Peter Liang, the former NYPD officer who was convicted of killing Akai Gurley in East New York’s Pink Houses, was sentenced today to five years probation and 800 hours of community service for the shooting. A judge reduced Gurley’s charges just before sentencing him, throwing out his manslaughter conviction and replacing it with criminally negligent homicide and official misconduct.
In September, an Alabama judge was recorded giving a mandate to the offenders assembled before him, all of whom owed money for fees stemming from their crimes. They could pay up, they could go to jail, or they could give a pint of their blood.
New York City courts have been quiet in the two and a half weeks since the NYPD essentially stopped arresting people. The New York Times reports that arraignments have dropped 60 and 91 percent for misdemeanor offenses and low-level violations like disorderly conduct over the past two and a half weeks compared with the same period last year. Overall, arraignments in December were down 34 percent compared to last year.
A reader of mine sent me this photo last night. As the murder trial of George Zimmerman wheezes to its conclusion, the TV networks dutifully pipe in live pool video from the courtroom, as if it is force-fed to them and they have no choice but to excrete it, soft and undigested, into our living rooms, bedrooms, offices. Sometimes, the pool recorder or the networks' producers don't switch to a mundane image of lawyers being lawyerly quite fast enough, and we get to see snippets of the human cruelty, stupidity, and frailty that occasion trials such as this.
Yesterday the Hon. Pamela A.M. Campbell, a circuit court judge in Pinellas County, Fla., issued an order compelling Gawker to remove from the internet a video of Hulk Hogan fucking his friend's ex-wife, as well as a 1,400-word narrative of the video written by former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio and 466 user-submitted comments. Here is why we are refusing to comply.
It's a story as old as love: You meet a gorgeous guy online who regales you with stories about his pal Bill Clinton over drinks at the Surrey Hotel. Heady with glee, you accompany this former CEO to the live jazz scene at the Carlyle. Roses, a driver, the whole she-bang. Date number two caps a lovely dinner with the Grammys back at your pad, and yeah, maybe you go back to his amazing apartment and agree to a little barebacking. A couple weeks later, instead of taking Paris together, you're alone with all of the penicillin.
All Alabama wants to do is stop the Mexicans from coming to its state and taking "the jobs nobody wants to do," by forcing visible minorities to carry proof of legal immigration status on them at all times, and also tracking the immigration status of schoolchildren (who are literally stealing education), but will the "liberal extremists" of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals let them? Noooo!
What makes Kimberly Garrity the worst mother in the world, according to her children? Well, when they were growing up she gave them birthday cards with stupid tomatoes on the front, forced them to wear their seat belts, and refused to take them to car shows. This caused them suffering.
Perhaps you've heard of former Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr., an objectively evil person who took bribes to send kids to private prisons. The good news is that he's now going to jail! Sadly, he'll only be there for 28 years.
No one likes to talk about this particular sphere of gridlock in American public life anymore, but let's rehash it for old time's sake: Why can't we try terrorism suspects in U.S. criminal courts instead of Guantanamo military commissions?
Last Fourth of July, carnivorous dock worker Nolan Koewler got a bit more independence than he bargained for when his employer, Dillard's department store, fired him for eating two hot dogs left over from an employee picnic. Then Dillard's tried to deny him unemployment!
