interscholastic League, which governs high school extracurricular activities in Texas, needs to spare no effort in finding out what happened on that field.

That the young men would do such a thing by itself is inexcusable. They must not play football again in Texas.

The coach’s actions also require a thorough investigation.

To say this kind of conduct is inexcusable doesn’t do justice to what these young men did.

legal news, national news, political news, religious news

Now the clerk is free … to quit her job

September 8, 2015 kanelis2012

Believe this or not, but I am glad that Kim Davis is no longer in jail.

A federal judge ordered the Rowan County (Ky.) clerk to jail because she had stopped issuing marriage licenses to protest the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage all across the United States of America; the ruling includes Kentucky.

I didn’t want her jailed over this.

Davis is free, therefore, to make a critical decision.

She needs to quit her job as county clerk. Heck, she won’t perform all the duties required of her. She cites religious objections to the legalization of gay marriage, even though she has a rather checkered heterosexual marital history herself.

The germane issue is whether Davis will do the job to which she swore an oath.

She insists she cannot. Her husband says she’s become a victim of a government that is persecuting her because of her Christian beliefs — which, by many people’s thinking, is a serious crock of mule fritters. Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz say Davis is a victim of “judicial tyranny,” which also is so much malarkey.

Just quit your job, Mme. Clerk, and take up the cudgel against gay marriage as a private citizen. You are free to do so. No one’s going to arrest you.

legal news, Sports news

HS football players face serious trouble

September 8, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

I marvel occasionally at the ability of football referees and umpires to stay out of the way of the action as it unfolds before them on the field.

One usually doesn’t worry, though, about players deliberately targeting officials for seriously vicious hits.

Perhaps we ought to worry now.

Two San Antonio-area high school football players have been suspended from school after they pile-drived an official during a game this past week.

See video here

John Jay High School was playing Marble Falls High School. The game was nearing the end. The ref was blindsided by the players. The video, which has gone viral, looks — to me at least — as if it was deliberate and malicious.

The John Jay head coach has apologized for his team. The Marble Falls coach said he’s never seen anything like what happened in his 14 years coaching high school sports.

The question now being floated is: Should the players be prosecuted for committing a crime?

The ref is so upset at what happened he’s considering pressing charges. If it were me and I was threatened with potential permanent injury as a result of two football players wearing body armor, well, I believe I’d file charges.

Poor sportsmanship happens. You see kids taunting other kids on occasion. They get reprimanded for losing their cool.

The video, though, suggests to me something considerably worse.

I agree with the school officials: Let’s let “due process” play out.

I believe the process is going to produce a criminal prosecution.

Take a look at the video. Your thoughts?

legal news, national news, political news, religious news

Clerk goes to jail for violating her oath

September 4, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

The Kim Davis story is driving me batty.

She’s now in jail because she won’t perform the duties as county clerk that are required of her. She took an oath to perform them. Now she’s saying she cannot because her “conscience” won’t allow her to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

A judge found her in contempt of court and threw her into the slammer.

Mike Huckabee has entered the fray by declaring that Davis’s jailing proves that the government has criminalized Christianity. The former Arkansas governor and current Republican presidential candidate says Davis is within her rights to invoke her “religious liberty” by refusing to follow the mandate set down by the United States Supreme Court.

Huck is wrong.

Davis’s religious liberty is not being challenged here. She is free to pray as she wishes. She is free to attend whatever church she wants. She is not free to flout the oath of office she took that says she shall uphold state and federal law.

The federal law now includes a decision by the Supreme Court that says gay couples are entitled under the U.S. Constitution to be married. But then Huckabee dismisses that ruling, declaring on Davis’s behalf that, by golly, that decision merely comes from “nine unelected federal judges.”

Davis, as county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., is required to follow that law.

She hasn’t done so. She’s now in jail.

She needs to quit. Or … she needs to be removed from office.

Let’s put this story to bed. It’s gone on long enough.

legal news, local news, national news, political news

Read your oath of office, Mme. Clerk

August 28, 2015 kanelis2012

Kim Davis took an oath when she became a county clerk in Kentucky to uphold the constitutions of her state and her nation.

The oath, I’m quite willing to suggest, didn’t include any exemptions for her religious faith.

Thus, it becomes imperative that she fulfill all the terms of the oath she took.

But she’s refusing to do that.

Instead, she’s refusing to grant marriage certificates to gay couples. She cites her religious belief opposing gay marriage and the U.S. Constitution’s protection of religious liberty.

I get that Kim Davis’s Christian faith is important to her. Mine is important to me as well.

But she took an oath to uphold the law. What’s more, the U.S. Supreme Court this year has ruled that gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. That includes Kentucky.

To their credit, Potter County Clerk Julie Smith and Randall County Clerk Renee Calhoun declared they would issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples who request them. I also would have applauded either or both of them had they resigned if their religious faith interfered with their public oath.

Davis should resign from her office, as some county clerks have done around the country. She cannot serve in an elected public office without carrying out all the duties that the office requires.

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legal news, State news

‘Loyal’ Republicans turning on Texas AG?

August 24, 2015 kanelis2012

Texas Republicans are about as loyal as any partisan group anywhere in America.

They seem to stand behind their embattled officeholders no matter what. Until now … maybe.

Texas Monthly reports that a poll taken by the Texas Bipartisan Justice Committee shows that 62 percent of state Republicans want Attorney General Ken Paxton to resign over his indictment for securities fraud. The poll also reveals that 53 percent of self-proclaimed TEA Party members want Paxton to quit.

Although I disagree that he shouldn’t have to resign because of an indictment — it’s that presumption of innocence thing, you know — I find it fascinating that a significant majority of Texas Republicans want one of their own to leave office.

He was indicted, after all, by a grand jury in Collin County, which he represented in the Texas Legislature before being elected attorney general in 2014.

Maybe that ought to tell the attorney general something about his standing among all Texans — and that includes Democrats, too. He is after all, attorney general for the entire state and for all Texans, not just those who voted for him.

But as Erica Greider asks in her Texas Monthly blog, “What are the other 38 percent of Texas Republicans thinking?”

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