In the past the PA Supreme Court had no issues with this and allowed it. Well the federal courts said no. So the Democrats tried again. and what happened? Democrat lawyers requested an en banc review (a decision from the court’s entire slate of judges) and the appeals court ruled against them.
In a 9-4 vote, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied a request for en banc review to reconsider whether the date requirement for mail-in ballots is enforceable in Pennsylvania.
18-20 year old are allowed to vote and protest, why not conceal and carry? U.S. District Court judge William S. Stickman decided this week against Pennsylvania’s prohibition on 18-20- year-olds securing a concealed carry permit in order to be armed on their persons for self-defense.
Another NY DA mess. You make the call. New York City Cop Acquitted Three Years After Punching Suspect Who Refused to Leave Apple Store.
It seems as if the NY DA has a history of going after the good guy and losing. This current prosecutor sticks out like a sore thumb Adds credence to those who say affirmative action at work.
Officer Salvatore Provenzano, a 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department (NYPD), was charged with third-degree assault in 2023 — two years after a body camera captured the October 2021 interaction between him and Kamal Cheikhaoui, a man who had repeatedly refused to leave the Upper West Side store, CBS News reported.
Cheikhaoui, whom the New York Postdescribed as a “repeat offender,” was reportedly acting “unruly” in the Apple Store before security asked him to leave, prompting Provenzano and other cops to step in to remove him.
Body camera footage that another responding officer captured begins with Cheikhaoui loudly demanding to purchase merchandise and trying to push past security as Provenzano takes him by the arm and leads him toward the exit. When the suspect gets loose from his grasp and suddenly turns, the officer strikes him in the face:
DA Bragg’s office convened a grand jury, which indicted the officer two years later.
Police union representatives happily announced on Thursday that the charges had finally been dropped.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA), which represents more than 50,000 active and retired NYPD officers, said it was “grateful to get justice, but Manhattan prosecutors should never have brought the case in the first place.”
“This DA has to stop targeting New York City police officers and go after criminals. It needs to end now,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said during a press briefing. Bragg’s thoughts?
“We work in close partnership with the NYPD every day, and I have immense respect for the officers in uniform,” Bragg said in a statement. “I thank our prosecutors for their hard work and Judge Wiley for his careful and thoughtful consideration of this matter.”
Supreme Court and Donald Trump. Who loses if Trump isn’t granted partial Immunity. The answer is simple. Smith, Garland, Biden, Obama, Kennedy, and FDR.
If the court rules against Trump and he wins in November, those folks in the Obama and Biden Administration best take a permanent vacation to either Iran, Russia, China, or any socialist country like Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela.
Trump would be able to have them all prosecuted for acts that they took while in office. Difference between Trumps alleged crimes and theirs is this. Except for a woman gunned down by a rogue cop, no one died because of Trumps actions. Not the case with Biden and Obama. Kennedy and FDR are dead, so there’s would be a mute point.
Having an Attorney on a jury makes no sense. Especially having two. This is just plain crazy. To have not one but two lawyers serving as jurists? It’s no longer a jury of 12, but two.
The problem with having a lawyer on the jury is that they can be a very strong voice and influence the rest of the panel. And so, if they are … strong to one side or the other, then that can swap everybody else on the panel.
Worse yet, what if one is pro Trump and the other is anti Trump? They would be conducting their own trial during deliberations. Seven New Yorkers were picked this week to serve as jurors.
Of those seven, one is a corporate attorney who lives in Chelsea and grew up in Oregon, while another juror is a civil litigator who lives in the Upper East Side and is originally from North Carolina.
DA Alvin Bragg — dodging criticism from elsewhere.
There have been few light moments in the thunderous collision between former President Donald Trump and the legal system.
But one incident Tuesday put a brief smile on Trump’s face.
Trump faces 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting as felonies. The allegations against Trump are that ahead of the 2016 election, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000, so she would not go public with claims of an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair ever took place.
On the second day of jury selection, one potential juror said he had read Trump’s books “The Art of the Deal” and “How to Get Rich,” according to Newsweek.
After mentioning the second book, the juror asked if he got the title right.
Trump smiled and then nodded. The incident was not videoed because no cameras are allowed in the courtroom.
Although Monday was not very productive, with more than 50 of 96 potential jurors dismissed for saying they could not be fair and impartial, six people made the cut Tuesday, according to the New York Post. The names of jurors are being withheld.
The Post said the foreman of the jury is a married person from West Harlem who came to America from Ireland; another juror is a corporate lawyer who is an Oregon native; one is a female nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering; and another is a female software engineer.
A juror described by the Post as a “young black woman” said during selection that she respected Trump because he “always speaks his mind.”
Also joining the jury is a 40-year-old from the Lower East Side who said Trump was “fascinating and mysterious.”
“He walks into a room, and he sets people off one way or another,” the IT consultant said. “I find that really interesting. Really, this one guy can do all of this. Wow, that’s what I think.”
On potential juror was rejected for having posted in 2017 on Facebook, “Good news!! Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!!”
He added, “Get him out, lock him up.”
Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor, asked if the man still thinks Trump should be locked up.
The man drew a smirk from Trump when he replied that he no longer thinks so.
Judge Juan Merchan was irritated once with Trump and warned Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche that Trump mumbled something toward a potential juror “12 feet away from your client.”
“Your client was audibly uttering something,” the judge said. “I don’t know what he was uttering …”
“I won’t tolerate that. I won’t have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I will be crystal clear,” he said.
Question: If Merchan didn’t know what Trump said — per his own words — how could he decide Trump was trying to intimidate a potential juror?
Truth and Justice the NY way. https://heartofashepherd.com/
Is it just me or do these NY judges and prosecutors look like the folks who are in prison? I mean just take a look at them. What a bunch of scary looking folks.
And the one judge, the silver fox. Born in Columbia. His father served as a military officer in Colombia. His dad also worked in Colombia’s intelligence service. Need I say more?
And what they all have in common? Political lawfare. To see some of the charges and the restrictions. Trump is not allowed to comment, but all the other folks involved are. How crazy is that?
Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to deliver remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against former U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Judge Rejects Jack Smith’s Plea, Allowing Trump Co-Defendant to Submit FBI Transcript in Classified Docs Case. Another reason that this trial must end now.
A federal judge has allowed a Trump co-defendant in the classified documents case to file a redacted FBI interview transcript with his motion to dismiss, in a blow for special counsel Jack Smith.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in a paperless order on Wednesday there were “even stronger” reasons to deny Mr. Smith’s “sweeping” request to overcome the public’s “common-law interest in access to these materials.”
Smith is going at this trial as if it’s a case that those charged should have no access to any witness or information that has been gathered against the defendants and how that information was gathered or received.
I guess the affirmative action queen thought that Trump wouldn’t have the bail so she had her sights on the Presidential suite. Well now that it’s gone, she’s not giving up. You believe this?
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a notice on Thursday seeking more information about former President Donald Trump’s bond for the civil fraud case, which was issued by Knight Specialty Insurance Company.
KSIC is not admitted in New York, and James “takes exception to the sufficiency of the surety to the undertaking” given to Trump without a certificate of qualification being issued to the company, James said in the filing.
Judge Ana Reyes delivered a memorable tongue-lashing to both sides in a hearing Friday over subpoenas to Justice Department lawyers who worked on the Hunter Biden tax probe. | Senate Judiciary Committee
Winning. Biden-appointed judge torches DOJ for blowing off Hunter Biden-related subpoenas from House GOP.
A federal judge tore into the Justice Department on Friday for blowing off Hunter Biden-related subpoenas issued in the impeachment probe of his father, President Joe Biden, pointing out that a former aide to Donald Trump is sitting in prison for similar defiance of Congress.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee on the federal District Court in Washington, spent nearly an hour accusing Justice Department attorneys of rank hypocrisy for instructing two other lawyers in the DOJ Tax Division not to comply with the House subpoenas.
“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And you don’t have to show up?”
“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up,” but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. “You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.”
It was a remarkable, frenetic thrashing in what was expected to be a relatively routine, introductory status conference after the House Judiciary Committee sued last month to enforce its subpoena of DOJ attorneys Mark Daly and Jack Morgan over their involvement in the investigation of Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.
Republicans are demanding the two attorneys testify and say it’s crucial for their ongoing impeachment probe of the elder Biden. But the Justice Department argues that subpoenaing two rank-and-file, or “line,” attorneys to seek details about an ongoing investigation would be a violation of the separation of powers.
Reyes has been on the bench for just over a year. Rarely seeming to stop to catch her breath, she repeatedly dressed down DOJ attorney James Gilligan as he sought to explain the department’s position, scolding him at times for interrupting her before continuing a torrid tongue-lashing that DOJ rarely receives from the bench.
She delved into great detail about the nuances of House procedure — like the chamber’s rule against allowing executive branch lawyers to attend depositions — and even asked whether the Judiciary Committee had followed internal rules requiring that the ranking Democrat on the panel be notified of the subpoena to the DOJ attorneys before it was issued.
Yet, perhaps even more remarkably, Reyes seemed inclined to support DOJ’s central argument that the line attorneys cannot be compelled to answer substantive questions from Congress.
They just need to show up and assert privileges on a question-by-question basis, she said — the type of thing, she said, that DOJ demands from others “seven days a week … and twice on Sunday.”
Indeed, while Reyes was withering in her attacks on the DOJ’s position, she was similarly unflinching in her criticism of the House for its stance in the dispute — particularly its claim that line lawyers working on the Hunter Biden tax probe are not entitled to attorney-client privilege.
She also said she thought it absurd for the House to argue that privilege was waived because it was obscuring some crime or fraud within the executive branch.
“I don’t think you’re going to win that fight,” the judge told House Counsel Matthew Berry, saying at one point that she “can’t imagine” ruling for the House on that issue.
At bottom, Reyes said she viewed it as unlikely that the two DOJ attorneys would ultimately be required to answer anything of substance from Congress, but that the department’s effort to prevent them from showing up at all was a brazen affront.
“I imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense attorneys … who would be happy to hear that DOJ’s position is, if you don’t agree with a subpoena, if you believe it’s unconstitutional or unlawful, you can unilaterally not show up,” the judge said.
Gilligan suggested that the employees subpoenaed in the dispute at issue are current employees, while Navarro and another Trump adviser who was convicted of similar charges, Steve Bannon, were no longer on the government’s payroll when their testimony was demanded.
The judge didn’t seem impressed with that distinction and downplayed the significance of a Trump-era Office of Legal Counsel opinion contending that executive branch employees could defy such subpoenas if Justice Department lawyers were not allowed to be present. “Last time I checked, the Office of Legal Counsel was not the court,” she said.
Reyes also sounded stunned when Gilligan refused to commit to instructing the two subpoenaed lawyers to show up if the House dropped its objection to allowing government counsel to sit in the room. “It would be a different situation,” Gilligan said. “I cannot answer that now. ”Are you kidding me?” the judge responded.
Reyes ultimately ordered the Justice Department to send lawyers to the Capitol next week to confer with Berry and attempt to hammer out a workable agreement. And she said that if the two sides did not work out a deal, she planned to require them to estimate the total cost to the taxpayers of continuing the legal fight, which past precedent suggests could drag out for years.
“I don’t think the taxpayers want to fund a grudge match between the executive and the legislative,” she said. “Bad cases make bad law. … This is a bad, bad case for both of you.”
