– Radley Balko and Publius from Obsidian Wings have been following the scandal involving Texas Governor Rick Perry’s attempts to cover up the fact that an innocent man was likely executed on his watch.
– It never ceases to amaze me how often people who rant about taxes and socialism try to invoke Thomas Paine. I think they just assume that because the American revolution was partly about taxes that Paine must think like tea-baggers do today, rather than as someone who used to loudly advocate for re-distributing wealth through progressive taxation.
– Bruce Mirken asks why Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley is doing so much to help out Mexican drug cartels? Law enforcement officials may be uncomfortable with those comparisons, but they’re undeniably true. Card carrying medical marijuana users in that county of over 10 million people are either going to obtain pot from local growers and local businessmen, or obtain it from gangs who are currently fighting the Mexican government. When you attack the local growers and local business, you automatically boost the profits of the gangs.
– I just very happily marked my ballot for Pete Holmes. The Stranger conducted a series of interviews with Holmes and his opponent, Tom Carr. The last one concerned marijuana arrests, which was somewhat funny because it consisted of Tom Carr spinning for several minutes about why his office is still pursuing marijuana cases, following by Pete Holmes making this very simple statement:
Whether standing alone or in conjunction with other charges, I will not charge another simple marijuana possession case. Period.
It’s that simple, Tom. And that’s why we want you out.
– Here’s a fascinating account from a mother who – after discussing it with her doctor – decided to treat her severely autistic son with medical marijuana. I’ve generally been averse to the idea of giving marijuana to children that age, but if it helps a child stop eating his own shirts, I think I’m ok with it.
American Violet is now available on DVD. I still haven’t seen it, but I’m hoping to check it out very soon.
Poor little chronic stoner Lee. He and his friends just can’t win. Cough, hack, dude!
http://www.bellinghamherald.co.....17239.html
Proof that pot makes you lose brain cells:
http://www.bellinghamherald.co.....15413.html
LMFAO!
@2 Mark, you remorseless Republican tool, doesn’t it bother you that a Republican governor refused to read an arson expert’s report an hour before allowing an innocent men to be executed? How can you associate yourself with these people? Why do you support them? What’s wrong with you?
@1
How much pot does someone have to smoke to have as few brain cells as you?
And how big of a pussy do you have to be in order to be so afraid of a plant that you need the police to protect you from it?
Peter Holmes
In other words, this attorney proposes to violate his duties under the law?
I oppose the MJ laws, but amng the way to change laws, officials openly making their own laws seems anarchic?
Actually, I wonder is a statement like this is also not as violation of the canon of ethics?
@4 “In other words, this attorney proposes to violate his duties under the law?”
Nope. Our system gives prosecutors wide discretion, and exercising prosecutorial discretion is neither illegal nor unethical. Whether it should be exercised in this manner is a political issue, not a legal or ethical issue.
I watched the Hutchison – Constantine debate on TV tonight. My analysis and wrapup are posted in the preceding thread.
Texas Justice: A Tale Of Two Defendants
In 1990, a 17-year-old black kid named Tyrone Brown robbed a guy of $2 and was sentenced to 10 years probation. He violated probation by smoking a joint once. For that, Republican Judge Keith Dean sentenced Brown to life in prison, to which Brown’s defense attorney made no objection. Texas Gov. Rick Perry finally commuted Brown’s sentence and released him from prison in 2007, after Brown had served 17 years for smoking the joint.
In 1995, a 32-year-old white guy named John Alexander Wood shot a male prostitute in the back after paying him $30 for sex. In exchange for pleading guilty to murder, Republican Judge Keith Dean gave Wood 10 years of deferred probation, which meant he would do no jail time and would have a clean record with no conviction on it after serving the probation. Mr. Wood also violated probation — he was repeatedly caught with cocaine, stole a car, and committed a burglary. For this, Republican Judge Dean released him to unsupervised probation. Mr. Wood’s sister is the wife of a Texas congressman.
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dw.....5ca5a.html
In 2005, Texas Gov. Rick Perry refused to stay the execution of Frances Newton despite serious questions about her guilt.
Newton, a black woman, was executed for allegedly shooting her husband and their two children.
Newton’s husband was a drug dealer. The alleged murder weapon belonged to a man Newton had been seeing, but the ballistics testing may have been done on a different gun that police reportedly recovered. Newton’s attorney failed to investigate this possibility. This attorney has been charged with professional misconduct 5 times, and later was barred from capital cases because of incompetence. The crime lab that handled this case was under investigation for mishandling evidence at the time. A jailhouse informant said a cellmate admitted going to the house to collect a drug debt from Newton’s husbands with instructions to kill the entire family if he didn’t pay up.
All of this information was provided to Gov. Perry before Newton’s execution, but he refused the stay anyway.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1509
@@4-5: Not only does the city attorney have discretion not to charge marijuana cases, the voters have specifically instructed the city to make simple marijuana possession its lowest law enforcement priority. Unless the city has prosecutors sitting around with nothing else to do, the voters have said that prosecutors should be spending their time on other cases. Holmes is the candidate who is promising to follow the voters’ stated priorities, which Carr has been ignoring for several years.
Texas is a bad place to lose your family to crime or accident if you happen to be black.
Hell, Texas is a bad place for blacks period.
Rabbit,
I can’t believe–tell me I’m wrong–that racism might continue to exist in our legal system. That’s not what you’re alleging, right?
10
Remember that short time in
American history, that too short time, when there was the Republic of Texas? Ah, if we couldn’t return to that Edenic period when Texas was not part of the United States. On the other hand, because of demographic changes, I have read that Texas could become a blue state as early as 2012. That, of course, would not leave much left of Republicans. Democrats would have California, Texas, and New York electorally. Odds of the Rs getting the presidency? Nada. Sorry, lo siento, you shitheads.
Armpit Of Texas
Police in Tenaha, Texas routinely pulled over black tourists passing through town and gave them a choice of handing over their cars, money, jewelry, cell phones, and virtually anything else of value — they even seized a pair of sneakers — or being arrested on felony money laundering charges, according to an ACLU federal lawsuit against the town.
Tenaha police collected over $3 million from these motorists between 2006 and 2008, and used the money to build a new police station, buy a patrol car, and pay bonuses to high revenue generating officers.
In one case, District Attorney Lynda Kay Russell, a Republican, told a couple their children would be taken away unless they surrendered their money. They handed over $6,000.
Russell allegedly used seized money to pay for a Christmas party, buy a popcorn machine, buy candy, buy tickets to a motorcyle rally, and make donations to the chamber of commerce, a youth baseball league, and a Baptist Church — all in violation of Texas forfeiture laws.
She reportedly now wants to use confiscated funds to pay for her legal defense against corruption charges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;5624196
@11 See #13.
@12 Just think, if Texas hadn’t become a state, we would’ve been deprived of the presidencies of LBJ and the two Bushes, not to mention the congressional services of Phil Gramm and Tom DeLay, among others.
As for Texas becoming a blue state, I certainly hope so. If we can get the GOP Party’s electoral vote count under 50, maybe we’ll finally get a public option and it may even become safe to join unions again.
@5
Thanks Roger.
Roger
Moreover, isn’t the discretion supposed to be case by case?
Holmes said
Does this mean if Lee is caught in possession after leaving a shit on my lawn, Mr. Holmes will give Lee a pass on the MJ?
Suppose the city attorney decided and announced not to enforce laws on construction noise or car thefts below 10 grand?
I really dislike the idea of someone running for Attorney on a ticket that announces he will enforce the law as he see fit.
As for the vote in Seattle, as I remember that vote, we voted to tell the police to make MJ their lowest priority. I do not think that applies to telling the DA NOT TO ENFORCE A LAW.
Apparently Tom Carr got cuaght the other day telling the fib that he used to be a criminal proseuctor in the US Attorney office in NYC — he was on the civil side.
He also tried to tell a debate crowd that when he did Operation sobering Thought one week before the nightclub legislation was up before the council, he didn’t time it that way…no, he “forgot” that the proposed legislation was up that week!
This being the legislation he had drafted.
He forgot.
And SJ troll: when the law is to make something the lowest priority that means don’t do those cases until we’ve done EVERY SINGLE OTHER CASE that could be filed.
Since we haven’t done that yet, Holmes’ policy isn’t mere discretion, it’s following the initiative we the voters passed.
If you want to spend millions on going after pot smokets, you go pass an initiative and get a majority to vote with you. Till then, shaddup. You got outvoted.
IAFF, Puddy thought you’d like this story… And what is da union doing on this one?
More weekend roundup…
Oops… Barack Hussein Obama Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm got bitch-slapped by Vladimir Putin.
“The Russians succeeded in putting Mr. Obama and the Americans in their place. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Presidential Security Council, manufactured an occasion while Mrs. Clinton was in Moscow to warn that Moscow reserves the right to make “a pre-emptive nuclear strike” against both small and large enemies.”
“Mrs. Clinton and her acolytes at the State Department, ever eager to seek the softest way to say nothing, tried to put a nice face on her visit to Moscow. The United States, Russia and China are “closer than before” on their policies regarding Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, Mrs. Clinton told a radio interviewer. She seemed to be taking care not to say that actual positions are closer, just that everyone understands those positions: Russians tough, Americans soft.”
Looks like Gman and his acolytes ylb arschloch and rujax dumbass or their families won’t be attending this place of higher education!
So to attack them would be “racist”.
Rio, Chicago, drug violence… eh! That’s why you lobby for the Olympics…
Gman’s schtick has little appeal for me fool. You ever see me gladhanding it? I ignore it. Maybe I should try that with your insane nonsense.
and education was completely wasted on your foolish ass.
Yep more weekend wrapup, the whitey house admits they control the libtardo media vs Fox News. Puddy called it long ago… jackbooted goosestepping indeed.
What poor arschloch… maybe you can help Puddy. I have to migrate some data from point A to point B. What would be the best method? What would be the best data migration method ylb arschloch? If there is a disaster, what recovery mechanism would you suggest ylb arschloch? How big a pipe to transmit the data? Leased or dedicated lines? Tunneling or encapsulation? What questions should Puddy ask? Let’s see that “brain” in action.
Can you write perl scripts ylb arschloch? If so, are you still getting unemployment? Puddy sees perl people needed. Can you program in anything other than HA Bullshit? C, C++ C#, etc? Fedora Linux? Create Table Index… Select Table * Can you manage a data center? Screen scraping using tctmgr doesn’t count. What certifications do you have besides being a loonytune here on HA Libtardos? Hey Puddy been picking on your lace panty skirt wearing ASS so here’s a chance to get some work. What are your skillz boy? Puddy gotta know so Puddy can recommend you? If you are still For The Clueless, let Puddy know.
Yep Puddy called you boy cuz you younger den Puddy!
Last night Puddy asked the HA arschloch what are his data skillz. No response. Puddy thinks ylb arschloch enjoys staying home being unemployed.
See ya fool!
So I’ve started a new one, just to make it easy. ,