A jurisdiction in California may join Illinois and New York in barring sex offenders from driving an ice cream truck:. Boratbearicecream_1161708771_5 Last July, Perris residents learned that a registered sex offender was working as an ... read more: Beware of the Ice Cream Truck
The heartthrob actor has felt strongly about sex education since starring in TV's teen crime series "21 Jump Street" in the '80s...read more: Johnny Depp Spokeswoman Denies Trojan Report
Today’s New York Times reported that the Republican Party has asked St. Paul, MN, officials to keep the city’s bars open two hours longer than normal, from 2 to 4 AM—for the eleven days preceding, during, and after the September Republican national convention this fall.
Read more from original article: Let’s Par-Tay Till 4 A.M.
This news item appears on this blog because of the author’s experience with holier-than-thou piousness commonly assumed by prosecutors of the Republican persuasion in Bay Area superior courts when talking to the judges about my DUI clients. [Ok, some of these deputy D.A.s are Democrats, but not many.]
Republican hypocrisy among northern CA district attorneys is so blatant in the sex crimes and child porn area of my practice I barely take note. But drinking until almost sunup while taking responsibility for electing the leader of the free world?
The GOP thinks it so important that their delegates be allowed to drink almost all night that they ask the convention host city to make an exception of long-established booze laws during this world-important event?
Time and time again I have heard a deputy DA appearing in my San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Napa, San Mateo or Santa Clara county DUI cases go on and on and on about how everyone knows the dangers of drinking and driving.
I realize there are taxis available at 2 AM in St. Paul (there are, aren’t they?), but somehow this news item really grated on me as someone defending DUI cases on a regular basis.
I guarantee you that one or more of those GOP delegates will drive drunk in St. Paul during 2 and 4 AM between September 1 and September 11, 2008, due in part to the exception to the MN law that the GOP has requested.
Most likely no GOP delegate(s) will get stopped for driving drunk (statistically less than .09% of drunk drivers actually do get stopped) but still . . .
Police officers and sheriff’s deputies in California are now being rated at RateMyCop.com, a web site recently created by a Culver City, CA couple.
RateMyCop covers most states with a focus on California, Texas, and Florida. Users can search for officers by name, department or state and then rank them up to five stars, according to a story appearing today in The New York Times.
Users must register before rating or commenting on the officer, but their identify is hidden otherwise and the lack of contributor transparency is the cops’ biggest beef, claiming there is no method to verify whether or not the information is accurate.
Cops are in an uproar, of course, not being used to any kind of real citizen review of their work.
Success of the site seems assured in that February 28, 2008, its first day online, GoDaddy.com was forced to shut it down after too many users tried to access the site. It is now running on another server.
The publisher of CaliforniaCriminalDefenseLawyerblog.com hopes to provide the same transparency for a number of Californians who suffer every day in dealing with their POs.
The Justice Department has seldom prosecuted or even identified clients of prostitution for a number of years, in an unusual admission to a New York Times' reporter. Read the original article: U.S. Defends Tough Tactics on Spitzer
Today's Times front page carries a story that includes interviews with Justice Department officials who are having a hard time denying that Spitzer has been treated differently than almost any other prostitution defendant in decades.
In defending its position, the Department stated that the F.B.I. now has roughly 450 ongoing prostitution investigations, but could not deny that they all involve large enterprises and circumstances different than in Spitzer's case.
The Times' story also revealed that the federal agency charged with monitoring statistics for federal prosecution does not bother to keep statistics because "it's really not a crime we prosecute," a Justice department said.
According to an affidavit signed by the F.B.I., Spitzer proved to be "easy prey."
Speaking of our government and sex, the same Times front page carries a story involving the frequency of U.S. Customs agents using "green card threats" to obtain sex from vulnerable immigrants.
It will be interesting to see how those agents who have been caught get charged and sentenced; I will keep you posted.
Orlando, Florida deputies arrested a convicted sex offender, who was going around his community identifying himself as a police officer. Sex Offender Charged With Impersonating Officer
Michael Rodgers wore a police vest around the neighborhood, told everyone he was a cop, and said that if they had trouble they should come see him. One neighbor, suspicious, went to the Florida web site of registered sex offenders and discovered that Rodgers was a registrant who had spent 6 years in prison for lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 16.
Since the sentence for that crime in Florida is 10 to 15 years, he could be facing up to 10 years for violating probation by committing the crime of falsifying the identity of a police officer.
Terry Franklin drove into Miguel Gomez’s Antioch, CA home, causing a fire to both car and home that led to Gomez, with burns, running out the front door of his house. Franklin tried to leave the scene of the accident but was apprehended. Drunken Driver Crashed Into an Antioch Home
The Marin County DA is taking GI Jane back to trial. Army reservist 'G.I. Jane' going back to court
Jane Parkhurst, the Army reservist who inspired the movie, G.I. Jane, ran her Hummer H2 off a West Marin highway and was arrested for a DUI in late 2006. The matter was tried and the jury deadlocked on one count while acquitted on the other.
In California, all DUIs are charged as two counts, one for driving while intoxicating and the other for driving with a BAC of .08% or over. In this case, the jury concluded it could not decide whether or not Ms. Parkhurst was driving drunk, but that she was not driving with an over-the-limit BAC.
The acquittal on the second count might be due to the fact that the jury believed Ms. Parkhurst claim that she did all her drinking after the accident, before being tested!
The Marin DA wants to re-try her on the first count only in that double jeopardy rules out a re-trial on the count for which she was acquitted.
The Marin County DA has decided to drop drug charges against a 19 year-old student who complained about a sheriff’s deputy sexually harassing her. Marin Independent Journal: "Drug case dropped; deputy's action blamed"
The student, Sarah Rawlins, was charged with selling drugs to an undercover task force detective on several occasions. Subsequently, a detective, Tyrone Williams, told her if she “cooperated,” her case might get dismissed. She cooperated. Then Officer Williams started bringing her flowers and making sexual advances.
Only days after Ms. Rawlins’ defense attorney filed a motion citing Officer Williams' sexual advances, the DA dropped the case.
This case will prompt legal challenges from other Marin County defendants investigated by Williams. Under California law, the DA must provide defense attorneys with any unfavorable information and that includes personnel information that might cast doubt on a police officer’s credibility.
This is not the first time Marin’s County’s Major Crimes Task Force, a drug unit, has been involved with sex on the job. The last time, the accuser took away $300,000 in damages from the Sheriff’s office—following accusations of improper sexual advances.
Charges filed against radio talk show host Bernie Ward resulted from his obeying the dominatrix’ command to, “Send me some [pictures]; why haven’t I gotten any pics, slave?” Judge unseals indictment against Bernie Ward
In response, the popular talk show host promptly obeyed with a picture of a naked boy sitting between a topless woman and a clothed young girl. This picture prompted the dominatrix to contact the Oakdale, CA. police, telling them that the former priest had also emailed her messages about group sex at a San Mateo porn theater.
The Oakdale police contacted the FBI and a federal grand jury indicted Ward on two counts of possessing and distributing child pornography using the Internet.
Ward’s business attorney, Jeannette Boudreau, said, “The authorities have been in possession of these messages for three years. Bernie was only just indicted in December [2007]. There is no doubt in my mind that they would have allowed Bernie to conduct his family and work life as usual for all that time if they believed the content of the messages to be factual.”
This is just another illustration that you are completely, 100% exposing yourself to any possible claim on the Internet. Remember, when it comes to child porn and the Internet you do not have the same rights and privileges under the law as defendants do for other crimes. I write more about this at www.sexcrimescounsel.com
Remember all that fuss about why the telecoms permitted the government to spy on citizens without warrants? It was due to patriotism. They were allowing wiretapping without warrants because they were “good patriots.” That is what they told us.
Item: A Justice Department audit recently released disclosed that many wiretaps have been cut off because the FBI forgot to pay the bills, tens of thousands of dollars of bills. In one office alone, unpaid bills amounted to $66,000.
When it came to getting paid, patriotism apparently lost its luster for the communication giants. It did not want to give the U.S. government any more credit.
Remember the old saw about the last refuge of scoundrels?
Convenient patriotism, this.
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