Impeaching Trump – Lawers Lay Out First Case

Jail to the Chumph.

Should Republicans stop blocking the Chumph Impeachment, or the 2018 Election, whichever comes first – there appear to be at least 4 Cases, if not 5 upon which the Chumph will be prosecuted.

The easiest one of those to make as a primary cause and case for impeachment, is Obstruction of Justice. The other crimes are hidden behind requiring information which is still classified, information from grand jury testimony, and information not available to the public gathered by Robert Mueller’s prosecutors.

There appears to be evidence upon which to charge the Chumph with these crimes –

1. Money Laundering,
2. Criminal Conspiracy
3. Treason
4. Obstruction of Justice
5. and possibly, a number of cases of Malfeasance in Office

It is unknown at this point what evidence, or what charges (if any) Mueller will pursue. But the case for impeachment, based on obstruction of justice has been laid out just using publically available information. The guys who did this are heavyweights –

Barry H. Berke is co-chair of the litigation department at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
(Kramer Levin) and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has represented
public officials, professionals and other clients in matters involving all aspects of white-collar
crime, including obstruction of justice. Noah Bookbinder is the Executive Director of Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Previously, Noah has served as Chief
Counsel for Criminal Justice for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and as a
corruption prosecutor in the United States Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.
Ambassador (ret.) Norman L. Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was the chief
White House ethics lawyer from 2009 to 2011 and before that, defended obstruction and other
criminal cases for almost two decades in a D.C. law firm specializing in white-collar matters. He
is the chair and co-founder of CREW.

From their introduction of a case developed for Brookings Institute –

There are significant questions as to whether President Trump obstructed justice. We do not yet know all the relevant facts, and any final determination must await further investigation, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But the public record contains substantial evidence that President Trump attempted to impede the investigations of Michael Flynn and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including by firing FBI Director James Comey. There is also a question as to whether President Trump conspired to obstruct justice with senior members of his administration although the public facts regarding conspiracy are less well developed.Attempts to stop an investigation represent a common form of obstruction. Demanding the loyalty of an individual involved in an investigation, requesting that individual’s help to end the investigation, and then ultimately firing that person to accomplish that goal are the type of acts that have frequently resulted in obstruction convictions, as we detail. In addition, to the extent conduct could be characterized as threatening, intimidating, or corruptly persuading witnesses, that too
may provide additional grounds for obstruction charges. While those defending the president may claim that expressing a “hope” that an investigation will end is too vague to constitute obstruction, we show that such language is sufficient to do so. In that regard, it is material that former FBI Director James Comey interpreted the president’s “hope” that he would drop the investigation into Flynn as an instruction to drop the case. That Comey ignored that instruction is beside the point under applicable law. We also note that potentially misleading conduct and possible cover-up attempts could serve as further evidence of obstruction. Here, such actions may include fabricating an initial justification for firing Comey, directing Donald Trump Jr.’s inaccurate statements about the purpose of his meeting with a Russian lawyer during the president’s campaign, tweeting that Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations,” despite having
“no idea” whether such tapes existed, and repeatedly denouncing the validity of the investigations…

The entire paper PRESIDENTIAL OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE: THE CASE OF DONALD J. TRUMP can be found at this link.

Very apropos depiction of the clown

 

Another Black Man Murdering Cop Gets Away in St Louis

Murder most foul as the state’s legal system declares war on black men.

This sort of thing is going to make police stops real dangerous – as the Cops in Missouri, backed by a racist justice system are no better than thugs,

Ex-St. Louis policeman acquitted of murdering black motorist

 

Stockley and the gun he planted on his victim shows clear premedititon

A Missouri judge on Friday found a white former St. Louis police officer not guilty of murder in the shooting death of a black man after a car chase in 2011, prosecutors said.

Officials feared the verdict could set off violent protests, as have similar deadly cases involving police and minorities around the United States in recent years.

Jason Stockley, 36, had been charged with first-degree murder, accused of intentionally killing Anthony Lamar Smith, 24, and planting a gun in his car. Stockley, who was arrested in May 2016, testified he acted in self-defense.

Judge Timothy Wilson’s highly anticipated ruling was announced Friday, more than five weeks after the bench trial ended.

“This court, as a trier of fact, is simply not firmly convinced of defendant’s guilt,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

Wilson said prosecutors also asked the court to consider a lesser degree of homicide but they did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stockley’s use of deadly force was not justified in self defense.

“A judge shall not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor or fear of criticism,” the judge said, quoting the Code of Judicial Conduct.

Prosecutor Kimberly Gardner said in a statement she was disappointed with the verdict and believed she had presented proof that Stockley intended to kill Smith.

“However, in this case it was the judge’s duty to evaluate the evidence and deliver his findings,” she said. “That’s how our system works.”

Killings of unarmed black people by U.S. police in recent years triggered widespread protests and activists promised disruptive demonstrations if Stockley was acquitted.

St. Louis and state officials were braced for violent protests and racial tensions like those that followed the 2014 fatal shooting by police of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, near St. Louis.

‘SAD, HURT, MAD’

Activists were angry and disappointed by the verdict.

“I’m sad, I’m hurt, I’m mad,” the Reverend Clinton Stancil of the Wayman AME Church in St. Louis said by telephone. “But this was expected. We haven’t made any progress since Ferguson, that’s clear. Cops can still kill us with impunity.”

In recent years grand juries have declined to charge officers involved in the shooting of Brown and the choking death of Eric Garner, 43, in New York. Baltimore police officers also were not convicted in the death of Freddie Gray, who died from a broken neck suffered in a police van in 2015.

Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the ACLU of Missouri, in a statement listed the names of several black people who have been fatally shot by police in different cities and said little has changed.

“Police officer Jason Stockley’s acquittal today does not change the facts: Anthony Lamar Smith died unnecessarily, another casualty of excessive and deadly force by police against people of color,” Mittman said.

“In 2016, black males between 15 and 34 years old were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by law enforcement officers,” he said. “It is past time for Missouri and the country to say in one voice: ‘This cannot continue.’”

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens on Thursday put the National Guard on standby. Some schools called off classes and some events were postponed, according to local media.

Christina Wilson, Smith’s fiancée, pleaded at a news conference on Thursday evening for protesters to avoid violence if they demonstrate.

The verdict in St. Louis follows high-profile mistrials or acquittals of police officers charged in shootings in Ohio and Minnesota this year.

Authorities say Smith tried to flee from Stockley on Dec. 20, 2011, reportedly after Smith was involved in a drug deal. During a pursuit, Stockley could be heard saying on an internal police car video that he was going to kill Smith, prosecutors said.

Stockley, riding in the passenger seat of a patrol vehicle with his personal AK-47 in one hand and department-issued weapon in the other, shot at Smith’s car, according to St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Susan Ryan and charging documents. Stockley and his partner chased Smith at speeds exceeding 80 miles per hour (129 kph), the documents said.

At Stockley’s direction, the driver of the police car slammed into Smith’s vehicle and they came to a stop. Stockley then approached Smith’s car and shot him five times, court documents said.

Stockley’s lawyers said he fired in self-defense because he believed Smith was reaching for a gun but prosecutors said the only gun recovered from the scene had only Stockley’s DNA on it.

 

The Chumph Now Looking Into “Pardons” Is an Admission of Criminal Activity

The Chumph apparently believes he can pardon himself. It is a frank admission of numerous crimes by himself, his children, and acolytes,

The most criminal administration in history is going down.

Can the Chumph pardon himself? Most Constitutional scholars say no.

The Chumph is undeniably stupid enough to try, though.

Trump pushes his ‘complete power’ to pardon

President Donald Trump claimed on Saturday morning that “all agree” that he has full power to pardon, following reports that his legal team is exploring his ability to pardon not only his allies and family members but also himself.

“While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Trump’s lawyers are looking into his pardon powers, a move that prompted a swift rebuke from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees conducting wide-ranging Russia-related probes.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is also leading a sprawling Russia probe and is said to be investigating whether Trump obstructed justice, in part by firing James Comey, the former FBI director then leading the Russia probe.

Despite Trump’s claim, many legal experts say the extent of his pardon power is far from a settled question. According to Richard Primus, a University of Michigan law professor, Trump would be entering uncharted territory if he tried to pardon himself.

He also said many constitutional lawyers are skeptical that such a move would be legally sound.

“The Constitution doesn’t specify whether the president can pardon himself, and no court has ever ruled on the issue, because no president has ever been brazen enough to try it,” he wrote for POLITICO Magazine.

“Among constitutional lawyers, the dominant (though not unanimous) answer is ‘no,’ in part because letting any person exempt himself from criminal liability would be a fundamental affront to America’s basic rule-of-law values.”

 

Cosby Mistrial

It doesn’t say he is guilty or innocent – just that the entire jury wasn’t convinced of guilt or innocence…

Mistrial declared in Bill Cosby sex-assault trial

A Pennsylvania judge declared a mistrial Saturday after a jury was “hopelessly deadlocked” on sexual-assault charges against Bill Cosby, the comic legend whose legacy as a promoter of wholesome values has been tarnished by a years-long sex and drugging scandal.

As the mistrial was declared, Cosby sat at the defense table with his chin held high, a flat, blank look on his face. Across the well of the courtroom, jurors stood one-by-one in the jury box and said, “Yes,” as the judge asked whether each whether they agreed that the jury is “hopelessly deadlocked.”

The jurors answered without hesitation, but several slumped forward in their chairs, elbows on their knees and fingers knit, looks of frustration on their faces.

After the questioning was done, the entertainer sat back in his chair, holding a slender cane that has been with him inside the courtroom each day to his chest. Cosby’s family was not in the courtroom to hear the judge’s decision.

The jury filed out almost within arm’s reach of Andrea Constand, Cosby’s accuser. She stood respectfully, with a strained smile on her face. Afterwards, prosecutor Kevin Steele announced in court that he will retry Cosby.

The courtroom emptied quickly, but the two main players in this 11-day melodrama lingered. Constand, in the brilliantly white lightweight blazer she’d worn on the witness stand, stood along the edge of the courtroom wall. Six accusers who had attended the trial as spectators, some with tears in their eyes, lined up to console her with long, sad hugs. The former professional basketball player’s face was flush, but her eyes were dry.

Across the courtroom, a small entourage of Cosby aides broke into wide smiles and clapped each other on the back. Amid the celebration, the aging comic sat by himself at his regular spot at the defense table. No one from his family was there to share the moment, and the members of his defense team and support staff had turned their attention elsewhere.

Cosby, knowing that he’ll be tried again, looked pensive as he sat tilted forward with his legs spread wide and his eyes cast to the floor. He draped a long finger across his upper lip, and for several minutes was alone with his thoughts. Then, his expression changed. For a split second, a smile crossed his face.

Finally, one of his defense attorneys, Angela Agrusa, spied him sitting there alone, and went over to offer her arm. They walked down the center aisle of the courtroom together, weaving through celebratory Cosby aides, and journalists. But the path was blocked and they had to stop.

Cosby and his attorney paused momentarily.

“You lead the way,” Cosby said to Agrusa.

Outside the courthouse, Cosby’s press spokesman thrust a fist in the air triumphantly as the comedian made his way down a ramp flanked by metal barricades and a leafy hedge in the rain. A handful of supporters chanted, “Let Bill go,” as Cosby was helped into an idling black SUV. Cosby turned for a moment to a crowd in which journalists outnumbered supporters at least 25-to-one. Then he was gone.

The jurors, who had complained of exhaustion, deliberated 52 hours before finally saying they could not reach a verdict on three counts of aggravated indecent assault against the 79-year-old entertainer. But the hung jury does not end Cosby’s legal troubles because he could be retried on the same charges and is still facing lawsuits filed by some of the 60 women who have accused him of sexual assault, rape or sexual harassment.

As deliberations dragged on, signs of discontent in the jury room kept emerging. The jurors, who had been kept working for 12- and 13-hour days by Steven T. O’Neill, the Montgomery County judge overseeing the case, since beginning their cloistered discussions Monday afternoon, asked to go back to the hotel early on Tuesday. The next day they expressed “concerns” to court officials, though the judge did not reveal the substance of their complaints.

Defense attorneys furiously demanded a mistrial many times in the courtroom during the lengthy deliberations, but Judge O’Neill insisted on letting the jury continue its work. Cosby’s press team angered the judge by holding impromptu news conferences on the courthouse steps, fulminating for a mistrial and criticizing the judge for allowing deliberations to stretch longer than anyone could remember in previous cases held in this scruffy Philadelphia suburb.

Late Thursday morning, just after passing the 30-hour mark in deliberations, jurors formally announced for the first time that they were deadlocked in a one-sentence note saying they could not reach a “unanimous consensus” on any of the counts. The judge gave the standard order to keep trying, but they were ultimately unable to break the deadlock. When he first heard about the deadlock, Cosby walked out of the courtroom with a smile on his face.

 

Walter Scott Murderer, ex-Cop Michael Slager to Plead Guilty in Federal Court

Those who are either old enough to remember the KKK murders in places like Mississippi, and the resultant trials where all-white juries of the time couldn’t find them guilty will draw a correlation between the Walter Scott Murder trial ending in a hung jury despite video evidence that he was murdered by former Officer Michael Slager.

In quite possibly the last Civil Rights prosecution until the racist Chumph and his minions are removed from office, one small victory.

Sources: Police officer arrested in Walter Scott shooting to plead guilty in federal civil rights case

The former North Charleston police officer who was filmed shooting Walter Scott to death is expected to plead guilty this afternoon in connection with a federal civil rights prosecution, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

Such a plea agreement for Michael Slager, 35, would come on the eve of his trial stemming from the April 2015 killing.

It remains unclear to what charges Slager would plead. In federal court, sentencing also is seldom handed down on the same day as a plea. Instead, probation agents would prepare a pre-sentencing report in the coming weeks, and a judge would decide a penalty later.

The sources confirmed that Slager was scheduled to enter the plea during a 2:30 p.m. hearing at U.S. District Court in downtown Charleston, but they declined to publicly discuss the development until then. The former lawman also could change his mind before the proceeding.

A Scott family spokesman, Ryan Julison, said the loved ones would speak out after the hearing.

Slager could face as little as no prison time and as much as life behind bars on the most serious count against him: deprivation of rights under the color of law. He also is charged with lying to state investigators and using a firearm in a violent crime.

In state court, where a hung jury prompted a mistrial last year, Slager is still charged with murder. It’s unknown whether that case also would be resolved.

Jury selection for the May 15 federal trial had been scheduled for next week.

Today’s pretrial hearing had been set for this morning, but it was rescheduled for the afternoon, according to a Monday filing that did not give a reason for the time change. The hearing was expected to be lengthy, with attorneys offering expert testimony and arguing in front of Judge David Norton about whether certain witnesses should be allowed to testify in the trial.

Slager, who is white, has maintained that he shot Scott, 50, a black man, in self-defense after Scott took his Taser.

But the federal indictment alleged that Slager used excessive force when he opened fire.

The officer pulled over Scott’s car because of a broken brake light on April 4, 2015, and Scott ran. Slager said Scott grabbed the stun gun during a fight.

But the video, filmed by eyewitness Feidin Santana, showed Scott turning around and running as Slager pulled his .45-caliber pistol and started shooting. Five of the eight bullets hit Scott from behind.

Santana called it “abuse,” and his footage captured worldwide attention amid scrutiny of police uses of force against black people.

A jury made up of Charleston County residents last year considered Santana’s and Slager’s views in state court, where the panel could not agree on whether Slager had committed murder, manslaughter or no crime at all.

The jurors for the civil rights proceeding are scheduled to be chosen next week in Columbia from a pool of residents from across South Carolina.

The defense team, led by attorney Andy Savage, had argued that a jury that’s less exposed to intense news coverage of the shooting would give Slager a fairer trial.

 

Cop Who Murdered Walter Scott Walks Free

As predicted. You pick 11 people at random in the South for a Jury – you are going to get at least 1 racist asshole.

 

 

Philando Castile Cop Murderer Charged With Manslaughter

Not that I have a lot of faith that the system will actually produce a successful prosecution…But…

Minn. Police Officer Who Killed Philando Castile Is Charged With Manslaughter

The police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb in July has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the use of force by St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was not justified. A review of dashboard camera video revealed that “no reasonable officer” would have used deadly force in this circumstance, Choi said.

“Philando Castile was not resisting or fleeing,” Choi added at a press conference Wednesday. “There was absolutely no criminal intent exhibited by him throughout this encounter… he was respectful and complaint … he volunteered in good faith that he had a fire arm beyond what the law requires.”

Castile, a beloved school cafeteria manager, was shot and killed by Yanez during a routine traffic stop. The shooting unleashed days of violent protests in Minnesota.

An NPR review of court records showed that Castile, a 32-year-old black man, had been stopped 46 times before by police.

 

More Child Rape Allegations Against Trump – Trial After Election

Win or lose, the first thing that is going to happen after November 8th is the Chumph is going to court.  He is the defendant in several Civil (so far) cases relative to the fraud in Trump University, and now at least one, and possibly three case of child rape. One of which could involve the murder of a victim to cover it up.

Either of which, if decided against him, would disqualify him from being President (another impeachment, anyone?)

Witness: Trump also raped 12-year-old — and used her disappearance to threaten another victim

A Witness who’s backing a woman’s child rape claims against Donald Trump also accused the Republican presidential nominee of sexually assaulting another, even younger girl.

Trump is due to appear in federal court Dec. 16 for a status conference after a judge allowed the lawsuit, which seeks $75,000 in damages, to move forward.

The alleged victim, identified in the suit as “Jane Doe,” claims Trump brutally raped her in 1994, when she was 13 years old, and threatened to harm her and her family if she talked.

The suit was originally filed last year in California by a woman named Katie Johnson, but that case was thrown out May 2 because the complaint failed to properly state any specific federal civil rights violations.

The lawsuit was refiled in New York in June, but without Johnson’s name, her request for $100 million and absent several explosive claims from the previous suit — including an allegation that Trump had given money to the victim and ordered her to get an abortion.

Two other women — identified as “Joan Doe” and “Tiffany Doe” — have been added to the newer suit as witnesses.

Both witnesses say they worked as “party planners” for billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who paid them to “attract adolescent women” to events he hosted at the Wexner Mansion in New York.

Tiffany Doe says in court documents that she lured Jane Doe to a party with the promise of money and meeting contacts in the modeling industry.

She claims in the documents that she personally witnessed the girl being forced to engage in various sex acts with Trump and Epstein, who she said were aware of her age.

“I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop,” Tiffany Doe alleges.

Tiffany Doe said she also witnessed Trump forcing Jane Doe and a 12-year-old girl identified as “Maria” to perform oral sex on him and then physically abuse both of them afterward.

The woman said her job duties required her to “personally witness and supervise encounters between the underage girls that Mr. Epstein hired and his guests,” according to court documents.

Epstein, a financier who was also friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton, was convicted in 2008 of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution and served 13 months of an 18-year prison term.

Tiffany Doe said both Trump and Epstein threatened to harm Jane Doe if she ever revealed the physical and sexual abuse she endured — and she said the future GOP presidential nominee’s warning was particularly ominous.

“I personally witnessed Defendant Trump telling the Plaintiff that she shouldn’t ever say anything if she didn’t want to disappear like the 12-year-old female Maria, and that he was capable of having her whole family killed,” Tiffany Doe alleged.

Tiffany Doe said after she stopped working for Epstein in 2002, he threatened to kill her and her family if she ever revealed the child rape operation he oversaw.

The woman, who started working for Epstein in 1990, said she had put herself at great risk by agreeing to back Jane Doe’s claims against Trump but swore her allegations were truthful.

“I fully understand that that the life of myself and my family is now in grave danger,” she said.

 

Trump the Child Molester – Headed to Court in December for Rape

That didn’t take long… But Wait! There’s More!

Trump to head to court in December for allegedly tying up and raping a 13-year-old girl

A lawsuit claiming that Republican nominee Donald Trump raped at least one 13-year-old girl in 1994 may have its day in court after a federal judge reportedly ordered a status conference to review the case, the Independent reported Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of New York, alleges that Trump and financier Jeffrey Epstein raped two underage girls at several parties at Epstein’s apartment in Manhattan. The girls, identified in court documents as “Tiffany Doe” and “Jane Doe,” were allegedly promised money and modeling careers if they attended the parties.

The details described in the document are graphic. At one party, Trump is accused of tying one of the young girls to the bed before raping her while the victim repeatedly plead with him to stop.

Trump’s lawyer has denied the accusations. A status conference is a meeting to update the court on how the two sides are proceeding including any settlement discussions under consideration and any discovery that has been conducted.

 

 

St Louis Police Finally Charged for Murder of Anthony Lamar Smith…5 Years Later

This video shows the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith by St Louis Cops.

Former St. Louis police officer charged with first-degree murder for 2011 shooting

A former police officer is now facing first-degree murder charges for a shooting that left a driver dead in 2011.

FOX 2 obtained dash camera video of the incident that has not been publicly released, but the station confirms it is authentic.

Authorities say it all started when former Officer Jason Stockley attempted to make a traffic stop after a reported drug deal.

In the video, Stockley is seen getting out of his patrol car with his personal AK-47-style rifle, which is a violation of the St. Louis Police Department’s policy on personal weapons.

The driver, Anthony Lamar Smith, speeds away in his car, jumping over a sidewalk to get away.

Prosecutors say Stockley shot at Smith’s car before getting back into his patrol car.

The officer who is driving the patrol car begins a pursuit.

A speed monitor on the dash cam video clocks the officers exceeding 80 miles per hour on wet streets and speeding past stop signs.

At one point, the officer failed to make his turn and hit a tree.

”Back up,” Stockley yells.

It is difficult to hear exactly what is being said, but the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Probable Cause Statement claims that Stockley said, “Going to kill this m***** ******, don’t you know it.”

When Smith slows down to pull over, Stockley is heard yelling, “Hit him right now.”

The officers ram Smith’s car before surrounding him. The probable cause statement alleges that Stockley fired five shots into the car, killing Smith.

Right after the shooting, police reported finding a gun on Smith, but prosecutors claim it “was later determined by lab analysis to have only (Stockley`s) DNA on it.”

It is not clear what happens at the end of the video as Stockley is seen rummaging through a bag in the back of a squad car.

The Circuit Attorney’s Office responded with this statement:

“The people of the City of St. Louis have a right to determine whether the State has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The courtroom is the appropriate forum for this matter. ”

Stockley’s attorney Neil Bruntrager called to say the video is just one piece of the evidence.  He says another surveillance video that’s not available, shows a different perspective.  He also points out that the Feds had this same video and declined to prosecute or even pursue the case in civil court.

 

Cosby’s Lawyers Play the Race Card

Admittedly with the number of white boys recently receiving a hand slap or a pat on the back for raping women – there is the opportunity to cloud the issue.

Cosby’s behind belongs in jail.

The fact that some of the courts have turned college campuses in America into “Free Rape Zones”, speaks more to that “white boy privilege” dysfunction in our courts system than our just and deep moral outrage.

Cosby’s case is rare in America, where money buts you out of almost any crime in the pay for play “Justice” system. I mean Roger Ailes cut to the chase and wrote a $20 million check to keep his as out of court, and possibly jail.

Despite the corruption of the system – Race isn’t the sole reason Cosby is being prosecuted, Our righteous indignation should be reserved for those who have corrupted the system of justice on the basis of race…Not just the likely guilty.

Bill Cosby’s lawyers claim racism for first time

Bill Cosby has long preached the gospel of personal responsibility to fellow blacks, irritating those who fault racism for holding the community back.

But now lawyers for the 79-year-old comedian have suggested for the first time that racial bias is to blame as Cosby faces the prospect of 13 women testifying in court that he drugged and molested them. Twelve of them are white.

Cosby’s legal team raised the issue on the courthouse steps Tuesday after a hearing in his criminal sex assault case in suburban Philadelphia. Whether they intend to bring up race in the courtroom remains to be seen. At a minimum, some legal experts said the defense is trying to influence potential jurors.

“I think that you’ve always got to have in mind who’s your jury pool,” said Los Angeles lawyer Mark Geragos, whose clients have included Michael Jackson. “That’s probably the end game.”

Or the lawyers may have been dutifully carrying out Cosby’s instructions: “It could well be they are expressing the concerns of the client,” said Carl Douglas, who was on O.J. Simpson’s legal Dream Team.

Cosby is set to go on trial next June on charges he drugged and sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his home in 2004. He could get 10 years in prison if convicted.

In bringing up race, his legal team took aim at celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents about half the women who have agreed to testify against Cosby.

Allred “calls herself a civil rights attorney, but her campaign against Mr. Cosby builds on racial bias and prejudice that can pollute the court of public opinion,” the lawyers said in a statement.

“Mr. Cosby is no stranger to discrimination and racial hatred. When the media repeats her accusations – with no evidence, no trial and no jury – we are moved backwards as a country and away from the America that our civil rights leaders sacrificed so much to create.”

Allred called the tactic “desperate.”

“It is ironic that a man who has chastised the black poor for making race an excuse would now have to lean upon that as part of his defense strategy,” said Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson, a black scholar and author of the book “Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?”

“If you’re more cynical, you might say, ‘What manipulation of racial rhetoric in defense of the indefensible,’” Dyson said Thursday….Read the rest here…

 

The Court’s Stopped Clock Moment

The US Court systems, especially at the state level and below have gotten pretty miserable. The system is so imbalanced and corrupted as to be contemptible. So much so, when something goes right justice wise…

It is hard to believe.

What was that old Red Foxx joke about the Karate guy and the local guy fighting in a bar…”Karate, Korea Tae Kwan Do 1957!” …”K-Tire Iron, 1958 Caddy!”

NY court erupts in cheers as charges dropped against man who beat his wife’s rapist to death

Wednesday, a court in Bronx, New York dropped charges against a man who killed an intruder who was trying to sexually assault his wife.

WABC reported Wednesday morning that the courtroom erupted in cheers when Judge Marc Whiten announced that he will accept a motion to dismiss manslaughter charges against 61-year-old cab driver Mamadou Diallo.

In May, police records say, just after Diallo left his apartment in the Bronx for work, a career criminal named Earl Nash went knocking from door-to-door in the building asking for water. Nash — whose police record showed more than 20 arrests for acts of theft and violence — reportedly tried to entice a little girl into the stairwell, but she ran away.

When he knocked on the Diallos’ apartment door, however, the cab driver’s 51-year-old wife — who has there at home with her sister — opened it a crack, which was all Nash needed to kick in the door and attack the women.

Nash smashed a chair down on Diallo’s wife’s head. When she crumpled to the floor, Nash began to rip her clothes off and tried to rape her.

With her sister’s help, the woman fought free and was able to call Diallo, who raced home in his cab and strode into the building brandishing a tire iron. He stepped off the sixth floor elevator, caught sight of Nash and attacked him, beating him in the head and body.

First responders arrived at the scene and transported an unconscious Nash to Lincoln Hospital, where he died.

A coroner’s report determined that Nash’s death was a homicide and prosecutors lodged manslaughter charges against Diallo.

He was released from custody in June and Diallo’s defense team submitted a motion to dismiss the charges, which Judge Whiten accepted.

Diallo told the New York Daily News after his release, “I don’t want to be a hero” for what he’d done. He said he only resorted to violence because his wife was in danger.

“Nobody’s happy when you fight with somebody and die,” said Diallo. “Nobody likes that. (But) you don’t mess with a man’s family, a man’s wife. Your family is your family.”

 

Another Right Wing/Conservative/Republican Hero Going Down

This guy, a particularly nasty piece of work was the founder of a Militia called the Minutemen, whose stated objective was to patrol the US Border, while armed. They were quite the stir in conservative circles for a while…Seems that a lot of these “macho”, “hard core” right wing types have a problem keeping their hands off of children. In this case, the scumbag’s own daughters are testifying against him.

Daughters of former conservative hero testify against him in molestation case

Three of former border militiaman Chris Simcox’s daughters testified against him in the former Republican candidate’s sexual molestation trial.

Simcox is representing himself in his trial on six counts of child molestation and furnishing pornography to minors, although he’s not allowed to question the children he’s accused of abusing, reported the Phoenix New-Times.

However, the border vigilante cross-examined his adult daughter — who accused him of molesting her decades ago, when she was a child.

Linsey Randich, now 33, testified that she spent summers with her father in California, as part of a custody agreement after her parents divorced when she was 2 years old.

She told jurors that Simcox, who was then a kindergarten teacher at the private Wildwood School in Los Angeles, had fondled her genitals while hosing her off after swimming at the beach — even though she was 10 years old and old enough to clean herself.

Randich said her father again fondled her genitals four years later, while she was sleeping, and she told her mother she did not want to go back to California to see her father, but her mother said she couldn’t do anything to change the custody agreement.

She told jurors her father had molested her the final time a year or two later, when she was 15, as he massaged her after hiking with her brother.

Randich said she fled to a neighbor’s house and reported the abuse.

Los Angeles police investigated her claims, and Randich was placed in a foster home and then returned to her mother, and she eventually decided not to cooperate in the investigation because she did not want to testify at the time.

Simox, who co-founded the anti-immigration Minuteman Project, grilled his adult daughter about whether she’d undergone counseling, and she testified that she had, but only after the incident she reported to police.

Randich also denied that she accused a man at church of molesting her, and she told her father that he had never caught her with a boy at his apartment.

“I felt scared and uneasy around him most of the time,” Randich testified, saying she was frequently grounded by her father, who she remembers as an angry and volatile person.

She said she hadn’t seen or spoken to her father in 18 or 19 years, and she didn’t know she had two half-sisters until about three years ago, when Phoenix police questioned her about the California case.

Randich said she decided to testify after learning Simcox was accused of molesting one of her half-sisters — who also testified.

One of his daughters told jurors that Simcox had touched her crotch as she showered, and she said he penetrated her with stick on another occasion.

She also testified about a third incident at a swimming pool, but the newspaper reported her memory was vague, and she told jurors that her father had shown her explicit videos.

The girl’s sister testified that she didn’t recall their father touch her sister inappropriately, but she said he was mean to the girl.

Simcox, who frequently appeared as a guest on Fox News, questioned the daughter who was not classified as a victim, and he questioned another girl who accused him of bribing her into removing her clothes.

That girl, who lived in the same apartment complex as Simcox and played with his daughters, said the former U.S. Senate candidate gave her candy in exchange for removing her pants and underwear.

Charges involving that girl, who is now 9, were later dropped, so she was not classified as a victim.

Simcox, who has been held without bail since his arrest three years ago, faces a potential life sentence if he’s convicted on all counts.

 

 

Bill Cosby Going to Trial

Damn! This is on heck of a long fall.

Pennsylvania judge decides Cosby sex assault case will go to trial

A Pennsylvania judge has decided that disgraced comedian Bill Cosby will go to trial for criminal sexual assault.

The judge reviewed testimony, excerpts of the comedian’s interview with police and other evidence from prosecutors.

Earlier, it was revealed in court that Andrea Constand told authorities that Cosby violated her sexually after giving her three pills that made her dizzy, blurry-eyed and nauseated and left her legs feeling “like jelly,” according to a police report read at the hearing on Tuesday.

“I told him, ‘I can’t even talk, Mr. Cosby.’ I started to panic,” the former Temple University athletic department employee told police in 2005.

The testimony was read at a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put the 78-year-old TV star on trial on sexual assault charges that could bring 10 years in prison.

It was not the face-to-face confrontation between accuser and accused that some had anticipated: Constand was not in the courtroom, and the judge ruled that she would not have to testify at the hearing and that prosecutors could instead have her statements to police read into the record.

Cosby’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that that would be hearsay and would deprive him of his right to confront his accuser. Such testimony from law enforcement officers is common practice at preliminary hearings in Pennsylvania, which have a far lower burden of proof than trials.

 

Supreme Court Reverses Racially Chosen Georgia Jury In Death Penalty Case

Local and State Courts aren’t supposed to allow the striking of black juries to achieve an all white jury, which when the defendant is black, mean almost certainly a conviction – regardless of the evidence pointing otherwise. Some courts around the country still believe the can get away with this.

Uncle Tommie Clarence, seeing the possibility of a black man receiving justice …Was the Court’s lone dissent.

Supreme Court gives black death-row inmate new life

The Supreme Court gave a black death-row prisoner new life Monday by ruling that prosecutors unconstitutionally barred all potential black jurors from his trial nearly 30 years ago.

The 7-1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed Georgia courts that had refused to consider claims of racial discrimination against Timothy Foster for the murder of an elderly white woman. The ruling is likely to fuel contentions from death penalty opponents that capital punishment is racially discriminatory.

What brought Foster’s case back to court after three decades was a series of prosecution notes obtained by defense lawyers through an open-records request. While jurors were being picked, prosecutors had highlighted the names of African Americans, circled the word “black” on questionnaires, and added notations such as “B#1” and “B#2.” On a sheet labeled “definite NO’s,” they put the last five blacks in the jury pool on top and ranked them in case “it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors.”

This happened just a year after the Supreme Court had declared such actions unconstitutional. Civil rights groups say discriminatory practices in jury selection have survived for 30 years despite the Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky.

“The focus on race in the prosecution’s file plainly demonstrates a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury,” Roberts wrote. He said prosecutors’ other purported reasons for striking two of the blacks from the jury pool were belied by their acceptance of white jurors with the same characteristics.

“Such evidence is compelling,” Roberts wrote. “But that is not all. There are also the shifting explanations, the misrepresentations of the record, and the persistent focus on race in the prosecution’s file.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s lone African American member, cast the lone dissent. “Foster’s new evidence does not justify this court’s reassessment of who was telling the truth nearly three decades removed from voir dire,” he said.

The controversial case took the court nearly seven months to decide after oral argument in November. Roberts’ opinion for himself and Justices Anthony Kennedy,Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan ran 25 pages. Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, who concurred in the ruling, wrote another 25 pages each to express their views.