Free Republic

Amid peaceful protests and the occupation of a national wildlife refuge building in Oregon, Glenn Beck said Monday that ranchers Steven and Dwight Hammond should not go to jail again but the judge who originally sentenced them should. "They received their sentence. They went and they served their sentence. They paid their due, as according to a judge," Beck said on The Glenn Beck Radio Program. "If the judge broke the law, then the judge needs to go to jail." Dwight Hammond, 73, and Steven Hammond, 46, have been charged with arson for fires they said they lit in 2001...

Arthur Chu, who won nearly $400,000 on Jeopardy and has written articles slamming "privilege" and supporting feminism, has taken to social media to stand up against a woman who has been raped. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. On the night of January 19th, a mother-of-two named Cytherea was held at gunpoint by five men and brutally raped... The suspects in the assault have since been arrested, but the trauma has been done and injuries had been sustained. So, to help Cytherea pay her medical bills, one of her co-workers set up a charity to help her. Arthur Chu...

The NAACP’s legal group has sent a letter to a Missouri judge asking that a new grand jury convene to consider indicting former Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown back in August. On November 24, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson for killing Brown, and as a result, already riled protesters and activists took to the streets seeking justice. Now, in the almost two months since the decision was reached, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund has penned an open letter to Missouri Judge Maura McShane asking that a...

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously smacked down the Illinois Supreme Court in President Barack Obama’s home state for violating the Fifth Amendment. Almost always the Supreme Court chooses to take a case (called granting a writ of certiorari) from a federal appeals court or a state supreme court by setting the case for briefing and argument. The Court receives 8,000 petitions for certiorari per year, and it grants fewer than 80.Yet in this case of Martinez v. Illinois, the justices took the very rare step of deciding the whole case just based on the petition filed with them requesting review. The...

A court-appointed expert testifying in U.S. student Amanda Knox’s third murder trial in Italy said Wednesday that a new trace of DNA found on the handle of the knife alleged to have been the murder weapon belongs to Knox and not the victim. That testimony bolsters the defense, which claims the kitchen knife was not the weapon used in the bloody 2007 slaying of Knox’s British roommate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher. …

08/08/2013-MOTION REINSTATE AND CONTINUANCE AGAINST ABOVE NAME DEFENDANT GEORGE ZIMMERMAN

In perhaps the least surprising development of the night, the NAACP is going all out to continue the prosecution of George Zimmerman. The group announced its intentions in a press release. July 13, 2013 (Orlando) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released the following statement on the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin: NAACP Chairman Roslyn M. Brock: “Today, justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP. “We call immediately for the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon...

Do the words "double jeopardy" ring a bell, Joe? In 2012, shortly after Trayvon Martin was killed, and when few facts were available, Joe Scarborough didn't hesitate to brand George Zimmerman a "murderer." Scarborough's pro-prosecution bias was on display again on Morning Joe today, when he declared that the absence of African-Americans on the George Zimmerman jury would "immediately" make a verdict subject to appeal. Really? So if this jury were to acquit Zimmerman, the prosecution would have a valid basis to overturn the verdict on appeal? Sure sounds like double jeopardy—but Scarborough never raised that concern. View the video...

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a criminal defendant may be retried even though the jury in his first trial had unanimously rejected the most serious charges against him. The vote was 6 to 3, with the justices split over whether the constitutional protection against double jeopardy barred such reprosecutions.

Arkansas may retry a man for murder even though jurors in his first trial were unanimous that he was not guilty, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Alex Blueford, who is accused of killing his girlfriend’s 1-year-old son, is not protected by the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause, the court ruled in a 6 to 3 decision. Because the judge dismissed the jury when it was unable to reach agreement on lesser charges, Blueford was not officially cleared of any of the charges, the majority said, and thus may be retried. “The jury in this case did not convict Blueford of any...

SCRANTON - Brandon J. Piekarsky will spend his 19th birthday behind federal prison bars after a jury on Thursday convicted him and his friend, Derrick M. Donchak, of a hate crime for participating in the fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah. In a case that has attracted international attention, the all-white jury of six men and six women found Piekarsky, 18, of Shenandoah Heights, and Donchak, 20, of Shenandoah, guilty of violating the federal Fair Housing Act by assaulting Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala. Donchak and his parents sobbed, and Piekarsky grimaced, as federal marshals handcuffed the pair...

Because of them, telephone taping was carried out a year before the massacre.Two of the Moroccoan Islamist Fugitives Were the Key to Investigate Jamal Zougham Before 3/11.LD (Luis del Pino) The surprising flight of nine Islamists from a Moroccan prison last week has taken an unexpected turn, when it was discovered that two of them, the Chatbi brothers, were allegedly linked to the top sentenced for 3/11, Jamal Zougham, and his stepbrother Mohamed Chaoui, arrested like Zougham on March 13th, but released a few weeks after the Madrid attacks. Although that relation between Zougham and the Chatbi brothers was finally...

CLEVELAND - The return of alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany for trial on war crimes was delayed again Tuesday by a federal court, shortly after six immigration officers removed the retired autoworker from his suburban Cleveland home in a wheelchair. A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay until it could further consider Demjanjuk's motion to reopen the U.S. case that ordered him deported, in which he says painful medical ailments would make travel to Germany torturous.

On Good Friday, John Demjanjuk, 89 and gravely ill, was ordered deported to Germany to stand trial as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews -- at Sobibor camp in Poland. Sound familiar? It should. It is a re-enactment of the 1986 extradition of John Demjanjuk to Israel to be tried for the murder of 870,000 Jews -- at Treblinka camp in Poland. How many men in the history of this country have been so relentlessly pursued and remorselessly persecuted? The ordeal of this American Dreyfus began 30 years ago. In 1979, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) at...

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property...

Double jeopardy in before US Supreme Court HOUSTON A former Enron Corp. executive is hoping a little known component of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause will help him avoid a retrial on charges related to financial fraud at the once mighty energy giant. Attorneys for F. Scott Yeager are set to present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday on the issue of whether double jeopardy prevents prosecutors from retrying individuals after a jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others that share an element with the acquitted charges. Prosecutors...

Soldier cleared of murder in civilian court 18 years ago to face court-martial in the deaths By: MIKE BAKER - Associated PressRALEIGH, N.C. -- A soldier cleared of a triple murder in civilian court 18 years ago will face a military court-martial for the same crimes, an Army general ordered Friday. The Army will try Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis on three counts of premeditated murder in the May 1985 deaths of Kathryn Eastburn, 31, and two of her daughters -- Kara Sue, 5, and Erin Nicole, 3. Hennis was convicted and sentenced to death for the crimes in 1986,...

Do School Districts Get Away with Eminent Domain Double Jeopardy? by Wayne Lusvardi The Story of King Ahab's Taking of a Vineyard "Now Naboth the Hezreelite had a vineyard in Nezreel,beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And after this Ahab said to Naboth, ?Give me your vineyard that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.' But Naboth said to Ahab, ?The Lord forbids that I give...

Supreme Court rules 2 states can prosecute same crime 4/8/2005, 12:20 p.m. ET The Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The state constitution's double jeopardy clause does not bar a man accused of stealing a car from being prosecuted in both Michigan and Kentucky, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled. The justices, in a 5-2 ruling released Thursday, relied on a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision to say the states are sovereign entities that each have the power to punish. Justice Elizabeth Weaver wrote the opinion and was joined by Chief Justice Clifford Taylor and Justices Stephen Markman, Maura Corrigan...

I suspect that if I were to take a poll in Oklahoma today as to whether or not the current trial of Terry Nichols is justified, the answer would be almost 100 percent in the affirmative. Nichols, after all, has been convicted in federal court for having a crucial role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and received a life sentence. It is that sentence that has Oklahomans enraged, however, and now he is being tried on state charges of murder for one and only one reason: so he can receive the death penalty. If there ever was a case...