Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Law and Order

Death-Row Inmate Uses False Declarations

From the Sacramento Bee:

California Case against execution trimmed

Morales’ lawyers concede doubts about juror declarations

Attorneys seeking clemency for condemned murderer Michael A. Morales have withdrawn from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s consideration six declarations in which jurors expressed reservations about the death penalty verdict they rendered 23 years ago.

Prosecutors charged last week that five of the declarations Morales’ attorneys filed under seal were fabrications, and the killer’s lawyers conceded in a letter Sunday to Schwarzenegger’s legal affairs secretary that there are “substantial issues” surrounding the statements.

The declarations were obtained for Morales’ legal team by a private investigator that the state attorney general’s office identified as Kathleen Culhane of San Francisco. Culhane could not be reached for comment Monday.

“This is a first in capital litigation and clemency proceedings that we are aware of,” attorney general’s spokesman Nathan Barankin said of the withdrawal of the declarations. “And it is probably one of the most serious breaches of attorney obligations one can imagine.”

Besides the clemency petition, five more exhibits obtained by Culhane were included in an appeal challenging evidentiary issues in the case that defense lawyers filed Friday with the California Supreme Court. Those exhibits also are being withdrawn.

[ . . . ]

Morales is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. He currently has a petition pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose challenging lethal injection as being a cruel and unusual form of punishment. A federal judge is expected to rule on that petition today.

Cruel and unusual? Ask the family of the victim in this case whether she was cruelly raped and murdered. Just carry out the sentence on this asshole. And, while we’re at it, bring charges against the attorneys for presenting false testimony.

15 Feb 2006 by California Degenerates Law and Order

Don’t Bite the Hand that Arrests You

This guy should have watched Chris Rock’s hilarious-but-true video, “How Not to Get your Ass Kicked by the Police:”

Police wrestle, shoot, kill man in Wilmington (CA).

A domestic violence suspect who bit two police officers and tried to grab one of their guns was shot and killed Monday in Wilmington.

The 22-year-old man died at the scene. The officers, each with bites that broke their skin, went to a hospital for treatment, police said.

One of the officers suffered a broken pinky finger, the bone crushed by the suspect chomping down. The officer required a specialist, police said.

“They are going to be OK,” said Los Angeles police Capt. Joan McNamara, the Harbor Division commander. “They are both recovering. Human bites are pretty dangerous. (The officers) are being watched very closely for infection.”

[more]

15 Feb 2006 by Degenerates Law and Order

Scumsuckers of the Day

Somebody please tell me that this bitch and her accomplice aren’t getting only 16 months for this crap. She and her middle-man should be getting 5 to 10 years for endangering our community by selling drivers licenses to hordes of illegal aliens now happily driving around (statistically) without insurance, thus raising the cost of driving for legitimate citizens.

From the Daily Breeze:

DMV representative took cash for phony licenses

A worker at the California Department of Motor Vehicles office in Torrance took tens of thousands of dollars in cash bribes to hand out phony drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, authorities said Tuesday.

Toi Shamara Kingsbury, a motor vehicle field representative at the Torrance office from 2001 to 2005, has pleaded guilty to bribery charges.

Kingsbury, 31, of Los Angeles, was arrested Nov. 9 at a restaurant where investigators watched her commit a “hand-to-hand exchange involving cash for fraudulent drivers’ licenses,” DMV spokesman Mike Miller said.

A “middleman,” Ronald Kirk, 35, also pleaded guilty. Prosecutors said he brought people wanting licenses to Kingsbury.

Orange County Auto Theft Task Force agents first suspected Kingsbury of a crime when they discovered she had switched a vehicle identification number on an auto in the DMV’s computer system, Miller said. That auto-theft case is pending in Orange County.

Undercover DMV investigators soon began watching Kingsbury work at the office at 1785 W. 220th St.

“They witnessed blatant fraud,” Miller said.

[ . . . ]

“The scam involved selling drivers’ licenses to people who didn’t necessarily have the documents to get them,” said Deputy District Attorney Max Huntsman, the prosecutor on the case. “We believe she made a lot of profit off this operation.”

The case remains under investigation, and it was not clear how many fraudulent licenses Kingsbury processed and for how long.

Kingsbury has pleaded guilty to receiving bribes and is scheduled to be sentenced April 7 to 16 months in state prison and ordered to pay a $135,000 fine, the DMV said.

And that’s not the end of it – if California Democrats pass their insane legislation for letting ALL illegals have access to drivers licenses, people like this bitch will be out of business, BUT the problem will increase many-fold. And take it a step further and consider the terrorist implications of a license giveaway.

10 Feb 2006 by California Degenerates Law and Order Whacko Politics

SCOTUS Overturns 9th Court – Again

The Supreme Court today reinstated the death sentence for California inmate Ronald Sanders who was found guilty of murder with special circumstances. This is the latest Ninth Circuit court ruling to be overturned in what seems to be a marathon of legislation by judicial fiat from that court; repeatedly, this court has been overruled for it’s outrageous decisions that seem designed to challenge law rather than interpret it.

From AP via the Washington Times: Top court reinstates inmate’s death sentence

A divided Supreme Court reinstated a California inmate’s death sentence yesterday, the first 5-4 vote under newly installed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Justices overturned an appeals court ruling that declared Ronald Sanders’ sentence unconstitutional. Sanders was put on death row for the 1982 killing of a woman during a drug-related robbery in Bakersfield, Calif.

The case presented a technical question for the court involving jurors’ consideration of invalid aggravating factors. Two of the four special circumstances used by prosecutors in their case against Sanders — that the crime was committed during a burglary and was cruel or heinous — were later found invalid.

California argued that Sanders would have been eligible for a death sentence even without those factors. The Supreme Court’s five conservative members agreed.

“The erroneous factor could not have ‘skewed’ the sentence, and no constitutional violation occurred,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Roberts, retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Dissenting, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “This decision is more likely to complicate than to clarify our capital sentencing jurisprudence.” He was joined in dissent by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, although their reasons varied.

Note this is the first 5 votes to 4 ruling since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court. Justice O’Connor ruled for the reinstatement and as Justice Scalia noted, it would have been the same had Judge Alito been in O’Connor’s stead.

My prediction, is this will be the first of many 5 to 4 votes with Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy in the majority, and Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer in dissent. The Democrats are just gonna hate that.

Here’s some more history on this case: From the Supreme Court Blog:

Friday, October 07, 2005
Cases for Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005
No. 04-980 Brown v. Sanders
In California, a jury can find that a murder conviction warrants the death penalty by finding that special circumstances make the murder particularly bad. In this case, the jury found four special circumstances specified by California law and sentenced respondent Ronald Sanders to death. On appeal, the California Supreme Court set aside two of the special circumstances, but held that the jury would have imposed the death sentence anyway.

Sanders brought a habeas corpus challenge to his death sentence and the Ninth Circuit set it aside. The court held that the California Supreme Court couldn’t know whether the jury would have imposed the death sentence if it only had found two of the special circumstances.

The resolution of this case may depend on whether California is a “weighing” state, in which case the California Supreme Court should have either reweighed the factors or held that the overturned circumstances were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. California takes the position that it doesn’t matter because the jury only needed to find one special circumstance in order to impose a death sentence.

So, just when does this Sanders guy get smoked?

12 Jan 2006 by California Judiciary Law and Order

DOJ Opens NSA Surveillance Leak Probe

It seems to me that the person(s) who leaked information about secret NSA surveillance operations to the media should be charged with treason. Also, The New York Times and big media in general, should be held culpable as well. I believe that in a time of war, the administration has every right, and indeed the responsibility, to conduct this sort of covert surveillance. People who have nothing to hide should have no problem with this concept; only those who seek to protect criminal and enemy operatives seem to have a problem with the surveillance.

Justice Department Opens NSA Spy Leak Probe

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of information to the media about a domestic eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency, senior Justice Department officials confirmed Friday.

Officials have confirmed to FOX News that the FBI is involved in the investigation, but did not comment on whether other agencies were involved, or when the investigation began. One official has said the referral for the probe came from the NSA.

More information from FOXNews.com – Politics – Justice Department Opens NSA Spy Leak Probe

30 Dec 2005 by Islamic Terrorism Law and Order Media

Took-O-Meter

Schwarzenegger refuses to spare Williams’ life

With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, founder of Crips gang is set to die by injection at San Quentin early Tuesday.

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused today to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution after midnight in a case that stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row.

Schwarzenegger was not swayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from more than 50,000 people who said that Williams had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and a series of children’s books about the dangers of gangs.

Time left until Tookie gets got the needle:


12 Dec 2005 by California Degenerates Law and Order

Police Escort for Santa Claus

Every year since we’ve lived here, we’ve seen the Torrance Police Officers’ Association escort Santa Claus into each and every neighborhood. To do this, they have to start right after the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Santa (left) rides on a 30 foot long holiday float pulled by a light truck while the police cruisers (right) lead and follow the float throughout the evening. The procession stops for a few minutes at walking-distance intervals so the kids from toddlers to geriatrics can come and see Santa.

30 Nov 2005 by California Law and Order

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