Urine sample could technically be a forgery, court rules

The Plog has a lovely tale about a man, a Whizzinator and a legal battle that reached the Missouri Court of Appeals. The court's opinion can be read here.

Your Honor, I did not murder that meat pie

In South Africa, a man accused of shoplifting a meat pie was brought into court and told that he was being charged with rape and murder ... until the judge said he was merely joking.

10th man jailed for refusing to testify

From Mark Morris:

A federal investigation of Internet gambling sent another man to jail today for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

Nicholas Zicarelli became the 10th person jailed for declining to testify, his lawyer, Kenneth Hensley, said at a contempt hearing in Kansas City.

... Zicarelli was called before the grand jury earlier this fall, but declined to testify, invoking his 5th Amendment right not to give evidence that would tend to show that he had committed a crime.

A judge then gave him immunity from prosecution, but Zicarelli persisted in his refusal. On Monday, Kays found him in contempt and ordered Zicarelli jailed for up to 18 months or until he agreed to tell what he knows to the grand jury.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Becker said the grand jury has a right to hear evidence about violations of U.S. laws. “A law-abiding citizen has to make a decision,” Becker said. “Do I obey the law, or do I protect my bookmaker?”

Olathe plans amnesty day for next week

Olathe is planning an amnesty day for people with outstanding municipal warrants. The amnesty period will run from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

From Olathe police:

Those who appear in the Olathe Municipal Court during this time will not be arrested on warrants issued through the Olathe Municipal Court. 

All non-paid warrant fees will be waived for those prepared to pay all fines, fees and costs on this date. 

Consideration of partial payments and payment plans will be at the discretion of the Judge and/or Prosecutor. 

Suspect, age 12, gives up Nintendo so he can get bail

A Canadian judge agreed to let a juvenile suspect out on bail, but only if the kid agreed to hand over his Nintendo Wii as security. If he breaks any of the conditions of his release, the court keeps the video-game system.

If prosecutors frame a suspect, should they be punished?

It sounds like a no-brainer question, but it's actually a major Supreme Court case, with arguments being heard today in Washington, D.C. There was a great summary this morning on NPR, but here's the nutshell version:

Back in 1977, two black teenagers from Omaha were charged with the murder of a retired policeman in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and convicted by an all-white jury. The star witness was a guy who initially accused two OTHER men and, even after he accused the teens, kept getting his facts wrong and had to be coached by prosecutors. Oh, and the authorities withheld evidence naming another suspect -- a white guy who was the brother-in-law of a local fire official.

Eventually, the Iowa Supreme Court declared shenanigans and freed the men. Only they can't be compensated under Iowa law for the 25 years they lost. They're trying to sue the prosecutors for, you know, FRAMING THEM but the authorities are relying on a rock-solid rule in the U.S. justice system: The prosecutors can't be held liable for their actions in court.

Now the Supremes have been dragged into the matter. We have a case where the authorities did something unspeakably heinous. But the White House, 28 states and several prominent legal groups are on the OTHER SIDE because, well, changing the "prosecutors are magical" rule would upset the apple cart in a pretty fundamental way.

Suspect gets 6 months for flipping the bird in court

That's just for the contempt of court, not the charge that originally brought him to court. Story is from Illinois.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Mad Matt in Mid MO!

Supremes won't intervene in James Ford Seale case

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the case against James Ford Seale, who's accused of abducting two black teenagers in the 1960s. (Both young men later turned up dead.)  Seale's attorneys are arguing that it's not right to charge him because the statute of limitations had passed. When the teens were abducted, a federal kidnapping charge was a capital crime and, thus, had no expiration. But it's since been downgraded to being punishable by life in prison.

Teen prostitute, 16, kills pimp who raped her -- gets life in prison

The Supreme Court is going to tackle an issue we've discussed a lot here: Should teenagers be sentenced to life without parole? We're one of the few countries that will sentence underage convicts like this. Activists point to the case of Sara Kruzan, who was allegedly raped by a man who turned around and pimped her for three years. She was tried as an adult and, because the judge considered the killing well-thought-out, sentenced to life without parole.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Tim P!

Mistrial in Travolta extortion case

Two people -- a paramedic and a legislator in the Bahamas -- allegedly tried to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta to keep a medical document private. The case had gone to the jury, but the judge, suspecting that a juror had been communicating with someone on the outside, declared a mistrial. (Apparently, there was a big political rally where someone had announced that one of the defendants had already been acquitted.) The judge ordered a retrial.

Ashcroft asks appeals court to reconsider

In Idaho, a federal appeals panel recently gave the green light to a lawsuit against John Ashcroft, the former attorney general. The plaintiff is a man who was arrested in a terrorism case under the material witness rule, but he was never called to testify.

The man argues that federal officials abused the law just so they could lock him up, so he's suing them, including Ashcroft. The former AG is now asking the full appeals court to reconsider whether he can be held personally liable.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Patty PV!

Ala. judge accused of spanking inmates

And not in a fatherly way. A series of inmates say that a former circuit judge in Mobile helped them get more lenient sentences if they let the judge spank them and do some other sexually weird things. Since these guys are all inmates and have a questionable relationship with the truth, the prosecutors are attacking their credibility. One inmate's mom, though, says she saw the welts on his rear, and the authorities say they recovered forensic evidence to back the inmates' story.

Report: JaCo drug court temporarily stops accepting new defendants

Over at the Pitch's Plog, Nadia Pflaum has a piece about Jackson County Drug Court putting a temporary stop to adding new defendants. County officials say that tax revenues aren't strong enough to fund the program fully, though they say things should be back to normal by year's end. (Instead of putting defendants in jail, the drug court helps them get treatment, counseling and work placement.)

Pflaum raises an interesting question: Should the county be spending $800K in COMBAT money on an election to renew its sales tax when the drug court doesn't have enough money? Here's the prosecutor's response:

"No," Kanatzar says flatly. "I think that's a shortsighted view of this. Elections cost money, like it or not, and without an election, we won't have a tax, and without a tax, we won't have a drug court. That's the price you have to pay for all of the good things COMBAT has done over the years."

Case brings Miranda rights back to Supreme Court

The court is also going to hear the case of Van Chester Thompkins, a Michigan man who confessed to murder. A federal appeals court threw out his conviction, though, because Thompkins never waived or asserted his Miranda rights, and so police should never have questioned him. Apparently, the appeals panel wants suspects to vocally state whether they do or don't want to use those rights. Prosecutors say it'll hamstring police investigations.

Jackson County agrees to $70K settlement with prosecutor

The county legislature has agreed to pay $70,000 to Daniel Miller, an assistant prosecutor who filed discrimination complaints with the state's Commission on Human Rights and the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission. As part of the settlement, Miller would resign and withdraw his complaints.

Miller, you might remember, was the prosecutor who handled the case against Matthew Davis, who pleaded guilty to abandoning girlfriend Amber McGathey's body in a vehicle in River Market. That plea -- and the accompanying conviction -- were later dismissed because the prosecution withheld hundreds of pages of evidence from the defense, a judge ruled. From Mark Morris' story at the time:

A Jackson County judge cited prosecutorial misconduct Tuesday when she threw out the guilty pleas of a man convicted in 2005 of abandoning a woman’s body in his Jeep.

Assistant Prosecutor Dan Miller withheld hundreds of pages of investigative records from Matthew Davis’ defense lawyers and "deliberately and fraudulently misled the court and defense counsel," Judge Edith L. Messina wrote.

And there's this statement from the prosecutor's office, reported by KSHB (and linked to via Tony's Kansas City) ...

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Jackson County Prosecutor James Kanatzar "vehemently" denied any wrongdoing and said punishment faced by Daniel "Dan" Miller was directly related to his prosecutorial misconduct in a high-profile death case.

The Plog has a post about it here.

Only 1 in 4 terror suspects gets prosecuted, report says

That's according to a research group at Syracuse University, which says that federal prosecutors used to go after 70 percent of these suspects. The report says that U.S. attorneys are turning down a lot of these cases because the evidence is weak or the activity involved isn't a federal crime. (The Justice Department, by the way, disagrees with the report and says it doesn't include all of the data that's available to DOJ sources.)

Supreme Court hears fewer cases

I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad one, but the Supreme Court hears far fewer cases than it did back in the early 1980s, the New York Times reports. Their workload used to be about 150 cases per year -- now, it's about half that. Legal experts say that it's simply a matter of the justices being more selective about what they admit to the court. (The Supremes get about 8,000 requests in a year ... and chooses to hear 80.)

Should juveniles be sentenced to life without parole?

Later this fall, the U.S. Supreme Court is going to consider the issue of juveniles who were sentenced to life without parole -- a punishment that isn't handed down in any other modern country, the L.A. Times reports. There are about 2,500 people serving such sentences. In most cases, there was a homicide involved, but about 100 of those prisoners committed some other crime, such as robbery or assault. (Florida is responsible for a lot of those instances.) The Supreme Court is going to hear a case involving a man who was sent away for his part in two robberies. His lawyers aren't saying he should necessarily be freed -- they just want him to have a shot at getting parole.

Man wages legal battle to wear baseball cap in court

I hear this could be as big as the "New Jersey v. 'I'm With Stupid'" ruling.

2 more jailed for refusing to testify in gambling probe

For those keeping score at home, that makes six people who were sent to jail because they won't testify to a federal grand jury in Kansas City. It's part of an online-gambling case, though we don't know much more than that because, ta-da, it's before a grand jury. (Some of the men have requested open hearings over their refusal to testify, which is how Tony Rizzo has been following the case.)

Tony's Kansas City weighs in here.

Former Kline assistant investigated over alleged ethics breach

From Prime Buzz: The Disciplinary Administrator overseeing lawyers in Kansas has filed a formal ethics complaint against Stephen Maxwell, former assistant to former Kansas Attorney General and later Johnson County DA Phill Kline. The complaint -- attached in full below -- alleges Maxwell violated the Kansas Rules of Professional Conduct and committed "breaches of trust of his public office" during investigations into Women's Health Care Services, P.A., operated by the late George Tiller, and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood in Johnson County.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, JUNGLE JIM!

UPDATE: The most disgusting thing you will ever read

Just a quick followup to last week's story about an Ohio defendant who opened up his colostomy bag in court and began to eat the contents. The trial resumed, and he was convicted. This time, he was restrained in a chair, in case he got the munchies.

Authorities say he had tried to appear mentally ill, but was found out ...

The report said he interacted and played dominos with other inmates at the Justice Center. That is until a court-appointed mental health care worker arrived. That's when Orr went into a trance-like state, had his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth and other acts. He was deemed to be a malingerer, the report indicated.

Here's my question for you. It's one thing to be mentally ill and pull the colostomy bag stunt. But how does a reasonably sane person psych himself up for that sort of act?

Defendant slices his own neck in Calif. courtroom

He'll live, but the judge has declared a mistrial. Nobody's sure how he smuggled a razor into the courtroom in the first place.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, JUNGLE JIM!

Wichita launches "mental health court"

Sort of like drug court, but for people with mental-health issues. Here's how the goodhearted people at the AP explain it:

The court will act as a diversion program for mentally ill people facing trial. It will allow them to avoid a criminal conviction if they accept and fulfill a treatment plan. The program also can be used by those on probation.

TX man jailed for insulting judge in bathroom

Near Austin, a man named Don Bandelman was thrown in jail after he followed a judge into a courthouse bathroom and insulted the man because Bandelman disliked a ruling in his granddaughter's custody case. The judge had Bandelman arrested on the spot for contempt and thrown into jail for 30 days. Bandelman was released after two days after an appeals court started raising questions.

You can be thrown into jail immediately if the contempt happens in a courtroom, during an official proceeding, but if it happens outside the courtroom, there has to be a hearing -- which didn't happen in Bandelman's case, the Austin American-Statesman reports.