Cherish Moise.
What does a 16-year-old figure she’ll get these days for a car jacking, robbery, conspiracy and a police chase through uptown that makes the nightly news and endangers the lives of parents and young childen on their way to the circus?
Apparently the answer in Mecklenburg County is now six months to a year in jail or prison. So writes Cherish Moise on her facebook page.
DAMN MI NI66a jayla an cynthia loccd up ima turn myself in on monday get dhz 6mnths to a year ova wit
Moise’s two underage female accomplices were caught by police, but Moise, 16, was still at large from Friday’s uptown police chase until she turned herself in Monday evening.
That’s still appallingly low, but I have to say that’s an improvement from the Gilchrist days, when the above, for a person without an adult record, would have resulted in all the serious charges dropped and probation, if that, on the misdemeanors.
For years, I spent hours a month digging through criminal files, and got a good idea of how many months, if any, one would serve for various crimes because the way the District Attorney’s office handled crimes was pretty standard. At the same time, I lived in some pretty tough transitioning neighborhoods, and was amazed at how good a working knowledge troubled teens and young adults had of the local sentencing practices of the District Attorney’s office. They were surprisingly familiar with — and accurate on– what they would “get” for certain crimes and committed them accordingly.
I’ve made a note on my calendar to check on Moise in the coming months to see if her predication, and thus the current working theroy on the street under the new district attorney, Andrew Murray, is accurate. While she didn’t clarify if she meant six months to a year probation or prison, I can only assume if she thought she’d get probation she wouldn’t have bothered to run.
Stay tuned.
No CommentsThey work so well for taking out terrorists in rogue states we haven’t declared war on, Congress just can’t wait to get them in the air here in the United States to, um … we’ll get to that in a minute.
“The plan… shall provide for the safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.”
Predator drones like this one may soon become a regular sight over Charlotte air space.
The plan, laid out in this legislation, is to create a layer of airspace especially for public agency and commercial drone use. Sure, but what do they want to use them for? Pakistan probably got more info on that before we launched them there than the American people have so far.
The legislation, all 258 pages of it, and the Congressional conference report lays out a detailed plan for six drone air space demonstration zones across the country to test out the federal government’s new drone air space plan. But again, neither the conference report or the legislation makes a singe mention of what exactly they plan to use them for. But the scope is clearly enormous.
“This is a tool that many law enforcement agencies never imagined they could have,” Steven Gitlin of AeroVironment Inc. told the Los Angeles Times in November. His company is already in the works to supply law enforcement agencies with 18,000 of small drone crafts once the FAA grants them clearance.
Information on drone use on American soil has been hard to come by, despite a legal battle by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sues to learn the details of government spying, and in many instance to challenge its constitutionality.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit based out of San Francisco, California, filed a Freedom of Information Act request back in April to learn more about domestic drone use in America. Eight months later, the Department of Transportation (and its subdivision that deals directly with domestic drones, the Federal Aviation Administration), has failed to follow through.
San Francisco’s EFF says that at least 285 missions have occurred in America, but they want to know more about them. The US government, however, is being far from accommodation in regards to their request.
With the filing of the suit on Tuesday, the EFF hopes that they will be able to finally let the public understand why spy planes are being flown through American skies without the people of the country given any reason or warning as to why.
“There is currently no information available to the public on which specific public and civil entities have applied for, been granted or been denied certificates or authorizations to fly unmanned aircraft in the United States,” the EFF’s complaint says.
So far, the EEF hasn’t even been able to determine who is currently flying the drones, and why. The use of drones in American airspace could dramatically increase the physical tracking of citizens – tracking that can reveal deeply personal details about our private lives,” EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch says in a statement. “Drones give the government and other unmanned aircraft operators a powerful new surveillance tool to gather extensive and intrusive data on Americans’ movements and activities,” she adds, noting that the usage rises “significant privacy concerns.”
“We’re asking the DOT to follow the law and respond to our FOIA request so we can learn more about who is flying the drones and why,” EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch pleads in explaining the suit.
Here are a couple of possibilities:
Meet the North Dakota family of anti-government separatists busted by cops using a Predator drone… after ‘stealing six cows’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073248/Local-cops-used-Predator-drone-arrest-North-Dakota-farm-family-stealing-6-cows.html#ixzz1ldZ06NWg
Drone Gives Texas Law Enforcement Bird’s-Eye View on Crime
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/16/drone-gives-texas-law-enforcement-birds-eye-view-on-crime/#ixzz1ldZKUEK3
The coming of the drones, for good http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-coming-of-the-drones-for-good-20120206-1r14n.html
No CommentsThe game is sometimes good, sometimes not. But the commercials are what I love.
This one was seriously underrated. It’s one of my favorite.
Here’s a collection of what are supposed to be among the best ever. What is your favorite of all time? Of this year?
I really wish they’d not release them before the game. It’s one of the few curses of the Internet age. Who wants the turkey a week before Thanksgiving?
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Right now, one of my kids has strep, which the doctor says is highly contagious. We’re trying to contain it so it doesn’t spread and make us all sick.
Marcus Robinson doesn't dispute that he killed a 17-year-old execution-style for $27. His attorney is just arguing that his death sentence shouldn't be upheld because there was only one black person on the jury that convicted him.
Those who value justice in our criminal justice system need to think of the Racial Justice Act hearings going on now as a particularly deadly form or strep that could strip victims of all crimes of a genuine shot at justice and create a justice system where the race of the victim, offender and those on the jury becomes more important than guilt or innocence, the crime committed or justice itself.
In Cumberland County, Attorney James Ferguson is using the Racial Justice Act to conduct the initial assault on the criminal justice system. In 1991, Marcus Robinson, who is black, killed a white teenager, Erik Tornblom, 17, in a robbery. He convinced Tornblom to give him a drive home, then, along with another assailant, robbed him of $27 and executed him in a field. No one, including Robinson, disputes that he is guilty. In 1994, he was given the death penalty for the crime.
The problem, according to the Racial Justice Act and Ferguson is that there was only one black person on the jury. They are using a professor who came up with a study showing that blacks are twice as likely to be struck from juries statewide as those of other races in peremptorily strikes, where prosecutors and defense attorneys can strike jurors without giving a reason. No one knows why black jurors were struck in Robinson’s case, or if it were for racial reasons, but that doesn’t matter.
If a murderer was convicted by a jury of his peers that doesn’t exactly reflect the racial makeup of the county they live in, or tilt toward his advantage, like an all-white jury for a white killer or a majority black jury for a black killer, the death sentence in a case can be thrown out. This will completely change the way attorneys pick juries, making it primarily about race, not justice, and forcing attorneys to take poor jury candidates rather rather than risk a race-based overturn of a conviction later.
Attorneys don’t have to prove any racism was present in Robinson’s jury selection, just that it might have been present in jury selection at some time some where in the state and his death sentence will be thrown out and commuted to life.
This will make convicting murderers more difficult in the future. And it is only a matter of time before dozens already on death row use it to get off, some of whom committed their crimes before Oct. 1, 1994 would have served their life sentences according to sentencing laws at the time that only required them to serve 25 years of a life sentence and could allow them not just to walk off death row, but out of prison entirely.
But this is only the beginning. The Racial Justice Act passed by the state legislature in 2009 only addresses the death penalty. It won’t be long before someone argues that it isn’t fair for someone to be sentenced to a life sentence for murder by a jury that isn’t perfectly racially “balanced.” Then we’ll be down to rape and armed robbery. There is no telling where this will end, or how far it will spread beyond state borders.
And there is no telling how many violent criminals, both black and white, will go free because the prosecutor had to put a clearly unqualified juror on the jury because of race.
So far, each of my predication on what the Racial Justice Act would do have been criticized as unrealistic, yet one by one they are coming true. Just wait.
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Says here that the CMPD spent $447,000 keeping an eye on Occupy Charlotte. There’s also news coverage that group members may have used a sewer as a toilet. For that sort of money and given all the new surveillance stuff the CMPD presumably has because of the DNC, you’d figure that the issue would have been discovered and dealt with long before the Occupy folks were evicted by the city. So not an reassuring development for the quality of police protection we can expect Uptown in early September.
1 CommentBy the American Future Fund, on a variety of federal (who do you support in 2012, do you approve of the defense cuts) and state issue (gay marriage and 3/5 majority to raise taxes state constitutional amendments). Interesting mix. Would assume that this is a reflection of how much of a battleground state North Carolina may be this year.
No CommentsThis is outrageous. The supposedly GOP-controlled House quietly voted 289-139 on Jan. 13 to expand the children’s SCHIP government health care program to families making $85,000 a year. That’s even though only about 5 percent of middle class kids lack health insurance and most of them are already covered by private health care plans.
The inevitable result? Private employers will begin dumping family health insurance plans, says a 2007 Congressional Budget Office study, throwing these kids on the backs of the taxpayers and forcing middle class kids onto the government dole.
With friends like this, who needs enemies?
How ironic.
Today, Charlotte Mecklenburg police dragged off the useful idiot Occupy Charlotte protesters for no longer being hip … or useful.
A hazmat crew investigates a drain the Occupiers may have been using as a toilet. "We're looking at the environmental impact on the stream down there with the wildlife, and things like that," Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Dulin told WCNC. Apparently, public crapping has suddenly been discovered by local elites to no longer be cool. Photo by WCNC.
Let’s not kid ourselves that the powers that be in Charlotte banned these protesters because they were rumpling the city property they were camped out on or because they had become a danger to themselves or anyone else or a threat to the peace. This was one of the most peaceful Occupy demonstrations in the country. The Charlotte City Council could have merely passed an ordinance that clamped down on hardcore anarchist protesters during extraordinary events like the DNC, a move that made sense.
But they piled on and also passed an ordinance banning protesters from camping on city property at all times, effectively ending the Occupy protest now. Why?
The local protesters, who hadn’t shown the proclivity for violence seen elsewhere, were broomed because they had become an embarrassment to the national and local liberal establishment with their bizarre antics, and had begun to become a threat to national Democrats’ electoral chances.
Don’t believe me?
Recall that in October, the Charlotte Observer editorial board viciously attacked the local GOP for wanting an ordinance to ban the Occupiers from further destroying city property by camping on it — in other words, the same darn ordinance we have now. In the piece, the paper’s editorial board actually defended the idea of Occupiers damaging city property because it was for a good cause. That was back when it was thought that the Occupiers would be Obama’s Tea Party, that their hip message would bolster Obama’s class warfare strategy and help return him to the White House. The viciousness of this October Observer editorial against the GOP-generated idea of removing the Occupiers from city property is almost shocking now:
The City Council should think hard before rushing forth an ordinance limiting such legal protests. Yes, grass is in jeopardy, and the protesters are an eyesore to some. But democracy can be messy, and the right to congregate sometimes makes us uncomfortable.
For Republicans who fret that prominent party officials don’t often take a public stand for the environment, we bring you heartening news: Mecklenburg’s GOP leaders are proudly green this week, speaking out to protect a precious patch of Charlotte’s grass. The endangered turf is at Old City Hall, where Occupy Charlotte protesters began camping out earlier this month – and perhaps might remain until next year’s Democratic National Convention.
That possibility has prompted an outpouring of grief from Republicans, led by Mecklenburg commissioner Bill James, who took a break from bashing homosexuals to condemn this new crime against nature. James sent emails this week to fellow Republicans showing the lush condition of the grass before Occupy protesters arrived. Protesters were violating the law by camping out in front of the office building, he said, and he criticized the hypocrisy of “eco-friendly” individuals putting the grass in peril. “No way they can put tents on it 24/7 and not kill off what took years to grow,” he wrote.
City councilman Andy Dulin, who received the email and photo of the lawn, said he can only imagine “the crap it looks like” now. Dulin, who regularly lands on the side of developers against ordinances protecting trees and other greenery, told the editorial board Friday that “conversations” are happening to produce a new ordinance that would disperse the protesters. He insists the move has nothing to do with Occupy’s liberal message, but that “It’s crazy that the city of Charlotte has no ordinance or policy that stops someone from camping forever on our property.”
A new ordinance would be fine with former mayor and future gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, who also rose up against the Occupiers this week. McCrory’s beef is more practical than horticultural. If officials let a small group set up tents, he told the Observer’s Tim Funk, what happens when large groups of protesters show up next September for the convention? McCrory also noted that such demonstrations could be bad for public safety, not to mention unsanitary. Or, as Dulin put it: “If one protester urinates or defecates on public property, he should be hauled off to jail.”
Ouch. Fast forward a month later though, and Occupy protesters across the country had begun to become a national embarrassment to the Democrats with their public sex, violence, destruction and defecation. Prominent liberals like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who had initially supported and coddled the movement began taking steps to evict them.
Even though Charlotte’s occupiers hadn’t yet posed any threat to public safety, the Observer’s tune also abruptly changed when it was clear that the protesters had become such an embarrassment that they could actually hurt Obama and the Democrats in the fall elections. The paper’s editorialists began calling for the very same type of ordinance they had trashed the GOP for suggesting the month before, one that would essentially silence their comrade protesters in arms and — more importantly — remove their smelly, unwashed bodies from public view immediately.
Again, they could have merely banned them during the DNC, but that was no longer good enough. Public approval has hit such a low that the Occupiers are down 20 points in support in … San Francisco, where majorities no longer back them.
Fast forward again to today’s editorial, where the Observer, defending the local liberal powers that be, actually praised the city council for going way beyond what the local GOP had suggested in October and passing one of the toughest anti-protest ordinances the country has ever seen:
Banning protesters from sleeping on public property, however, was sensible. New York, Oakland and other cities have found that people living and sleeping in campsites on public property can evolve into unruly, dangerous mobs. That’s what the City Council was seeking to avoid when it softened its proposed ordinance … Protest all you want, but no living (and sleeping) on public property. That’s a sensible restriction. One needn’t sleep to protest or peaceably assemble.
Uh-huh.
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Such a run … would have required more focus on a statewide campaign than on my young family … will continue my efforts to build a brighter future for our city … and blah, blah, blah, Foxx told the Charlotte Observer.
Sure. That and the party politely reminded Foxx that Democratic Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton is the next in line and it isn’t Foxx’s turn, never mind that 44 percent of registered Democrats statewide are black, a fact that would have tilted the primary in Foxx’s favor and set him up for a likely win. (Here’s why.)
No doubt no one was more bummed to see Foxx decline to run than former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. (Read this to understand why.) Foxx was the only candidate who could have knocked Dalton out of the race. This clears the path for a primary nomination for Dalton, the strongest candidate the Dems have, to move forward with little interference.
If only North Carolina Republicans were this organized.
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