A New Mexico judge has informed the district attorney overseeing the “Rust” movie-set shooting case that she cannot appoint a new special prosecutor and remain on the case herself, adding to a series of potential setbacks for the prosecution. The judge’s comments come after the armorer charged in the 2021 shooting filed a motion to block the appointment of a new special prosecutor after the previous one resigned.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer, and actor Alec Baldwin were criminally charged in January for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin have pleaded not guilty to the charges and Gutierrez-Reed is expected to do the same.

Legal errors have beset the prosecution since the charges were filed, with defense lawyers consistently seeking to weaken the prosecution’s case. Lawyers for Gutierrez-Reed also sought to stop Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies from acting as a co-prosecutor in the case, as she previously did.

District court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer informed Carmack-Altwies that the statute underpinning the use of a special prosecutor only allows for one to be appointed if a district attorney has “good cause” not to take part in a prosecution themselves. She stated that “You cannot use it unless you’re not going to prosecute.” The judge scheduled another hearing for Friday.

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Carmack-Altwies argued that she still planned to use the statute to appoint a special prosecutor, stating that her office was understaffed and could not handle the “massive amounts of time” required for the “Rust” case on top of its existing workload.

On March 15, Andrea Reeb, a Republican state representative who was serving as the special prosecutor in the case, resigned after Baldwin’s lawyers argued that serving in two branches of government simultaneously was unlawful and could lead to a conflict of interest.

Carmack-Altwies has only five weeks to appoint a new special prosecutor before the May 2 preliminary hearing. During this hearing, Marlowe Sommer will decide whether there is probable cause to try Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin.

The incident occurred when a revolver that Baldwin was rehearsing with fired a live round, killing Hutchins and injuring “Rust” director Joel Souza.

The case has gained significant attention in the media and has sparked a debate about safety on movie sets. The shooting has led to calls for stricter safety protocols and for the film industry to prioritize safety above all else.

The outcome of the “Rust” case is uncertain, with legal complications and potential conflicts of interest causing issues for the prosecution. The defense team is working hard to weaken the prosecution’s case, and it remains to be seen whether the judge will rule that there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. As the case continues to unfold, it will be closely watched by those in the film industry and beyond.

The post Judge Rules Out Co-Prosecutor for ‘Rust’ District Attorney in High-Profile Case first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: A Texas lawyer with a questionable past lost his job offer with a district attorney’s office when someone made an issue with him being hired there, so he is suing that person.

A Texas lawyer is suing a man that alerted a district attorney’s office, where the lawyer had received a job offer from, about the lawyer’s true behavior. In a complicated legal fight between the two, as reported by The Daily Beast, attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke wants $100 million from Thomas Retzlaff, believing Retzlaff is the reason he lost the job with the Victoria County district attorney’s office. Van Dyke, the lawyer for a well-known “Western” nationalist group, is facing off against Retzlaff, who may have his own messy past with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Retzlaff complained to the D.A. office when he learned that Van Dyke had been offered a felony prosecutor position. He told The Daily Beast, “I live in San Antonio, and Victoria County is right next to where I live. When I found out Van Dyke had got the job thee, I had some communications with the district attorney and said ‘this guy is a crazy person, why would you hire him? Didn’t you use Google?’” He noted that a simple Google search would have produced information about who Van Dyke really was.

Van Dyke currently represents the Proud Boys, a self-described “Western chauvinist” group. He was expelled in 2000 from Michigan State University after he was arrested for domestic violence, firearm safety violation, and possession of banned weapons, as reported in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The charges were later dropped but a search of his dorm room found “extremist literature, including the race war fantasy novel The Turner Diaries and the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Online, Van Dyke is not always a man of high character, resulting in threats of violence against those who oppose him. On Twitter in 2014, he posted a picture of a noose, directed at one of his enemies, where he tweeted, “Look good and hard at this picture you f***ing n****r. It’s where I am going to put your neck.”

Legal blog Popehat explained their belief that Van Dyke posts as WNLaw (white nationalist law) on the site Stormfront, a white supremacist forum. WNLaw claims to be a Texas lawyer named Jason who is interested in firearms, very similar to Van Dyke. The poster has also linked to articles by Van Dyke and an anti-Dianne Feinstein petition created by someone with the same initials as Van Dyke. He claims he has never posted on the “despicable” hate forum. He believes the posts are an issue of stolen identity from 2014, even though the posts were from 2011. His response to The Daily Beast when confronted with this fact, “I have no idea. I haven’t read these things. I know nothing about Stormfront, but suffice to say, I’ve made a lot of enemies with a lot of people over the years.”

When Popehat posted about Van Dyke’s history, he demanded a retraction or threatened consequences. In an email, he wrote to the author Ken White, which White then posted on Twitter, “I have a picture of you. I am going to put it on my mirror at home, near my desk, and in my truck. My pure and absolute hatred for you will be unprecedented … I will make you so miserable and treat you with such extreme and unprecedented cruelty that you’ll either kill yourself or move yourself and your family to the most remote part of the world you can afford to escape my wrath.”

When his job offer with the district attorney’s office was rescinded, he sued them to find out who had blown the whistle against him. He then went on to pester Retzlaff, who filed several more complaints against Van Dyke. In December Retzlaff filed a grievance with the Texas State Bar, stating that Van Dyke was “posting online that he is going to murder me because I am the one who cost him his job with Victoria County … You all need to disbar this retard ASAP.”

Despite his questionable past, Van Dyke points the finger at Retzlaff, noting a lawsuit against Retzlaff in 2014 where he was accused by the plaintiff as posing as a KKK member online. Van Dyke filed his lawsuit against Retzlaff for $100 million in damages last month. In it, he claims Retzlaff has written libelous blog posts about Van Dyke being a Nazi and white supremacist.

Do you think Van Dyke has any claim over his lost job? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

To learn more about other attorneys caught up in controversial actions, read these articles:

• Attorney Ousted When His Side-Gig as a Neo-Nazi Record Producer was Exposed
• Houston Lawyer Donates Money to Minority Bar Group after Racist Remarks
• Self-Professed Lawyer Shouts N-Word on New York Subway

Photo: law.com

The post Texas Lawyer Jason Van Dyke Sues for $100 Million over Lost Job Offer first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: Philadelphia’s former district attorney was sentenced Tuesday to five years on one count of accepting a bribe.

Former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams received a term of another sort on Tuesday. The Democrat served two terms as the city’s first black DA before ruining his reputation. Williams, as a DA, went after municipal corruption, only to turn out to be one of those corrupt politicians himself. Now he is sentenced to serve a five-year term behind bars.

Williams did not speak during the sentencing hearing, instead opting for his attorney to read his statement where he apologized for his actions and admitting he failed the people of Pennsylvania. The statement read, “Rather than holding myself to a higher standard, I squandered that trust placed in me.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond had harsh words for Williams, giving him the maximum sentence. He said Williams “humiliated” his office and the city by giving in to “parasites.” He continued, “Your profound dishonesty has to be deterred.” He ordered Williams to be imprisoned immediately.

The investigation into Williams’ finances had been going on for about two years before the wide-ranging indictment came out. He was charged with accepting cash and gifts, misusing city vehicles, misappropriating money intended to cover his mother’s nursing home bills, and fraudulently using thousands of dollars from his campaign fund for personal expenses.

Williams was sentenced on the one count he pled guilty to during the middle of his June trial. His plea was a surprise since the trial was still going but the testimonies being presented did not paint a pretty picture of Williams. It was revealed that he accepted gifts like a luxurious vacation to the Caribbean and a Jaguar convertible. The evidence against Williams was damaging so he decided to take the hit on one count of accepting a bribe from a businessman. The businessman admitted to giving Williams a $3,000 sofa that he requested in text messages plus thousands of dollars in cash.

There were 29 counts of bribery, fraud, and extortion against Williams but the other 28 counts were dismissed after he entered his plea even though he admitted to committing the offenses. He was forced to surrender his law license when he was indicted in March, naming his chief of staff as the acting attorney general in the meantime. Larry Krasner, a civil rights attorney, has since won the Democratic nomination for the position and is expected to win the election against the Republican nominee Beth Grossman.

Williams is not the first politician from Philadelphia that has fallen under the spell of corruption. Former Democratic U.S. Rep Chaka Fattah was found guilty last year in a racketeering scheme. Others convicted of corruption include a former speaker, four other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a city councilman, and two members of the Pennsylvania Senate. Former Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted of two felony counts of perjury and seven misdemeanor charges for unlawfully leaking grand jury materials for political payback, which she then lied about. She was sentenced last year to 10 to 23 months in prison.

Do you think five years is an appropriate sentence for what Williams did? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

To learn more about Williams’ case, read these articles:

• Philly D.A. Indicted for Bribery and Corruption, Pleads Not Guilty
• Former Philly DA to be Sentenced Tuesday

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

The post Former Philly DA Sentenced to Five Years in Prison first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: Former Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams is set to be sentenced Tuesday, which could be up to five years behind bars.

Seth Williams, the former district attorney of Philadelphia, was caught dipping his hands in the cookie jar. Williams is set to receive his sentence from a federal judge on Tuesday for abusing his position by receiving gifts and favors.

The fallen DA has pleaded for leniency in court papers. He wants a few hours of freedom on an electronic monitoring device so he can spend time with his elderly mother and so he can “get his affairs in order.”

His attorneys wrote in the court filings to federal Judge Paul S. Diamond, “Williams in no way seeks to minimize the nature and circumstances of his crimes. Williams is acutely aware of his misconduct and the public shame he has brought upon himself, his family and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.” They continued, “The defense asks this court to consider … Williams’ entire life history in formulating an appropriate [sentence].”

Federal prosecutors are pushing for the maximum sentence on the one count of the 29 he pleaded guilty. That sentence would be five years in federal lockup. Williams also agreed to pay, as part of his plea, $64,878.22 in restitution. He may be required to pay more at sentencing.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court disbarred Williams just a few days ago. He was the city’s first black DA, elected to the position in 2010. He earned his law degree at Georgetown Law School after graduating from Penn State. He went on to work as a prosecutor at the DA’s office right after graduating from law school. He is also a major in the U.S. military reserves.

Williams has been held at the federal detention center in Philadelphia since he entered a guilty plea on June 29. The plea came during the middle of his profile federal trial. Once he entered the plea, he lost his $176,000 annual salary as DA.

He now joins a number of other Philadelphia politicians that have fallen from power, although his has happened much faster. U.S. District Judge Paul D. Diamond ordered the case to proceed to trial as soon as possible instead of waiting for the typical year delay between indictment and trial of high-profile cases.

Williams’ fall from power also included a fall in his finances. He had to sell his home in Overbrook after pleading guilty. He claims he only has a couple hundred bucks in his bank account. This is a big change from the lifestyle he was enjoying while in office. Williams was getting free trips, furniture and other gifts from “friends.” He was able to take his daughters on a trip to South America and a specifically requested chocolate colored couch. He asked for this couch in a text message which was part of the evidence during the trial.

He was accused of spending campaign funds for massages, facials, and parties. He also saved money by never having to buy a car and instead using his city-provided vehicle and cars reserved for other uses. He used the city-provided car around the clock instead of for business purposes.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing Williams was accused of doing was using money that was to pay for his mother’s nursing home care for himself.

He tried to argue that the gifts were not crimes because they came from personal relationships with friends and other acquaintances.

Should Williams get the maximum sentence of five years on the one count? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

To learn more about scandals involving Philadelphia’s politicians, read these articles:

• Pennsylvania Attorney Accused of Stealing from Clients
• Philadelphia Judge Removed for Showing Photos of ‘Judicial Penis’ to Female Clerk
• Prominent Philadelphia Criminal Defender’s Girlfriend Found Dead in His Home

Photo: nytimes.com

The post Former Philly DA to Be Sentenced Tuesday first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: The district attorney of Philadelphia was indicted on bribery and corruption charges in addition to stealing his mother’s nursing home care money.

The district attorney of Philadelphia was indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery and corruption charges Tuesday. Officials described a five-year spree by Seth Williams of taking tens of thousands of dollars and other bribes from businesses. This included a trip to the Dominican Republic and a 1997 Jaguar.

The charges also claim that Williams, 50, took money that was supposed to pay for a relative’s nursing home care for his own personal use. The Philadelphia Inquirer confirmed that the relative was his mother.

Williams pleaded not guilty to 23 counts of fraud, extortion, and other bribery-related charges today in court.

Acting New Jersey U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick announced the formal charges the day before. The case includes extortion, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and defrauding a nursing home and family friends. Some of the evidence against Williams includes text messages he sent to two business owners, offering up himself as a resource. The honest services fraud charge originates from the act of a public official denying someone their intangible right to honest services.

Fitzpatrick said, “The indictment alleges that as District Attorney, Mr. Williams compromised himself and his elected office by standing ready to help those who were willing to pay him with money, trips, and cars. Mr. Williams’ alleged willingness to compromise his position of public trust in exchange for private financial gain is all the more unfortunate given that he was elected to protect the interests of the people of Philadelphia as their chief law enforcement officer.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recused his office from the investigation. Williams is being represented by Michael Diamondstein, who told the Inquirer, “Mr. Williams vehemently denies that he ever compromised any investigation, case, or law enforcement function.” Diamondstein explained that Williams rejected a plea deal earlier in the week.

Williams was elected in 2010 with over 75 percent of the vote and under a big celebration since he was the first black district attorney in Philadelphia and the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Williams was the president of the Undergraduate Student Government and the Student Black Caucus during his time at Penn State. He then graduated from Georgetown University’s law school as a Public Interest Law Scholar.

Williams spent ten years as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia before moving up. He launched and led a Repeat Offenders Unit. Soon after taking over as district attorney, Williams went after an abortionist that killed infants who survived the procedure. The abortionist was convicted and sentenced to life.

By 2015, Williams was no longer seen as the favorable star he once was. He was rebuked for not going after prosecutors sharing porn and racially derogatory emails on government computers. This year the Philadelphia’s Board of Ethics fined Williams $62,000 for not disclosing $160,000 in gifts. They claim he tried to hide the bribes and gifts by filing misleading personal financial statements from 2012 to 2015.

From just one business owner, Williams accepted a trip to the Dominican Republic, a $502 dinner at a Philadelphia restaurant, an iPad, a custom sofa, a $7,000 check, $2,000 cash, a Burberry watch, and a Burberry purse for his girlfriend. In exchange for the gifts, Williams agreed to help the owner avoid security screenings when returning from international travel. Williams enlisted a police official to help the owner avoid the screenings.

From an owner of a bar, Williams was given 16-round trip tickets to San Diego, Las Vegas, and Florida. He asked for and was given a 1997 Jaguar XK8 and $900 in cash. The bar owner was given a position as a special advisor to Williams’ office even though the owner was on federal probation from a 2010 federal tax conviction.

The nursing home fund allegations state that Williams diverted pension and Social Security payments from his mother to himself to be used for personal expenses. The funds should have paid for his mother’s nursing home costs, of which Williams was under an agreement with the home to make the payments. Williams told a nursing home employee that another family member spent the money. When his mother’s friends gave him $10,000 to cover the nursing home expenses, he kept the money.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said, “It is deeply shameful that the city’s chief law enforcement officer has been implicated in such a flagrant violation of the law. At a time when our citizen’s trust in government is at an all-time low, it is disheartening to see yet another elected official give the public a reason not to trust us. That this comes at the head of our justice system is even more troubling. We must all greatly raise the bar for our behavior and show the citizens of Philadelphia that we are capable of carrying out our most basic responsibilities as elected officials, upholding the law.”

Philadelphia is already in a sensitive state with the relationship between the public and government heavily strained. In recent months two big stories have taken over the headlines. A former aide to former Mayor Michael Nutter was accused of using a non-profit as a “slush fund” for the mayor’s office. Former U.S. Rep Chaka Fattah was sentenced to 10 years in prison for federal racketeering and bribery charges.

What kind of punishment do you think Williams should receive for not only abusing his role as a public defender but stealing from his own mother? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about other’s caught up in bribery charges, read these articles:

• David Samson, Gov. Chris Christie Ally, Disbarred
• HP Making $108 Million Settlement to Avoid Bribery, Embezzlement, Tax Evasion Charges by SEC
• Former Deutsche Bank Salesman Admitted to Bribery

Photo: nydailynews.com

The post Philly D.A. Indicted for Bribery and Corruption, Pleads Not Guilty first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: Oklahoma’s appeals court has shown through a shocking ruling that the state’s rape laws do not fully protect victims too intoxicated to consent.

To the astonishment of many, an Oklahoma court has ruled that when someone is completely unconscious, oral sex is not a crime. The ruling comes from the state’s criminal appeals court in a unanimous decision.

Critics of the ruling are crying that the judicial system is victim-blaming and believing outdated notions of rape.  Victim’s advocated and legal experts are saying the ruling represents something even larger. They see a growing gap between the ideas of what constitutes rape and consent with the legal system.

Read Man Allegedly Rapes 12-Year-Old Girl, Whom Detective Then Describes as “Not Unwilling.” for another related story.

The original case involved a 16-year-old girl that was assaulted by a 17-year-old boy. The boy had offered to give her a ride home after they had been drinking with friends at a Tulsa park. The girl was heavily intoxicated and was carried into the boy’s car. Another boy in the car briefly testified that she was coming in and out of consciousness.

When the girl was dropped off at her grandmother’s house, she was taken to a hospital where the blood alcohol test was at .34. She regained consciousness with staff performing a sexual assault exam. The results of the exam found DNA from the boy on her leg and around her mouth. He claimed that she consented to performing oral sex but she has no memories after leaving the park. Tulsa County prosecutors charged him with forcible oral sodomy.

Read U.S. Army General Charged With Forcible Sodomy and Adultery.

A trial judge dismissed the case and the appeals court backed up the dismissal saying the law could not be applied to a victim debilitated by alcohol. The decision read, “Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation. We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language.”

Tulsa County District Attorney Benjamin Fu was left “completely gobsmacked” by the ruling. “The plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy, of using force, includes taking advantage of a victim who was too intoxicated to consent. I don’t believe that anybody, until that day, believed that the state of the law was that this kind of conduct was ambiguous, much less legal,” Fu said. “And I don’t think the law was a loophole until the court decided it was.”

Oklahoma’s laws are to blame not the members of the appeals court. Dean of CUNY School of Law Michelle Anderson called the ruling “inappropriate” but the law “archaic.” Anderson continued, “This is a call for the legislature to change the statute, which is entirely out of step with what other states have done in this area and what Oklahoma should do. It creates a huge loophole for sexual abuse that makes no sense.”

Another rape statute exists to protect victims of vaginal or anal intercourse that are too intoxicated to consent. This case involves an oral violation so it does not fall under this statutes protection.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/27/oral-sex-rape-ruling-tulsa-oklahoma-alcohol-consent

Photo: americanbar.org

The post Oklahoma Stirs Up Rape Debate first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Summary: Due to their low salaries, many attorneys leave government jobs after a short while, leading to increased training expenses for these offices.

According to the Boston Globe, the low salaries offered to attorneys in government offices lead to high rates of turnover in these departments.

The Massachusetts Bar Association discovered that Massachusetts public defenders are paid the lowest salaries of all the fifty states after adjusting for cost of living. The $40,000 salaries are much less than what court reporters and probation officers pull in—those positions earn $77,496 per year and $66,238 per year, respectively.

In addition, freshly hired assistant district attorneys make $37,500 per year, which is lower than the salaries of courthouse custodians, who make $38,796 each year.

In 2013, the Miami-Dade public defender’s office allowed attorneys to withdraw from felony cases due to their heavy workloads.

Because of the low salaries, many attorneys in these positions leave after just a few years on the job, which means new attorneys must be trained quite often, leading to major costs in government offices.

In late December, a gubernatorial commission issued a compensation study that recommended increasing the minimum salary for public defenders and assistant district attorneys to $55,360. In addition, the commission recommends phasing in this increase by no later than three years from now.

In 2008, an Ohio prosecutor was livid that work was outsourced to private attorneys.

The study reads, “It’s beyond dispute that [this] work is important, there is a lot of it, and it requires competent, experienced criminal justice attorneys. Unfortunately, the salaries of prosecutors and public defenders have persistently failed to reflect these realities.” In addition, CNN reports that some attorneys have committed suicide after suffering decreased salaries or layoffs after the economic crisis.

The pay issue is a longstanding one for the state court systems, whose attorneys quickly burn out from major law school debt and high caseloads. Several stories have surfaced of public defenders and assistant district attorneys depending on their families for financial support.

Jack Cinquegrana, an attorney at Choate Hall & Stewart who serves on the commission and also chairs Massachusetts’ public defender agency, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said, “It’s been going on forever. These are people doing substantial public service work and being extraordinarily underpaid for it.”

Law school debt is hard to pay off with low starting salaries.

In 2011, government attorneys were further burdened by a legislative mandate that required the agency to increase its in-house cases by 25 percent of its total caseload. The agency hires private attorneys and pays them hourly to handle most of the 275,000 cases. Governor Deval Patrick argued that in theory, handling more cases in-house with salaried attorneys would be a most cost efficient way of working.

However, Cinquegrana said that the reality was that the move “…resulted in CPCS having to hire more lawyers, and we have this waterfall where young lawyers come in, get trained, and they then leave us. So we can never staff up sufficiently to handle the caseload we’re asked to handle.”

Cinquegrana explained that if salaries were increased, the retention rate likely would increase as well, growing the number of experienced attorneys on staff. He said, “We’re not spending our money wisely by underpaying our lawyers, who we expect to carry significant caseloads, only to lose them and have to start over. As soon as we get people with sufficient experience, we lose them. It’s not an efficient way to use our money.”

The study clearly implies a sense of urgency with the issue, saying that it “requires immediate attention.” Commission members are hopeful that their study will be a factor in state budget discussions, although a $750 million budget deficit waits for the new governor, Charlie Baker.

The agency’s chief counsel, Anthony Benedetti, said, “Without a doubt, we’re mindful of the fiscal reality. But even in good times, policy makers have the challenging task of making decisions on how to spend limited tax dollars. So we’re hopeful that with this report, on top of the MBA report, there will be some positive movement on this critical issue.”

Tim Buckley, a spokesman for Baker, said, “This issue is obviously important to the [governor] and he looks forward to learning more.”

Source: Boston Globe

Photo credit: independent.ie

The post Unimpressive Salaries Lead to High Turnover in Public Defender’s Office first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Former justice of the peace Eric Williams was charged on Thursday in the killings of two Texas officers who prosecuted his case, a week after his arrest for making anonymous threats to police officers investigating the case.

It was a swift conclusion to one of the most troubling cases of violence against law enforcement officials in Texas history. Eric Williams was booked on charges of capital murder in the revenge killings of the two district attorneys who prosecuted his 2011 theft case. In that trial, Mr. Williams was convicted of stealing county property and removed from his position as a justice of the peace. Kaufman County investigators now point to his 2011 burglary conviction as the primary motivation behind the murders of the two district attorneys involved in his case.

At the time that the charges of capital murder were brought against him, Mr. Williams had already been charged with making threats from his computer against the officers investigating the McLelland murder case. Mr. Williams’ wife, Kim Williams, was also charged with murder on Wednesday. It was her cooperation with law enforcement officers that resulted in the murder charges of her husband. She confessed to being the getaway driver in the killing of Hasse and a passenger and bystander in the McLellands’ murders.

For residents of Kaufman County, the arrests brought stark relief to a community that has been deeply affected by the murders of two legal enforcement officers over the course of three months. Mark Hasse, the Kaufman County assistant district attorney, was killed in January. Last month, District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia McLelland, were also killed at their home.

The Texas Rangers, the state’s legal enforcement agency, strongly condemned the murders. “The murder of a public official, such as a judge, a prosecutor, or a law-enforcement officer, is an assault on all the people of the state, because it’s an attack of the rule of law,” said Texas Ranger Chief Kirby Dendy, in a statement to the press.

The attorney representing Eric Williams released a statement on Friday denying all charges and announcing Mr. Williams’ cooperation with law enforcement officers. Mr. Williams’ bail has been set at $23 million dollars.

Image Credit: Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office

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In March 2012, Albany City Judge Thomas Keefe dismissed charges against 88 Occupy members on the grounds that the DA has refused to prosecute. At the time, Keene found that the district attorney had the authority to decide how to allocate office resources, as long as that allocation was unbiased.

However, on Friday, Albany City Judge William Carter found Soares had not given a reason that was legally sufficient to refuse prosecution of disorderly conduct against four persons who took part in a 2012 protest organized by Occupy.

The ruling was given when one of the defendants, Colin Donnaruma, made a motion to have the case dismissed, unopposed by the office of the DA.

However, the court held that under Section 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code, cases can be dismissed only if there were issues of double jeopardy, speedy trial violations or other specified defects, none of which were raised in the motion.

The court observed, “In the absence of a CPL 170 motion … the district attorney’s pronouncement of his subjective feelings, including verbalization of his prosecutorial discretion, is legally irrelevant.”

Carter had already threatened last year to hold the DA’s office in contempt if the District Attorney did not pursue the four cases related to the 2012 Occupy protest.

However, after the ruling, Cecilia Logue, the spokeswoman of the DA’s office said, “We have been present for all court dates pertaining to this matter and will continue to be present at future appearances.”

The post Albany City Judge Rules Prosecutors Cannot Abandon Prosecution of Occupy Protesters first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

On Wednesday, TMZ was told that Lindsay Lohan will not be prosecuted for stealing over $100,000 in watches and sunglasses from a home in Hollywood Hills. The L.A. County District Attorney’s office made the announcement because they rejected the case. The charge evaluation worksheet for the D.A. says that there is not enough evidence to file a burglary charge against Lohan.

The District Attorney said that Lohan and the owner of the home that was burglarized, Sam Magid, have had a ‘longstanding relationship.’ The owner never named Lohan as a suspect in the crime, according to the District Attorney, and that the “potential eyewitnesses have refused to become involved.”

Also missing from the case is the fact that the other suspects involved were not found with any of the stolen property in their possession. Gavin Doyle, the assistant for Lohan, also will not be prosecuted in the case. TMZ was told by a representative from the District Attorney’s Office that, “The District Attorney’s Office received no evidence that any jewelry, including watches, was taken. The evidence presented to us … was valued at $6,400 and included $3,000 in cash, four pairs of sunglasses, an iPod and keys to two cars and a house.” It seems as though the original complaint of $100,000 in jewelry being stolen never reached the D.A.’s Office in the first place.

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