Law & Justice: February 2008 Archives
A Missouri man was threatened with jail for not paying a red-light camera ticket, but when he got a lawyer the city of Arnold dropped the ticket.
The lawsuit by Fenton residents James and Kara Hoekstra alleges that the ticketing process is illegal and unconstitutional, collecting fines through fraud and extortion to benefit the city and its red-light camera contractor. It seeks unspecified damages from the city, several city officials, and the contractor, American Traffic Solutions Inc.The couple received a ticket in the mail from Arnold on Aug. 15, accusing them of running a red light in a 2005 Jeep on July 29. It demanded a payment of $94.50. City records show it was one of 13,921 citations issued between October 2005 and Jan. 24, 2008.
The lawsuit said James Hoekstra was threatened with arrest when he refused to pay, but that the city dropped the ticket after he got a lawyer.
There's a possibility that the red-light cameras violate state law, and the allegation is that the city dropped the ticket so it wouldn't have to defend its cameras in court and risk losing the system entirely.
Former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman is at it again, this time trying to frame The Juice for beating up on his girlfriend.
O.J. Simpson's girlfriend, Christie Prody, was hospitalized with head injuries this week and those injuries are consistent with assault, not a fall, the National Enquirer is reporting. They were the ones that first broke the news of the hospitalization.Simpson contends that Prody was drunk and fell, causing her injuries, but cops aren't convinced and insiders are saying otherwise.
Christie may be facing brain surgery.
The cops "aren't convinced" because they're trying to set OJ up again! They'll never be happy as long as The Juice is loose.
(HT: The Wife.)
Everyone knows the Congressional "investigation" into steroid use in baseball is a ridiculous joke. However, I'm in favor of it! In fact, I think every Congressional committee should spend the rest of the year holding hearings, getting autographs, and investigating whether or not grown men are cheating at a ball game.
Why? Because Congress is largely incompetent. They're like an anti-King Midas: everything they touch turns to crap. Sure, there are hundreds of problems in our country with vastly more import than whether or not ball players cheat, but that's all the more reason to keep Congress distracted by celebrities and inanity. Every day they spend investigating baseball is a day they aren't raising taxes, writing earmarks, wasting money on social engineering, restricting our liberties, humiliating us in the eyes of our enemies, and undermining the War on Terror.
So I say, on with the hearings! This way, our prosecutors and judges can spend their valuable time pursuing important crimes.
Despite recent cries by at least one Missouri state legislator for a repeal of our state's liberal concealed-carry law, it's pretty obvious that concealed weapons would have saved lives at Kirkwood City Hall last week.
Thornton fired all six rounds from the revolver and an unspecified number of shots from the .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol he took after killing police Sgt. William Biggs near City Hall, Panus said. There were some shots still left in the police weapon.
Thorton killed the two police officers on the scene first, because he knew they had guns. They were carrying their guns in plain view, so he knew they were threats. If any of the other people present had been carrying a concealed weapon, Thorton likely could have been stopped long before he killed half-a-dozen more people.
St. Louis County police Officer Tracy Panus said Wednesday that it remained unclear whether Thornton owned the large-caliber revolver he took to the scene. "If it had been stolen, I bet we would have heard by now," she said.There was no indication whether Thornton had a concealed-carry permit, which is not a public record in Missouri.
I'll bet you $100 that Thorton didn't have a CCW. CCW holders are 300 times less likely to commit crimes than people without permits. Not 300% less likely, 300 times less likely. That's 30,000%. Repealing the CCW law wouldn't have stopped Thorton, but it would guarantee that the would-be victims of such massacres will be unable to defend themselves.
Citizens, except for the council-members themselves, are prohibited from carrying concealed weapons in city government buildings by state law, and that regulation set the stage for this tragedy. The recent Tinley Park shootings could also have been stopped if one or more of the five murdered women had been carrying a concealed weapon. The only people stopped by gun restrictions are law-abiding citizens. The psychos manage to get weapons despite the laws. "Gun-free zones" seem to be some of the most dangerous places.
(HT: St. Louis CofCC Blog.)
Here's a lawsuit that could create a form of school vouchers through tax deductions if the plaintiffs are successful.
A Jewish couple's bid to take a tax deduction they say the IRS reserves only for members of the Church of Scientology is getting a friendly reception from a federal appeals court, increasing the possibility of a ruling that could create a tax break for taxpayers of many religions who pay tuition to religious schools.During arguments on the case this week, three judges who ride the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals expressed deep skepticism of the IRS's position that the way the agency treats Scientologists is irrelevant to the deductions the Orthodox Jews, Michael and Marla Sklar, took for part of their children's day school tuition and for after-school classes in Jewish law.
"The view of the IRS is it can unconstitutionally violate the Constitution by establishing religion, by treating one religion more favorably than other religions in terms of what is allowed as deductions, and there can never be any judicial review of that?" Judge Kim Wardlaw asked at the court session Monday in Pasadena, Calif.
Basically the IRS has been allowing scientolgists to deduct the cost of their "education" from their taxes since at least 1994, but refusing to treat Christians, Jews, Muslims, or any other religion the same way. Apparently there's quite a history between the IRS and Scientology, and the IRS agreed to this special treatment in exchange for the Church of Scientology dropping thousands of lawsuits against the agency in 1993.
A policy of tax-deductible private school tuition would be superior to any form of distributivist school voucher scheme I've yet seen. Let's hope this case continues to play out favorably.
(HT: TaxProf Blog.)
