Law

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that Indianapolis PD will arm their officers now with M-16 rifles that have laid in storage since last year:

Longer-range rifles that the Indianapolis Police Department has had in storage since last year will be in officers’ hands possibly by November, department officials said Thursday.

The announcement follows criticism from IPD officers that they regularly face criminals who have more firepower, although officials say their announcement was not a response to those complaints.

The criticism increased after IPD Patrolman Timothy “Jake” Laird was gunned down Aug. 18 by a Southside man firing an SKS-style assault weapon from more than 150 yards away.

Indianapolis Police Chief Jerry Barker said Thursday that the 218 rifles, known as M-16s, will be given to officers as the weapons are modified and as officers are trained to use them. He said training would occur at a range at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, a military base about 45 minutes south of Indianapolis.

About time….

The Massachusetts Legislature apparantly has a problem reading court decisions. After last year’s Supreme Judicial Court decision stating that gays must have the right to marriage, the legislature has cooked up a few different schemes to “get around” this decision.

Civil Unions appeared to be the easy way out for them. Until they asked the SJC for an advisory opinion. Well, they got one.

“The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal,” four justices wrote in the advisory opinion. “For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain. The (civil unions) bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits.”

Welcome to the world of having to live under the laws that we chose hundreds of years ago. Equality means equality folks.

For all of the moaning, groaning, and complaining that I do about living here from time to time, I’m enormously proud of the SJC for their two decisions in this case.

Pete Rose, has now admitted that he bet on baseball during his time as the manager of the Cincinatti Reds.

I remember Rose’s case well – it was during a brief moment of time in my life where I read Sports Illustrated religiously. His was an interesting case – because of his prominence in the sport tarnished by such a rapid fall.

As Rose discovered, all actions have consequences. His gambling on baseball resulted in his lifetime banishment from the sport. And thus, he’s ineligible to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He’s applied for reinstatement and many have now taken up his cause.

I agree it’s a shame that he won’t be remembered as the Hall of Famer that he could have been – but his actions severely tarnished the reputation of the game, cast into doubt the result of the games in which he managed, and destroyed his own reputation.

He made the decision and now he needs to live with the consequences of that decision.

Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”

– Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 2480 (2003)

Glad to see that this has come to a right and proper conclusion. Congratulations to Bishop Robinson and the Episcopal / Anglican Church.

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 5 %u2014  The Rev. V. Gene Robinson was confirmed Tuesday night as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church after surviving a last-minute investigation of allegations of inappropriate conduct.

Harvard Law School is planning to put more than a million documents from the Nuremberg trials on the Internet, allowing ready access to records of the historic proceedings that probed the war crimes of Hitler’s Third Reich.

More than 6,700 pages of material from one of the trials, known as the ”Medical Case” or the ”Doctors’ Trial,” which involved 23 defendants accused of doing harmful or fatal medical experiments on humans, have already been posted, Martin said. [Boston.com]

The Smoking Gun has named their 2003 Legal Document of the Year already. A hilarious reading of a public defender’s challenge to a criminal charge on behalf of a high school student who used the word “Fuck” numerous times in a confrontation with his principal.

One of the best legal documents I’ve ever read. Hands down!