Law & Justice: October 2006 Archives
My wife tells me that convicted border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean won't get a new trial despite juror coercion.
A dozen members of the House of Representatives have written to President Bush demanding an investigation of the case against two Border Patrol agents sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison for the pursuit and shooting of a drug smuggler and calling for a presidential pardon of the pair.U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years and one day despite a plea by their attorney for a new trial after three jurors said they were coerced into voting guilty in the case.
Unfortunately, either Presidential Spokesman Tony Snow isn't familiar with the case, or President Bush is a complete disgrace.
Yesterday Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, asked Bush spokesman Tony Snow whether Bush would use his power of pardon to free the agents."That's an unanswerable question, Les. The president is the person who is responsible for pardons. You can tell the network, which made you ask that question, that it is nonsensical," Snow said.
I personally doubt that this will be the last word on the matter... I still have some faith in America.
(HT: The Daily Spork.)
I was pleased to read the headline "Woman Sentenced for Lying About Rape" but unfortunately it's wrong, because the woman was actually sentenced for rape herself, not merely a false accusation.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A woman who gained national notoriety for writing a book about being raped, then abandoning her newborn in a college trash been has been sentenced to prison for being the rapist in the case.Twyana Davis, 30, claimed in 1995 that she had been raped, appeared on television shows to tell her story.
She also formed a nonprofit group aimed to prevent teen pregnancies and provide alternatives for young mothers who didn't want to keep their babies.
But she also was harboring a secret: She wasn't raped. She was the rapist, Franklin County prosecutors said.
As I've written in the past about rape accusations, women who lie about being raped should face the same punishment they hoped to visit upon their victim. More generally, I think anyone who knowingly falsely accuses someone of a crime should be punished similarly.
It's inexcusable for law enforcement to make mistakes like this one in Washington where sheriffs raided the wrong house looking for porn.
The irate homeowner told by The Spokesman-Review, which did not identify him at his request, that deputies dumped out drawers, went through his wallet and checkbook, seized computers, CDs, floppy disks, VHS tapes and other material and refused to clean up the mess in the raid Sept. 27.Half a dozen sheriff's vehicles converged on the house, and after taking photographs outside Hines told officers within hearing of the neighbors, "Now let's go inside and get some porn," the owner said. ...
[Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie D.] Knezovich said he plans to adopted a more structured system for checking facts in search warrants, adding that [Detective Timothy D.] Hines probably would not be disciplined.
"I could see it if it was a blatant lack of diligence," the sheriff said, "but sometimes things like that happen. A number can get transposed."
Ridiculous. As atrocious as the incident is, the unnamed victim is far better off than Cory Maye, who is awaiting execution for killing a cop because the police raided the wrong house. Writes Orin Kerr:
The remarkable part of the case is that it seems pretty likely that Maye was acting in self-defense. The police broke into Maye's apartment at night while executing a warrant for drugs, but apparently they had the wrong apartment. Specifically, the police didn't realize that the apartment had been divided into two units, and — at least according to blog reports — Maye was in one and the drugs were in the other.According to Maye's testimony at trial, as reported in the Hattiesburg American on Jaunary 23, 2004, Maye had no idea that the people breaking in to his apartment were cops, and shot the intruder to protect his young daughter:
Cory Maye, 23, said he was asleep on a chair in the living room of his Prentiss apartment as his 14-month-old daughter slept in the bedroom when he heard a loud crash at his front door."I immediately ran to my daughter's room, got a pistol, put in a magazine and chambered a round," said Maye, who is on trial for capital murder in Marion County. "As I laid on the floor by the bed, I heard kicks at the back door. I was frightened, I thought someone was trying to break in on me and my daughter."
Maye testified that it was dark in his apartment when he heard someone breaking into the back door, which was located in the bedroom.
"That's when I fired the shots," Maye said. "After I fired the shots, I heard them yell 'police! police!' Once I heard them, I put the weapon down and slid it away. I did not know they were police officers."
Far worse than irritated neighbors and a disheveled home.
