Friday, June 28, 2013

Texas teen makes violent joke during video game, is jailed for months

from dailycaller.com

8:02 PM 06/27/2013

Robby Soave

Reporter, The Daily Caller News Foundation

A Texas teenager who has been in jail since March faces an eight-year prison sentence because of a threatening joke he made while playing an online video game.

In February, Justin Carter was playing “League of Legends” — an online, multiplayer fantasy game — when another player wrote a comment calling him insane. Carter’s response, which he now deeply regrets, was intended as joke.

“He replied ‘Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,’ and the next two lines were lol and jk,” said Jack Carter, Justin’s father, in a statement to a local news channel.

The statements “lol” and “jk” — meaning “laughing out loud” and “just kidding” — indicate that Justin’s statement was entirely sarcastic, said his father.

But a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter’s Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police. Carter was arrested one month later, and has been in jail ever since. He recently celebrated his 19th birthday behind bars.

Authorities charged him with making a terrorist threat. If convicted, he will face eight years in prison.

“These people are serious. They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made,” said the elder Carter.

Authorities noted that recent school shootings like the one in Newtown, Connecticut have caused them to evaluate all potential threats seriously. Newtown was still fresh in their minds at the time of Carter’s arrest.

“In light of recent situations, statements such as the one Justin made are taken seriously,” said an Austin police detective in a statement.

Carter’s father said his son didn’t follow the news at all.

“Justin was the kind of kid who didn’t read the newspaper,” said Jack Carter. “He didn’t watch television. He wasn’t aware of current events. These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications. They don’t understand.”

Carter’s parents have launched a change.org petition to convince Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot to release their son.

“Release Justin Carter from jail,” the petition reads. “Too many teenagers are being arrested, jailed and having their lives forever altered because of anti-terrorism laws and investigations that impede their 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech.”

A hearing to review Carter’s case is scheduled for July 1.

Follow Robby on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags: Zero Tolerance

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Teacher fired just because she was a stripper gets $45,000 settlement

from dailycaller

Education

Teacher fired just because she

A western Michigan school district will shell out $45,000 to a former English teacher who had been fired after school officials learned that she had worked as a local stripper during a 2006 medical leave of absence.

West Ottawa Public Schools has agreed to pay the teacher, Susan Brennan, $37,000, reports WOOD-TV. Her attorney will get the remaining $8,000.

The Grand Rapids NBC affiliate obtained the dollar amounts and other information concerning the May settlement by filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

Ads by Google

Brennan had reached an arrangement with school officials to avoid retaliation for her brief fling in the live adult-entertainment industry.

However, in a lawsuit filed in 2012, Brennan alleged that school officials started giving her negative reviews despite that agreement.

Brennan was fired in 2010 according to The Holland Sentinel. The West Ottawa school district charged her with nearly a dozen infractions including dishonest grading and failure to use appropriate grading processes and lesson plans.

The teacher and ex-stripper created a webpage to respond to the district’s charges.

“Please consider my responses to these charges carefully before you vote to end the career of a dedicated, sincere teacher,” Brennan wrote on her webpage. “I moved to the West Ottawa district three years ago, my three children go to school here, I bought a house here — I have invested everything I have in my life here.”

Ads by Google

“I take full responsibility for my actions regarding this matter. It was the single most disastrous, most humiliating, and most damaging mistake of my life,” she also wrote.

Brennan had plied her stripping talents at a Grand Rapids club called Sensations, according to MLive.com. Her stage name was “Adia.” She wore a wig.

Tom Martin, the school district superintendent, said the settlement was financially prudent.

“What we did do was we settled to avoid an expensive, lengthy trial and bring closure to something that had been going on for a long, long time,” he told The Sentinel. “If we didn’t settle, then we would go through a trial that would be very costly.”

Follow Eric on Twitter and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.

Friday, June 21, 2013

WORST SUPREME COURT ARBITRATION DECISION EVER

from publicjustice.net

JUN20

WORST SUPREME COURT ARBITRATION DECISION EVER

Leave a comment

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney

So, today, in American Express v. Italian Colors, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a take-it-or-leave-it arbitration clause could be used to prevent small businesses from actually pursuing their claims for abuse of monopoly power under the antitrust laws. Essentially, the Court said today that their favorite statute in the entire code is the Federal Arbitration Act, and it can be used to wipe away nearly any other statute.

As Justice Kagan said in a bang-on, accurate and clear-sighted dissent, this is a "BETRAYAL" (strong word, eh?) of the Court's prior arbitration decisions. You see, until now, the Supreme Court has said that courts should only enforce arbitration clauses where a party could "effectively vindicate its statutory rights." Today, in a sleight of hand, the five conservative justices said that this means that arbitration clauses should be enforced even when they make it impossible for parties to actually vindicate their statutory rights, so long as they have a theoretical "right" to pursue that remedy.

The plaintiffs in this case, restaurants and other small merchants, claim that American Express uses its monopoly power over its charge card to force them to accept American Express's credit cards and pay higher rates than they would for other credit cards. This is called a "tying arrangement" under the antitrust laws -- American Express is alleged to be using its monopoly power over one product to jack up the price of another product to higher rates than it could charge in a competitive market.

For plaintiffs to prove this kind of case, they have to come up with hard evidence -- economic proof -- that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. And each individual merchant has only lost, and thus can only hope to recover, a small fraction of that amount. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recognized that if American Express's arbitration clause (and particularly its ban onclass actions) was enforced, that would mean that none of the small business plaintiffs could enforce their rights under the antitrust laws. And under a long line of Supreme Court cases, arbitration clauses are only enforceable when they permit the parties to effectively vindicate their statutory rights.

Today's decision turns that rule on its head. According to Justice Scalia's majority opinion, even if an arbitration clause would mean that no individual would ever actually be able to pursue an antitrust claim on an individual basis, the arbitration clause still has to be enforced. The law has changed dramatically -- parties no longer have a right to "effectively" vindicate their statutory rights; they are left with the meaningless but formal right to pursue economically irrational claims if they choose to do so.

The decision is catastrophic for the antitrust laws, as well as for civil rights, consumer rights, and many other statutory rights. The decision is an unmitigated disaster, replacing adhesive contracts for an idea of actual law. The drafters of the FAA would not recognize what it has turned into.

Justice Kagan went on to state: "As a result, Amex's contract will succeed in depriving Italian Colors of any effective opportunity to challenge monopolistic conduct allegedly in violation of the Sherman Act. … In the hands of today's majority, arbitration threatens to become … a mechanism easily made to block the vindication of meritorious federal claims and insulate wrongdoers from liability." Justice Kagan gets this one completely right. The entire point of the majority opinion is to use arbitration to insulate companies from any possibility of class action liability.

We used to have something called "The Federal Arbitration Act." The Court today might as well have amended its real title to "The Federal Corporate Immunity Act."

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Man convicted of fraud wins appeal in 9th circuit

from sfgate

Updated 1:04 pm, Wednesday, June 19, 2013

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The conviction of a former Alaska prosecutor on wire fraud charges is no longer valid, a federal appeals court has determined.

A 2010 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the definition of the kind of wire fraud to which Avery pleaded guilty in 2007, according to an opinion issued Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court said the type of "crime" formerSecurity Aviation owner Mark Avery admitted is no longer a crime. Avery is a former Anchorage prosecutor.

Avery, now 54, had pleaded guilty to stealing $52 million from a wealthy widow's trust fund, which Avery oversaw as a trustee, the Anchorage Daily News (http://is.gd/CPyXZT) reported. According to prosecutors, Avery was able to buy fighter jets, vintage warplanes, and other luxury items and property for himself by siphoning money from the fund and obtaining loans.

Avery and an associate were acquitted by a jury on separate federal weapons charges that they possessed rocket launchers.

After Avery pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud and 10 counts of money laundering, he was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison. He has been serving his term at La Tuna, a federal prison in Anthony, Texas.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle French said prosecutors are weighing their options.

According to the opinion issued Tuesday, the Supreme Court tightened the type of fraud — called honest services fraud — to which Avery pleaded guilty. Avery failed in his duty as trustee to properly manage the fund, but the Supreme Court decision said only honest services fraud that involved bribery or kickbacks was illegal, according to the 9th Circuit opinion.

In a 2011 appeal, Avery argued that he had pleaded guilty to wire fraud under the honest services theory, something that is no longer a crime. The circuit judges agreed and returned the case to federal court in Alaska for further proceedings.

Avery's conviction was not overturned outright by the opinion. But a California attorney who argued the case before the appellate court said that is the likely outcome.

"I expect that the district court will set aside the conviction, but what happens after that, I don't know," Krista Hart said. "That's up to the government."

Prosecutors might ask the appeals court to revisit the case, with more judges on the panel, French said. Information in the original charges that was excluded in the plea agreement might apply to other wire-fraud theories, he said.

"This is a guy who took millions of dollars, paid off mortgages, then bought a yacht, bought properties, paid off credit card debt," French said. "So this is not a person who the honest services clause squarely applies to. He's more of the traditional fraud person. The honest services aspect came in because of his method of doing it involved being a trustee."

___

Information from: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.adn.com

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Crystal Lake church evicts Boy Scouts over policy allowing gay scouts

from abc

Crystal Lake church evicts Boy Scouts over policy allowing gay scouts

Monday, June 03, 2013

TAGS:

local, ben bradley

Ben Bradley
More: Bio, Facebook, Twitter, News Team

A northwest suburban Boy Scout troop is looking for a new place to meet after a church cut ties because of the organization's new gay policy.

"There was nothing you all could have or should have done, other than being good scouts," said Charlie Payseur, Boy Scout Troop 550 scoutmaster.
A Boy Scout troop is homeless tonight and meeting in a nature preserve after a church essentially evicted them.
"I think they really should have given us a heads up warning so we could have found a charter instead of sitting at a picnic table," said Robby Barton, Boy Scout.
"Watch out! I'm the first and I doubt I'm going to be the last," said Payseur.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church has been this troop's home since it was formed five years ago. Two days ago, the scouts received this letter in which the pastor writes: "As a former Boy Scout, I know how uncomfortable it would have been to have to be in close proximity with boys that would perhaps be looking at me as more than just a friend."
"It's very hard for them to understand. They don't understand what a homosexual is let alone what the whole controversy is. My wife and I had to have a very tough conversation with them last night," said Bob Barton, assistant Scoutmaster.
The Boy Scouts of America changed its policy last month to allowing openly-gay scouts, but not scout leaders.
Tonight a Boy Scouts spokesman tells ABC7: "We are unaware of any [church] that believes a youth member simply stating he or she is attracted to the same sex, but not engaging in sexual activity, should make him or her unwelcome in their congregation."
These kids, some as young as 11, say they are more focused on scouting than sexuality.
"We'll find a better place. A place that's more welcoming to us," said Sam Payseur, Eagle Scout.