Evidence

Dog poop sting operation ID’d scofflaw owners, sent them ‘special delivery’ of offending deposits

In the battle against dog poop, government officials, as well as managers of condominium associations and rental units, have resorted to some innovative methods, including the use of DNA testing of offending deposits on public areas. Now a middle-class suburb of Madrid has found an especially effective one, the New…

Aug 7, 2013 7:20 PM CDT

Partner reprimanded after taking plea in attorney email hacking case, has also settled lawsuit

Originally charged with multiple felonies, a partner in a Michigan law firm took a misdemeanor plea in a case in which he was accused of hacking into a fellow attorney’s personal email account and has been reprimanded by a state attorney discipline board for his conduct. Steven F. Spender also…

Aug 7, 2013 6:15 PM CDT

Accused in Fort Hood massacre, Hasan tells jury at court-martial: ‘I am the shooter’

Updated: If there was any doubt about U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s role in the 2009 shooting massacre that killed 13 and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, he dispelled it during his opening statement on Tuesday in his court martial over the attack. “On November 5, 2009, 13…

Aug 7, 2013 4:48 PM CDT

Law firm files racketeering suit over legal consultant’s claimed ‘bogus Internet marketing program’

Updated: A Michigan law firm has filed a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against a legal consultant that allegedly sold a “bogus Internet marketing program” to multiple small practitioners, sparking Web comment and criticism of all parties involved in the case. The plaintiff firm, Seikaly & Stewart, says that The Rainmaker…

Aug 6, 2013 5:55 PM CDT

Lawyer’s money laundering conviction is overturned because of excluded testimony

A federal appeals court has overturned the money laundering conviction of a Kenosha, Wis., lawyer accused of hiding assets in his girlfriend’s bankruptcy. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited error in the trial of the lawyer, Walter Stern III, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog Proof…

Aug 2, 2013 3:55 PM CDT

Whitey Bulger’s lawyers file softer-side photos as potential exhibits, but one backfires

Lawyers for accused mobster James “Whitey” Bulger apparently aimed to show his softer side when they uploaded 20 photos to a court website on Wednesday, identifying them as potential exhibits in the racketeering conspiracy case. The photos show Bulger with his girlfriend, his brothers, his two dogs, a parrot, a…

Aug 2, 2013 2:09 PM CDT

Ariel Castro gets life plus 1,000 years, says ‘I am not a monster,’ cites ‘harmony’ among captives

Sentenced to life plus 1,000 years on Thursday for kidnapping two teens and a young women and holding them captive at his Ohio home and raping and torturing them for nearly a decade, Ariel Castro did not appear to have a grasp on reality. After testimony about facts such as…

Aug 1, 2013 8:10 PM CDT

Lawyer suspended for violating no-sex-with-client rule; he admits oral sex was DUI case fee

Applying a new Pennsylvania legal ethics rule for the first time, the state’s supreme court has OK’d a one-year law license suspension for a suburban Philadelphia lawyer who admitted he accepted oral sex as a fee for representing a client in a driving-under-the-influence case. David H. Knight agreed to the…

Aug 1, 2013 6:35 PM CDT

Woman charged in green-paint incident linked to Lincoln Memorial vandalism is held without bail

A woman traveling on a Chinese passport with an expired visa is being held without bail after being charged with splattering green paint onto an organ and decorative woodwork at the Washington National Cathedral. Jiamei Tian, 58, is also linked to four other incidents of vandalism, authorities say, including last…

Aug 1, 2013 4:30 PM CDT

Witness harassment has gone digital, and the justice system is playing catch-up

Not long after a 30-year-old Cleveland woman witnessed a man being fatally shot in the back, the gunman’s friends tracked her down and threatened her about testifying against him. At first, they intimidated her the old-fashioned way. As she walked home one day, a friend of the suspect came up…

Aug 1, 2013 9:40 AM CDT

Courts in a muddle over 4th Amendment’s community caretaking exception

Some view it as a monstrous leviathan that could devour much of search-and-seizure protections. Others view it as simply a common-sense, rational justification for what police must do when performing emergency functions. Either way, the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment has prompted confusion among courts over whether it…

Aug 1, 2013 8:09 AM CDT

DNA from arrested suspects is like any valid booking process, SCOTUS says

At February’s oral argument in Maryland v. King, about whether the police may take samples of DNA from people arrested for certain crimes, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said it was “perhaps the most important criminal procedure case this court has heard in decades.” He suggested that such DNA swabs…

Aug 1, 2013 8:00 AM CDT

Robbers stole techniques from Ben Affleck movie, feds say; film clips to be shown to jurors at trial

They didn’t dress as nuns. But a trio of alleged New York robbers are accused of taking other techniques from a Ben Affleck movie—including the use of masks to disguise their identities and committing a robbery while wearing police uniforms. Now federal prosecutors are expected to show clips from the…

Jul 31, 2013 7:25 PM CDT

Court-appointed lawyer argues against death sentence for pit bull who attacked 5-year-old boy

An unusual court-appointed lawyer is representing the interest of a Georgia dog on a pro bono basis as a state-court judge decides whether the pit bull should be euthanized after an attack last year on a 5-year-old boy. At a Tuesday hearing, attorney Mickey Kicklighter advocated for Kno to be…

Jul 30, 2013 10:05 PM CDT

‘Tragic day for Penn State,’ judge says as he OKs criminal trial for ex-prez, other former officials

A state court judge called Tuesday “a tragic day for Penn State,” as he gave the green light for a criminal trial to proceed against its former president and two other former top officials concerning charges related to the child-sex-abuse scandal in which onetime assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is…

Jul 30, 2013 8:30 PM CDT