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God Bless our Troops.
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The Fourth Circuit has over-ruled two trial judges and determined that the FAA can make rules outside of what the law specifically allowed.
31 March 2003
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God Bless our Troops.
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More on the Richmond prosecutor's prosecution of one of the local officers: "During cross examination today, Commonwealth's Attorney David M. Hicks attempted to show that Melvin had no clear plan for arresting Johnson."
This is rediculous. How often will officers have an exact plan? Policies - Yes. Exact plan - No.
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God Bless our Troops.
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More on the Richmond prosecutor's prosecution of one of the local officers: "During cross examination today, Commonwealth's Attorney David M. Hicks attempted to show that Melvin had no clear plan for arresting Johnson."
This is rediculous. How often will officers have an exact plan? Policies - Yes. Exact plan - No.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Victim impact testimony will be allowed in the Malvo case. What element does the impact witness testimony prove? Future dangerousness? Depravity in the act (torture etc.)?
Admittedly, I am no expert in capital murder so I may be wrong here, but . . .
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God Bless our Troops.
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Victim impact testimony will be allowed in the Malvo case. What element does the impact witness testimony prove? Future dangerousness? Depravity in the act (torture etc.)?
Admittedly, I am no expert in capital murder so I may be wrong here, but . . .
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God Bless our Troops.
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I like this definition of the law. Make me a Barrister and the rest of 'em Solicitors.
From My Shingle.
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God Bless our Troops.
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I like this definition of the law. Make me a Barrister and the rest of 'em Solicitors.
From My Shingle.
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God Bless our Troops.
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OK, this is just silly. Why would a law firm - which should be noted for its ability to think dispassionately - waste money on this sort of thing. It's just a little arrogant to think that your office will be one targeted so that you need safe rooms, gas protection, and stockpiled food supplies. Terrorists are going to hit high profile targets and as much as the legal world may think of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom the real world doesn't even know it exists. If your office is in a well known building such as the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building an attack might occur but it will either be so minor that your preparations are not needed (World Trade Center 1) or so major that none of this (except off site storage) will make any difference (911).
At least they aren't making provisions for the lawyers' pets.
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God Bless our Troops.
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OK, this is just silly. Why would a law firm - which should be noted for its ability to think dispassionately - waste money on this sort of thing. It's just a little arrogant to think that your office will be one targeted so that you need safe rooms, gas protection, and stockpiled food supplies. Terrorists are going to hit high profile targets and as much as the legal world may think of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom the real world doesn't even know it exists. If your office is in a well known building such as the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building an attack might occur but it will either be so minor that your preparations are not needed (World Trade Center 1) or so major that none of this (except off site storage) will make any difference (911).
At least they aren't making provisions for the lawyers' pets.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Death penalty habeus fee caps in Florida:
"If 840 hours aren't enough a private attorney is free to work as long as it takes, without compensation."
"Any additional hours would fulfill pro bono requirements."
"It's not a cap on how much you work . . . It's a cap on how much you get paid. You have pride in your work. . . . I easily average 1,200 hours per case."
I'm for fiscal responsibility as much as the next guy but I must say that there is no way I'm going to - over and over again - be doing work wherein I'm required to "donate" 360 hours to "pro bono publico." Strikes me that it might get hard to pay the bills.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Death penalty habeus fee caps in Florida:
"If 840 hours aren't enough a private attorney is free to work as long as it takes, without compensation."
"Any additional hours would fulfill pro bono requirements."
"It's not a cap on how much you work . . . It's a cap on how much you get paid. You have pride in your work. . . . I easily average 1,200 hours per case."
I'm for fiscal responsibility as much as the next guy but I must say that there is no way I'm going to - over and over again - be doing work wherein I'm required to "donate" 360 hours to "pro bono publico." Strikes me that it might get hard to pay the bills.
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30 March 2003
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God Bless our Troops.
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"On top of its devil problem, the hilly, sinuous U.S. 666 has an extremely high accident rate -- all in all, a 'perfect recipe for bad publicity.'"
Some quotes just have to be repeated.
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God Bless our Troops.
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"On top of its devil problem, the hilly, sinuous U.S. 666 has an extremely high accident rate -- all in all, a 'perfect recipe for bad publicity.'"
Some quotes just have to be repeated.
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God Bless our Troops.
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One of the great things about doing criminal defense work is how much some of your own clients treat you. However, I've never had any of my clients record and try to blackmail me. This joker must not have checked out her web site or he would have asked for more than $3,000.
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God Bless our Troops.
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One of the great things about doing criminal defense work is how much some of your own clients treat you. However, I've never had any of my clients record and try to blackmail me. This joker must not have checked out her web site or he would have asked for more than $3,000.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The Times-Dispatch must be running out of stories. It reran the story about inmates training dogs.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The Times-Dispatch must be running out of stories. It reran the story about inmates training dogs.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Drugs, murder, State charges, federal charges. Glad I'm not the person who has to straighten all this out.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Drugs, murder, State charges, federal charges. Glad I'm not the person who has to straighten all this out.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Justice O'Connor has a book coming out.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Justice O'Connor has a book coming out.
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God Bless our Troops.
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"Experts: Insanity tough claim for Smart suspect."
Duh! NGRI is dang hard to get in any case.
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God Bless our Troops.
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"Experts: Insanity tough claim for Smart suspect."
Duh! NGRI is dang hard to get in any case.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The federal supreme court is going to decide whether Legislatures can ex post facto take away statutes of limitations years after they've run in order to get to really bad criminals. Of course, if they are fine with that there are no such things as statutes of limitations any more.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The federal supreme court is going to decide whether Legislatures can ex post facto take away statutes of limitations years after they've run in order to get to really bad criminals. Of course, if they are fine with that there are no such things as statutes of limitations any more.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Brits (with Arabic names) are on trial in Egypt for trying to restart a party which was outlawed after it tried to overthrow the Egyptian government in 1974 (some countries will outlaw things for the most trivial reasons).
The reason this caught my eye is that they have experts testifying as to whether certain books found in possession of the men are banned. I always liked Egypt and this statement from one of the experts is encouraging: "Another part of the report says that there is no legal power to restrict any books." Egypt, with all its flaws, is the most civilized of the Arab nations and I hold some hope for it becoming even better.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Brits (with Arabic names) are on trial in Egypt for trying to restart a party which was outlawed after it tried to overthrow the Egyptian government in 1974 (some countries will outlaw things for the most trivial reasons).
The reason this caught my eye is that they have experts testifying as to whether certain books found in possession of the men are banned. I always liked Egypt and this statement from one of the experts is encouraging: "Another part of the report says that there is no legal power to restrict any books." Egypt, with all its flaws, is the most civilized of the Arab nations and I hold some hope for it becoming even better.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The FBI is trying to make friends with Arab-Americans. It's also trying to crack down on those who crack down on FBI agents who tell the truth.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The FBI is trying to make friends with Arab-Americans. It's also trying to crack down on those who crack down on FBI agents who tell the truth.
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God Bless our Troops.
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NY Times article trying to provide cover for the Democrats on Estrada. Such and such organization opposed his nomination but after meeting with him they really opposed his nomintaion.
Naw, it wasn't really about the Left mustering the troops to vociferously bork him. It's about HIM. But wait, we don't actually know enough about him so he must have pissed us off somehow. It's his fault. Right?
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God Bless our Troops.
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NY Times article trying to provide cover for the Democrats on Estrada. Such and such organization opposed his nomination but after meeting with him they really opposed his nomintaion.
Naw, it wasn't really about the Left mustering the troops to vociferously bork him. It's about HIM. But wait, we don't actually know enough about him so he must have pissed us off somehow. It's his fault. Right?
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God Bless our Troops.
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The NY Times pointing out that the federal supreme (read: O'Connor) court can be swayed by things other than pure legal reasoning.
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God Bless our Troops.
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The NY Times pointing out that the federal supreme (read: O'Connor) court can be swayed by things other than pure legal reasoning.
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29 March 2003
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God Bless our Troops.
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In the last transcript I ordered Chicago v. Morales somehow magically transformed into Chicago v. Moralovitz. I've never gotten a transcript without some sort of similar error.
Still, I've never had a court reporter screw anything up like this. OUCH.
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God Bless our Troops.
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In the last transcript I ordered Chicago v. Morales somehow magically transformed into Chicago v. Moralovitz. I've never gotten a transcript without some sort of similar error.
Still, I've never had a court reporter screw anything up like this. OUCH.
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God Bless our Troops.
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"Citing a fear of tainting potential jurors, lawyers for sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo have asked a judge to seal reports and other pretrial evidence in the case from public view."
Do they really think that there is anything which can taint people further than the press coverage about two guys going around randomly killing people did? Good luck in trying to find jurors which haven't already been influenced; maybe the defense should look around and see if there are any monasteries in the jurisdiction. Of course, then you run into the problem of the prosecution excluding all your potential jurors (in violation of their 1st Amendment rights) because they have that pesky Catholic belief that the death penalty is sinful.
This defense has got to be frustrating.
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God Bless our Troops.
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"Citing a fear of tainting potential jurors, lawyers for sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo have asked a judge to seal reports and other pretrial evidence in the case from public view."
Do they really think that there is anything which can taint people further than the press coverage about two guys going around randomly killing people did? Good luck in trying to find jurors which haven't already been influenced; maybe the defense should look around and see if there are any monasteries in the jurisdiction. Of course, then you run into the problem of the prosecution excluding all your potential jurors (in violation of their 1st Amendment rights) because they have that pesky Catholic belief that the death penalty is sinful.
This defense has got to be frustrating.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Lie in Iowa - go to jail. I think they're still upset about the whole Professor Henry Hill thing.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Lie in Iowa - go to jail. I think they're still upset about the whole Professor Henry Hill thing.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Gideon vs. Wainwright has passed its 40th anniversary. And people are not happy. The push for all indigent criminal defense to be monopolized by public defenders continues.
"In Virginia, for instance, the move to public defender offices in some four dozen jurisdictions has provided a more consistent and arguably superior level of defense."
This is shakey info. It goes back to the article several months back which talked about how public defenders got better results than court appointed attorneys. Shortly after publication it became fairly obvious that the jurisdictions wherein public defenders are located are generally very liberal and would have gotten better results than the other jurisdictions no matter what**. I cannot speak to all the jurisdictions with public defenders but the ones I've seen benefit significantly from populations which greatly distrust police and courts; as well, they also seem to benefit from confused and disorganized prosecution offices.
This is not to say that a competent, realistic, non-ideological public defenders office will not do a good job, even in a conservative jurisdicition. Sadly, with the pitiful amount that Virginia pays court appointed attorneys*** if a public defender system can do it cheaper and provide things such as secretaries, paralegals, and investigators it might be something which should happen. All this said, despite what the article infers, the cost saving argument is the best reason for emplacing these offices.
** I cannot find the article anymore but I remember clearly that when this point was raised the claim was that the results weren't skewed because one, count 'em one, of the jurisdictions with public defenders is a conservative jurisdiction.
*** The article is incorrect about the amounts paid to court appointed attorneys. The amount qouted in the article is the amount in the statute; it is not the amount for which the Legislature has budgeted. For instance, rather than pay $445 for most felonies the courts actually pay $395.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Gideon vs. Wainwright has passed its 40th anniversary. And people are not happy. The push for all indigent criminal defense to be monopolized by public defenders continues.
"In Virginia, for instance, the move to public defender offices in some four dozen jurisdictions has provided a more consistent and arguably superior level of defense."
This is shakey info. It goes back to the article several months back which talked about how public defenders got better results than court appointed attorneys. Shortly after publication it became fairly obvious that the jurisdictions wherein public defenders are located are generally very liberal and would have gotten better results than the other jurisdictions no matter what**. I cannot speak to all the jurisdictions with public defenders but the ones I've seen benefit significantly from populations which greatly distrust police and courts; as well, they also seem to benefit from confused and disorganized prosecution offices.
This is not to say that a competent, realistic, non-ideological public defenders office will not do a good job, even in a conservative jurisdicition. Sadly, with the pitiful amount that Virginia pays court appointed attorneys*** if a public defender system can do it cheaper and provide things such as secretaries, paralegals, and investigators it might be something which should happen. All this said, despite what the article infers, the cost saving argument is the best reason for emplacing these offices.
** I cannot find the article anymore but I remember clearly that when this point was raised the claim was that the results weren't skewed because one, count 'em one, of the jurisdictions with public defenders is a conservative jurisdiction.
*** The article is incorrect about the amounts paid to court appointed attorneys. The amount qouted in the article is the amount in the statute; it is not the amount for which the Legislature has budgeted. For instance, rather than pay $445 for most felonies the courts actually pay $395.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Being a captive lawyer can pay well but you have to juggle that insurance adjuster against the actual interests of the client. Should you actually choose to follow your ethical obligations and represent your client don't expect things to go well.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Being a captive lawyer can pay well but you have to juggle that insurance adjuster against the actual interests of the client. Should you actually choose to follow your ethical obligations and represent your client don't expect things to go well.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Testimony in Hick's prosecution of one of the officers in his own jurisdiction (Richmond).
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God Bless our Troops.
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Testimony in Hick's prosecution of one of the officers in his own jurisdiction (Richmond).
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27 March 2003
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God Bless our Troops.
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There is bascially a state of war between Richmond's Commonwealth Attorney Office and Richmond's Police Department. The article claims part of this is due to the fact that there has been malaise in Richmond's detectives (which is being fixed since the new police chief came on board). It says the other part is due to the extremely rapid turnover in the Commonwealth Attorney's office and inability to keep experienced prosecutors.
I don't practice in Richmond enought to comment knowledgeably. All I can say is that Chesterfield and Henrico seem to have a lot of very experienced, very competent prosecutors who started out in Richmond's Commonwealth Attorney office.
And who goes to trial against an officer from your own jurisdiction without bringing in a substitute prosecutor from another jurisdiction?
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God Bless our Troops.
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There is bascially a state of war between Richmond's Commonwealth Attorney Office and Richmond's Police Department. The article claims part of this is due to the fact that there has been malaise in Richmond's detectives (which is being fixed since the new police chief came on board). It says the other part is due to the extremely rapid turnover in the Commonwealth Attorney's office and inability to keep experienced prosecutors.
I don't practice in Richmond enought to comment knowledgeably. All I can say is that Chesterfield and Henrico seem to have a lot of very experienced, very competent prosecutors who started out in Richmond's Commonwealth Attorney office.
And who goes to trial against an officer from your own jurisdiction without bringing in a substitute prosecutor from another jurisdiction?
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God Bless our Troops.
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This jerk scammed the Airforce to get back to the States. Now he faces charges from the Commonwealth. Soon, he should face charges from the military.
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God Bless our Troops.
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This jerk scammed the Airforce to get back to the States. Now he faces charges from the Commonwealth. Soon, he should face charges from the military.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Wow, the 4th Circuit upheld a habeus decision - I say . . . I say . . .THE FOURTH CIRCUIT, SON!! (In my best Foghorn Leghorn voice).
All it took was violations of both Brady prongs: exculpatory information was withheld and so was impeachment evidence. I feel sorry for Bob Beasley trying to put it all together again.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Wow, the 4th Circuit upheld a habeus decision - I say . . . I say . . .THE FOURTH CIRCUIT, SON!! (In my best Foghorn Leghorn voice).
All it took was violations of both Brady prongs: exculpatory information was withheld and so was impeachment evidence. I feel sorry for Bob Beasley trying to put it all together again.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Governor Warner caved in to the ACLU and vetoed "Choose Life." Kilgore is scornful of his decision.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Governor Warner caved in to the ACLU and vetoed "Choose Life." Kilgore is scornful of his decision.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Priscilla Owen has been reported out of committee. Will the Democrats block her nomination as well?
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God Bless our Troops.
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Priscilla Owen has been reported out of committee. Will the Democrats block her nomination as well?
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God Bless our Troops.
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Hackers hit Al-Jazeera with a more creative attack.
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God Bless our Troops.
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Hackers hit Al-Jazeera with a more creative attack.
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26 March 2003
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C'mon, do you really believe these people? I've worked at EPW compounds in my life and things such as intrusive searches and uncomfortable conditions occur but sitting on Qurans and harassing prisoners every time they pray? Nope.
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God Bless our Troops.
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C'mon, do you really believe these people? I've worked at EPW compounds in my life and things such as intrusive searches and uncomfortable conditions occur but sitting on Qurans and harassing prisoners every time they pray? Nope.
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