Category: crime

All officers in George Floyd murder now to face charges, with Derek Chauvin’s charge raised to second-degree murder

June 3, 2020 • 2:08 pm

Senator Amy Klobuchar tweeted this out:

And the Minnesota Star-Tribune article says this:

Attorney General Keith Ellison plans to elevate charges against the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck while adding charges of aiding and abetting murder against the other three officers at the scene, according to multiple law enforcement sources familiar with the case.

Ellison is expected to provide an update this afternoon on the state’s investigation into Floyd’s death. According to sources, former officer Derek Chauvin, recorded on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he begged for air on May 25, will now be charged with second-degree murder.

The other three officers at the scene — Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — will also be charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, according to the sources, who spoke on conditions of anonymity. Chauvin was arrested last Friday and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Thao was recorded watching as Chauvin continued to press on Floyd’s neck with his knee. Kueng was one of the first officers on the scene and helped pin Floyd down. Lane was detailed in earlier charges as pointing a gun at Floyd before handcuffing, and later asked whether officers should roll Floyd on his side as he was restrained.

I was keen on all the cops being charged from the outset, and now it’s happened. So far, at least with respect to Floyd’s death, justice has been done.  We can speculate that justice may be sidetracked if the officers get off, for the video itself pretty much tells the tale.

The defense, of course, has to make the prosecution prove its case, and in the case of second-degree murder in Minnesota they have to prove one of these violations beyond a reasonable doubt for Derek Chauvin:

I suspect that Subdivision 1, point (1) is the relevant statute here, though they’d have to prove that Chauvin intended to cause the death of Floyd. As for the other three officers, charged with “aiding and abetting” Chauvin, I wasn’t able to find the statue (the server was down, probably busy), but they certainly stood by and heard Floyd cry “I can’t breathe”, and also stood by while Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck after the man became unresponsive.

A badge should not provide immunity against criminal acts. We’ll see what the defense has to say, but so far there’s no reason to assert that justice isn’t being done for Floyd. Whether it’s being done by police forces across the U.S. is another matter.

Independent autopsy: George Floyd died of asphyxiation

June 1, 2020 • 3:23 pm

Well, this isn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was the exculpation of the cops by the state’s medical examiner, especially in view of that video showing a man repeatedly saying he couldn’t breathe. CNN reports the results of an independent autopsy (click on screenshot):

An excerpt:

An independent autopsy found that George Floyd’s death was a homicide and the unarmed black man died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”

The autopsy says compression to Floyd’s neck and back led to a lack of blood flow to his brain.

Floyd was essentially “dead on the scene” in Minneapolis on May 25, said Ben Crump, attorney for the Floyd family. Multiple videos of Floyd’s death show former police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, along with other officers kneeling on his back.

Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total and two minutes and 53 seconds after Floyd was unresponsive, according to a criminal complaint released by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

“The ambulance was his hearse,” Crump told reporters Monday. “George died because he needed a breath. He needed a breath of air.”

“There is no other health issue that could cause or contribute to the death,” said Dr. Michael Baden, one of the independent medical examiners. “Police have this false impression that if you can talk, you can breathe. That’s not true.”

The state’s coroner, of course, had a different result:

The independent autopsy’s findings come after the Hennepin County Medical Examiner found “no physical findings” to “support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation,” according to the criminal complaint.

Preliminary autopsy results cited in the complaint said combined effects of being restrained, any potential intoxicants in Floyd’s system and his underlying health issues, including heart disease, probably contributed to his death. Toxicology results can take weeks.

You know what? I don’t even care if the state’s autopsy results are correct (I doubt they are), as they still show murder.  If Floyd would have lived had the cop not had a knee on his neck, I don’t care much about other “contributory factors”. The knee made him die when he wouldn’t have died otherwise, and that’s all there is, folks. The charges might be less, but I don’t trust the state’s results.

I am also wondering whether, if the cop gets convicted, he’ll get a more severe punishment than if Floyd was murdered by a civilian. Pondering this, I think he should, for the cops have the authority to detain people, and nobody can stop them if they choose to put a knee on someone’s neck, even if it’s uncalled for. This means that for reasons of deterrence alone, cops need to learn the consequences of such behavior. With the power they have, they need a strong incentive to use it responsibly and humanely.

Of course if the perp, Officer Derek Chauvin, goes to jail, he’s going to have a very rough time of it.

And these autopsy results will energize the protests. So long as they’re not violent, that’s fine with me.

It’s beyond belief that that cop would kneel on a protesting man for over eight minutes and then not let up when the man became unresponsive. What kind of monster would do that?

 

Lori Loughlin and Massimo Giannulli finally plead guilty in “Admissiongate”

May 21, 2020 • 12:00 pm

After insisting for months that they were not guilty of bribing their daughters’ way into the University of Southern California by presenting fake resumes as athletes, actor Lori Laughlin and her husband, fashion designer Massimo Giannulli, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. The details are in the article below from CNN (click on screenshot). The upshot: both of the privileged and wealthy parents are going to jail, though not for that long.

An excerpt:

Loughlin, 55, and Giannulli, 56, had been accused of paying $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as fake crew team recruits. They had pleaded not guilty for more than a year and moved to dismiss charges as recently as two weeks ago.

As part of the plea agreement, Loughlin will be sentenced to two months in prison and Giannulli will be sentenced to five months in prison, subject to the court’s approval, according to authorities.

In addition, Loughlin faces a $150,000 fine, two years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service, and Giannulli faces a $250,000 fine, two years of supervised release and 250 hours of community service.

They are scheduled to plead guilty on Friday at 11:30 a.m., prosecutors said.

. . .Loughlin will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and Giannulli will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and honest services wire and mail fraud. The actress, best known for her role as Aunt Becky on the sitcom “Full House,” and her husband had previously been charged with three counts of conspiracy.

“Under the plea agreements filed today, these defendants will serve prison terms reflecting their respective roles in a conspiracy to corrupt the college admissions process and which are consistent with prior sentences in this case,” said US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling. “We will continue to pursue accountability for undermining the integrity of college admissions.”

They were facing up to 20 years in prison if they pleaded “not guilty” but were then convicted, though nobody thought they would serve that much time (some thought “several years”). Loughlin and Giannulli are the 23rd and 24th parents to plead guilty in this case; the most famous was actor Felicity Huffman, who also pleaded guilty from the outset and served 11 days.

I’ve followed this case more closely than usual for such a scandal, probably because it involves something that I consider unconscionable: forging one’s credentials to get into college. By so doing—and both daughters were accepted, though they are no longer students—you take the place of someone more deserving.

And USC is a good school, which somehow makes it seem worse. Thus I was hoping for a fairly stiff sentence, probably as a deterrent. Two to five months in stir seems pretty weak to me, though both parents will be convicted felons and their ability to make money will be reduced (their famous fashion-blogger daughter Olivia Jade has already had several of her contracts dropped, most probably on the grounds that they were probably complicit in this scam).

The couple always insisted that they were simply doing what is common practice: donating money to a school in return for favorable consideration for their daughters’ admission, and that it was not tit-for-tat bribery. But that doesn’t explain the phony applications listing their daughters as crew coxswains.

Why did they change their plea? The Los Angeles Times says this:

It’s unclear, and Loughlin’s attorney declined to comment Thursday, but the reversal followed a significant legal setback.

Earlier this month, a judge declined to dismiss the fraud, bribery and money laundering charges against Loughlin and her co-defendants, ruling that federal agents and prosecutors did not pressure Singer, their chief cooperator, to mislead his clients on recorded phone calls and draw out flawed evidence of criminal intent.

And, in a levying of the “not guilty plea tax”, prosecutors heaped additional bribery charges on the pair, raising the stakes—and potential jail time—considerably.

From what I’ve seen of the documents in the case, which includes the phony admissions forms, Loughlin and Giannulli seemed clearly guilty. Some of the people calling for their heads undoubtedly wanted some Schadenfreude, perhaps because of Loughlin’s squeaky-clean role as Aunt Becky in the t.v. show
“Full House”, but what I wanted was a sentence that would deter others from cheating.

Will it? Is two or five months in jail, along with fines and community service, fit punishment for these crimes?

You can weigh in in the poll below (please respond):

 

Harvey Weinstein convicted of on two charges of sex crimes

February 25, 2020 • 7:30 am

Given the corroborating testimony about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior (over 90 women have made accusations), and the fact that there’s another trial coming up for him in Los Angeles, it was impossible—for me at least—to believe that he was innocent of using his power to coerce women into sex. Justice, then, appears to have been done: yesterday Weinstein was found guilty in New York of two of the five crimes of which he was charged: rape and criminal sexual assault, for which he faces up to 29 years in prison.

Weinstein was, however, acquitted of the most serious charges, including first-degree rape and predatory sexual assault, which could have put him away for life. But given the further charges against him in Los Angeles and the fact that he’s 67, he will surely spend the rest of his life in jail. (The charges in Los Angeles include forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint, and for these he faces up to 28 additional years in jail.)

I was struck by his reaction as reported by the New York Times:

Mr. Weinstein sat motionless as the verdict was read.

“But I’m innocent,” he said three times to his lawyers, appearing stunned a few minutes later when he was handcuffed and two court officers led him off to jail to await sentencing. He was taken first to Bellevue Medical Center by ambulance after complaining of chest pains and showing signs of high blood pressure, his representatives said.

As I do not believe he’s at all innocent, this suggests that he still has no idea that what he did was a criminal act and not “consensual sex,” as his defense maintained. He’ll have the rest of his life to ponder what he did, and maybe he’ll decide that it was wrong. There will be an appeal, but I doubt it will be successful.

Weinstein now becomes a common criminal, living out his days in jail wearing an orange jumpsuit—a far cry from the luxurious life he had as a Hollywood producer. It is just deserts, and a just deterrent for others from using their power to force sex upon unwilling victims.

Here’s an ABC news video about the conviction and charges:

Atlantic article criticizes due process as being harmful and full of lies

February 10, 2020 • 11:00 am

I came upon this article when someone sent me the tweet below (I don’t know who Cathy Young is). The caption is pretty snarky, but the article in The Atlantic  by Megan Garber, which you can access by clicking on the link or the bottom part of the tweet, justifies the snark. It’s really a pretty dire article that criticizes due process because in some cases (read: accusations of sexual misconduct), “due process” involves making the witnesses uncomfortable or upset, and causing harm. And it can’t guarantee justice.

The article is about how the defense lawyers for Harvey Weinstein have been going pretty strongly after the witnesses, sometimes portraying them as forgetful, imperfect or possibly making stuff up. Further, some of the stuff that has come out, whether it be Weinstein’s misshapen genitals or the tampon of one of his alleged victims, is ugly.  I’m not quite sure what the “lies” of due process are (the words “lie” or “lies” occur only in the headline), but it seems to be that, as the headline says, due process seems reasonable and straightforward, but can be very ugly, and not produce the result that we consider “just”. But those aren’t really “lies”.

Garber’s point, as far as she has a point, seems to be that due process is overrated because of the difficulties it creates for witnesses in cases like the Weinstein trial. She doesn’t go so far as to argue that the rules of evidence should be suspended or weakened, but that’s what I glean from her article. Here are some excerpts. (The emphasis is mine.)

Donald Trump, defending a staffer who had been accused of domestic violence, joined the chorus: “Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”

Of course there is. And it has been on display in Weinstein’s long-awaited criminal trial. That trial has been, even as blunt-force legal proceedings go, particularly ugly. The women who have accused him of rape and other forms of assault have told graphic and harrowing stories, often tearfully, on the stand. (Weinstein has denied all charges of nonconsensual sexual encounters.) They have spoken of pleas ignored; of pants ripped off; of a tampon forcibly removed; of pain; of degradation; of threats; of fear. Weinstein, too, has endured his own humiliations as the women have testified: Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actor who alleges that Weinstein raped her, said last week that Weinstein has genital deformities. As evidence of her claim, a picture of Weinstein—naked—was displayed to the jury.

No person shall be deprived “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Due process suggests the comforts of idealized thinking, summoning notions of equality and fairness and the sanctity of facts. It may be rooted in reason; in practice, though, it can look like what it has during Weinstein’s trial: a perpetuation of harm.  
There’s no doubt that it’s hard for a witness, particularly one who might have been raped, to face Weinstein in court and recount what happened. But that’s not a “perpetuation of harm”, it’s a way to ultimately prevent the greater harm of sexual predators like Weinstein from continuing to operate.  Garber further recounts sharp defense questioning of prosecution witnesses confirming the stories of Anabella Sciorra, who claims she was raped by Weinstein in the early 1990s.

Garber then reaches her conclusion, referring to an interview of one of Weinstein’s attorneys, Donna Rotunno, by New York Times reporter Megan Twohey (my emphasis):

The structure of the criminal trial, when it deals with the intimacies of sex, means that testifying—the ostensibly straightforward act of telling one’s story—can require extreme bravery. “There is absolutely no risk for a woman to come forward now and make a claim. Zero,” Rotunno told Twohey. Here, however, is one of the many possible counterarguments: “He held me down on the bed and he forced himself on me orally,” Haleyi told the jury. “I was on my period. I had a tampon in there. I was mortified.” Here is another: Mann sobbed as she told the court that Weinstein had raped her. She hyperventilated. When she was given a break, she was heard screaming from a back room. She had spent several hours testifying. “Defense lawyers again portrayed her as an opportunistic manipulator who had a long romantic relationship with the producer,” is how a Times subheading summed up part of the time she’d spent on the stand.

This is due process at work. Whether the process will result in justice is a notably different matter. The prosecution rested its case on Thursday, after two weeks of testimony, with weeks’ worth of rebuttal from the defense likely to follow. As Weinstein was leaving court last Friday afternoon, after Mann’s testimony about his body, a reporter asked for his reaction to the proceedings. This was Weinstein’s reply: “Wait to see what the lawyers say about her.”

In my opinion, Weinstein is guilty, as there is too much concordant evidence pointing to his guilt. But he deserves a fair trial. And a fair trial means, if it means anything, that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And that, in turn, requires a vigorous defense, in which defense attorneys use every legal opening they can to cast doubt on the prosecution’s story, and on their witnesses. And there are rules that must be followed; when they’re not, the judge says “Objection sustained.” Yes, it’s grueling, and no witness escapes unscathed. 

Yes, it can be brutal, and victims may get retraumatized. But what is the alternative? If due process doesn’t “result in justice”—which seems to be one of the other lies that Garber refers to—what is her alternative? I don’t see any, not so long as guilt, with its sentence in this case a lifetime behind bars, must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Does Garber want to use the Title IX standards of “preponderance of evidence” instead? I don’t think any of us would support such a system.

When I was an expert witness for the defense in DNA cases, which often involved rape and murder, I was at first horrified at how the prosecution attorneys would go after me, questioning my credentials (“Really, Dr. Coyne—you work on flies. How can you have any expertise in human genetics?”), and probing for any weakness they could, even stuff that I thought was unfair (“You can’t simply add the probability of lab error to the probability of a random match. That’s apples and oranges!”). But later I came to realize that this kind of probing and jousting, particularly on the side of the defense (I worked for overburdened and underpaid public defenders who were amazingly dedicated), is necessary to air every possible weakness in a case.

Again, if Garber has an alternative to due process that causes less “harm,” I’d like to hear what it is. No process can guarantee justice, but due process is, at present, the best we’ve got.

Photos of readers

December 31, 2019 • 2:00 pm

Well, today we actually have a drawing of a reader, Ken Kukec. And there’s a reason why it’s a drawing:

Federal courts don’t allow cameras in the courtroom, but here’s a sketch of yours truly with a client readers may recognize. My brother was in Washington, DC, recently and discovered it in the Library of Congress.
The caption to the sketch overstates the situation a bit by referring to me as “his attorney.” Lead counsel was my mentor, Albert Krieger (also pictured in the sketch). I was along for the ride as second chair.
Unlike Dorian Gray, I continue to age while the image in the sketch remains the same.
Here’s the drawing, which is in the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress with the caption below (I’ve bolded Ken’s appearance):

The Dapper Don on Trial:

Flamboyant crime boss John Gotti, “the Dapper Don,” faced trial on several occasions. In 1992 he appeared in United States v. John Gotti et al., in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Gotti, sporting a red tie and handkerchief, sits next to his attorney, Ken Kukec. Defense attorney Albert Krieger hands Anthony M. Cardinale, another defense attorney, papers, while Murray Appleman, the sole witness for the defense, testifies. Judge I. Leo Glasser leans forward to listen. When his second in command, Salvatore “The Bull” Gravano, turned on him and became a government witness, Gotti was convicted on charges of murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, tax evasion and loan sharking. He died of throat cancer in 2002, while serving a life sentence in prison in Springfield, Missouri.

I asked Ken if he defended a lot of “made men,” and he responded this way:
A few over the years, including a couple from the Chicago “Outfit,” old-timers who grew up in “the Patch.” But none more high-profile than Gotti. I don’t think anyone in the modern era was.
You can read more about Gotti here.

Give convicted felons the right to vote

December 27, 2019 • 11:00 am

In most states of the Union, convicted felons have their right to vote abridged in one way or another. (In 1974 the Supreme Court affirmed that the voting rights of convicted felons was a matter for states to decide.) The figure below shows the restrictions in place at present (only Maine and Vermons allow convicted felons to vote freely—even in prison). In many states you can regain your voting status after you’re out of jail, but often it’s not easy, and you have to wait until you’re off probation and through with your parole.

Here’s a summary of the situation from PrisonFellowship.org:

There is great variety in how states approach restricting voting rights based on criminal history. However, nearly every state restricts a person’s right to vote due to conviction for a felony crime. Only two states, Maine and Vermont have no restrictions on voting rights and allow individuals to vote in prison. The other thirty-eight states, along with the District of Columbia, temporarily suspend the right to vote for those convicted of a felony crime during the period of their sentence. In some states, the voting rights of these individuals are automatically restored when their sentence is completed. In other states, the legislatures have chosen to require waiting periods or an application before a person’s voting rights may be restored. Only three states, Kentucky, Virginia, and Iowa, permanently revoke a person’s right to vote based on a felony conviction. Of those states, Virginia recently acted to extend the opportunity for clemency to those with a felony conviction who meet certain criteria.

In states that allow restoration of voting rights, the process by which a person has their voting rights restored can be complex. The procedure of registering to vote after disenfranchisement generally includes lengthy paperwork to be correctly filed through state agencies, sometimes including unintended waiting periods even for automatic restoration as a result of insufficient resources in state agencies.

This removal of voting rights in the U.S. is called “felony disenfranchisement”. Although only Maine and Vermont allow imprisoned people to vote regardless of their crime, that is the standard practice in many European countries, including Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

I see no rationale for disenfranchisement of anyone convicted of a crime, however horrible or regardless of whether they’re in prison. The easiest decision is for the three states that remove your right to vote for a lifetime if you’re a convicted felon—even after release. But if you’ve “paid your debt to society,” as they say, why should you be deprived of civil rights, including the important right to determine who governs you? (Some states also restrict your ability to be on a jury.) Or, if you’re on probation or parole, should you really not be able to vote? One might say that you’re still under legal sanction, but if you can hold a job, and you’re still a citizen, why shouldn’t you be able to vote? After all, you still must live under the laws, you’re in a democracy, and on what grounds are you to be deprived of choosing those responsible for making laws?

And, for that matter, why shouldn’t you be able to vote while in prison? You are still an American citizen (unless you’re an imprisoned foreign national), and voting is a civil right for Americans.

Depriving prisoners, convicts, or parolees of that right serves no function I can see: it’s not a deterrent, it doesn’t help reform the convict (who, after all, reforms so they can get to vote?), and it doesn’t further sequester them away from the rest of society. It seems to me, then, that deprivation of voting is purely retributive punishment, and serves no societal function nor helps the convicted in any way. It is a way of injuring somebody for something they couldn’t help. As a pure determinist, I still see that sequestration, reformation, and deterrence are valid reasons to punish people, often by incarcerating them, but I see no justification for retribution in a humane and rational society.