Free Republic

In 2008, the couple took their three daughters, then ages 5, 4 and 1½, on a vacation to San Diego. They snapped more than 100 photos during the trip, like parents do, including several of the girls playing together during bath time. When they returned to their home in Peoria, Ariz., they dropped the camera’s memory stick off at a Walmart for developing. Within a day, a police detective came knocking. A Walmart employee had flagged the bath-time photos as pornographic, the detective told the parents. One showed the girls wrapped in towels with their arms around each other; another...

Judge dismisses sexual harassment charges against 2 Ore. teens 08/20/2007 By WILLIAM McCALL / Associated Press Two 13-year-old boys accused of slapping girls' bottoms and poking or cupping girls' breasts at school apologized on Monday as a judge dismissed charges against the two, ending a six-month case that drew national attention. The charges triggered a debate over whether such behavior in school should be considered criminal. Four girls listed as victims by the prosecutors had asked the judge to drop the charges against Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison. Yamhill County Judge John Collins did so on Monday, saying it was...

The Mexican drug runner whose testimony sent two Border Patrol agents to prison for shooting him in the buttocks brought drugs into the United States more than once, thereby diminishing his credibility as a witness in the investigation, according to a California congressman. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., presented new evidence in a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday that revealed what he says was U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's deliberate attempt to mislead the public about Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila's involvement in the transport of a second load of drugs in October 2005.[snip].... ....[snip]But the Drug Enforcement Agency found that Aldrete-Davila brought in another...

STAFFORD, Va. — A woman convicted of a felony for throwing a cup of ice into a car that cut her off in traffic was sentenced to probation instead of prison, a judge ruled Wednesday. Jessica Hall faced between two and five years in prison after she was convicted last month of maliciously throwing a missile — the cup of ice — into an occupied vehicle. No one was injured in the incident last summer. "The facts of this case ... suggest that the sentence in this case should be reduced," Judge Frank A. Hoss Jr. told Hall, who thanked...

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- A former U.S. Border Patrol agent who was convicted of shooting a drug smuggling suspect and then lying about it was beaten by fellow inmates in prison, his relatives and a congressman said Tuesday. Prison officials did not immediately confirm that Ignacio Ramos had been attacked. The convictions of Ramos and fellow former agent Jose Alonso Compean sparked outcry from critics who argued that the men were merely doing their job defending the border against criminals. U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a vocal supporter of the agents and opponent of illegal immigration, criticized the Bush...

PC UsersMac Users

The federal prosecutor who helped convict two U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to more than a decade in jail for shooting a suspected drug smuggler who illegally crossed the border from Mexico understands why the case stirred public outrage. However, he attributes the anger to the portrayal of the case by the news media and said the media version "is unfortunately not the narrative the jury heard" before convicting the two...

- The Mexican suspected drug smuggler granted immunity in the controversial - and politically explosive - prosecution of two U.S. Border Patrol agents is not entirely off the hook. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, the man at the center of the row over the prosecution and jailing of the two agents who shot the illegal immigrant, confirmed to Cybercast News Service Thursday that there is an ongoing investigation into Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila and others. Aldrete-Davila had been driving a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana on Feb. 17, 2005, the day border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean shot and wounded...

Justice: As the president weighs pardoning two imprisoned Border Patrol agents, the explanation for their prosecution raises more questions than it answers. Is U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton another Mike Nifong or Patrick Fitzgerald? In response to public and congressional protests against what is perceived as a grievous miscarriage of justice, Bush told KFOX-TV in El Paso, Texas, that he would "take a sober look at the case" of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The two have begun serving prison terms for assaulting a purportedly unarmed Mexican drug smuggler in a February 2005 incident, obstructing justice and...

St. Paul's chief says the directive is to provide a standard to measure performance — not fill city coffers. But the union and drivers aren't happy. Let the meter expire, even for a minute or two, and there's a parking officer issuing a ticket. Park too close to a driveway or ignore a permit-only sign and again it's ticket time. If it seems like St. Paul aggressively enforces parking meters and rules, this might help explain why: To make sure the city's enforcement officers are working hard, police want each agent to write tickets for 55 violations a day. Parking...

Over-zealous imam boycotted By Amberin Zaman in Kotanduzu (Filed: 13/04/2004) Turkish villagers have boycotted a hardline imam who accused women of indecency simply for travelling on the same buses as men. Since being appointed to the mosque in the village of Kotanduzu a year ago, Mustafa Platin has also ordered women to don full chadors and instructed their husbands to force them to remain indoors if they refused to comply. The imam's behaviour sparked a near-unprecedented rebellion. Villagers in the community perched high on a plateau in eastern Turkey have demanded his sacking and promised to boycott daily worship in...

Court Allows Arrests of All in Drug Stops WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court issued a traffic warning Monday: Beware of whom you ride with. If drugs are found in a vehicle, all occupants can be arrested, the justices said in a unanimous decision. It was a victory for Maryland and 20 other states that argued police frequently find drugs in traffic stops but no one in the vehicle claims them. The court gave officers the go-ahead to arrest everyone. In a small space like a car, an officer could reasonably infer "a common enterprise" among a driver and passengers,...

<p>Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested.</p>