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Re: ~ Affirmative action ban heads for ballot ~ « Result #1 on Dec 21, 2009, 2:24pm »
White Connecticut firefighters seek back pay, damages-- December 21, 2009
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A group of white New Haven firefighters who won a discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court are seeking back pay, damages and legal fees.
The high court ruled in June that New Haven officials violated white firefighters' civil rights when they threw out 2003 test results in which too few minorities did well. Fourteen firefighters who sued were promoted this month to lieutenant and captain.
Karen Torre, the firefighters' attorney, filed papers last week in U.S. District Court in New Haven arguing the firefighters are entitled to back pay with interest for long-overdue promotions, several categories of damages and attorney fees.
The firefighters were subject to "the humiliation and economic hardship of prolonged career stagnancy in a rancorous atmosphere fostered by raw racial divides," she said.
Damages will be established at trial, she said.
City officials said the Supreme Court ruling is limited to relief for 14 plaintiffs who would have been promoted if the 2003 tests had been certified.
Other firefighters who sued and were not promoted reserve their right to challenge the city's position that they were not entitled to promotions but are to damages, Torre said.
Bernard Jacques, an employment attorney in Hartford, said the claims could wind up costing New Haven $1 million or more. Cities typically have insurance to cover such losses, he said.
"It's going to be tough on the city," Jacques said. "Even a settlement is going to be a large number."
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Re: ~ Justin Heyne Triple Murder Trial ~ « Result #2 on Dec 19, 2009, 3:40am »
Corrections Offender Network Inmate Population Information Detail
(This information was current as of 12/18/2009)
DC Number: X23653 Name: HEYNE, JUSTIN C Race: WHITE Sex: MALE Hair Color: BLONDE OR STRAWBERRY Eye Color: BLUE Height: 5'11'' Weight: 231 lbs. Birth Date: 06/26/1981 Initial Receipt Date: 12/18/2009 Current Facility: FLORIDA STATE PRISON http://www.dc.state.fl.us/facilities/region2/205.html Current Custody: MAXIMUM Current Release Date: DEATH SENTENCE
Special Note: See Detainer Section
Mad Dog ScumSucker Heyne
Aliases: JUSTIN HEYNE, JUSTIN CURTIS HEYNE
Scars, Marks, and Tattoos: Type Location Description TATTOO LEFT ARM FLAG CLOVER TATTOO OTHER CROSS BOTH ARM TATTOO RIGHT ARM ANGEL BIBLE BRICK WALL TATTOO RIGHT ARM ROSE SUE TATTOO STOMACH CLOWN SCROLL
Current Prison Sentence History: Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Prison Sentence Length 03/06/2006 1ST DG MUR/PREMED. OR ATT. 12/17/2009 BREVARD 0619237 SENTENCED TO LIFE 03/06/2006 1ST DG MUR/PREMED. OR ATT. 12/17/2009 BREVARD 0619237 SENTENCED TO LIFE 03/06/2006 1ST DG MUR/PREMED. OR ATT. 12/17/2009 BREVARD 0619237 DEATH SENTENCE
Detainers: (Further information may be obtained by contacting the detaining agency) Detainer Date Agency Type Date Canceled 12/18/2009 BREVARD CO JAIL DETAIN
Incarceration History: Date In-Custody ~ Date Out-of-Custody 07/06/2001 - 11/13/2004 12/18/2009 - Currently Incarcerated
Prior Prison History: (Note: Data reflected covers periods of incarceration with the Florida Dept.of Corrections since January of 1983) Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Prison Sentence Length 04/30/1999 ROBB. WPN-NOT DEADLY 06/04/2001 OSCEOLA 9901187 4Y 9M 23D
Condemned Prisoner Heyne was sentenced to: 1 Death Sentence, & 2 Consecutive Life Sentences
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Re: ~ Caylee Anthony's Murder ~ « Result #3 on Dec 18, 2009, 1:40pm »
Slain Fla. girl's mom may still face death penalty-- December 18, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. – A Florida judge has denied a request to take the death penalty off the table for a mother charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter.
Circuit Judge Stan Strickland ruled Friday that prosecutors can ask a jury to consider the death penalty during Casey Anthony's trial next year.
Anthony's attorneys had argued that prosecutors were seeking the death penalty in bad faith.
Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.
Anthony has pleaded not guilty and says a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee. The toddler's remains were found in December 2008, months after she was reported missing.
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Re: ~ Justin Heyne Triple Murder Trial ~ « Result #4 on Dec 17, 2009, 3:34pm »
Judge sentences man to death in triple murder case-- December 17, 2009
TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Brevard County judge has ruled that a man convicted of killing a family will be sentenced to death.
A jury found Justin Heyne guilty in August of the shooting deaths of Sarah Buckowski, Benjamin Hamilton, and their 5-year-old daughter, Ivory, in 2006.
The jury had recommended a death sentence, which the judge issued on Thursday.
Defense lawyers had argued Heyne was defending himself when Hamilton pulled out a gun in a dispute. The lawyers said the girl was accidentally killed when she ran in front of the gun. Heyne was living with them at the time.
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Re: ~ Joseph Smith, (Florida) ~ « Result #5 on Dec 17, 2009, 3:29pm »
Fla. justices affirm child killer's conviction-- December 17, 2009
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court has affirmed the murder conviction and death sentence of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia's killer.
The justices Thursday rejected an appeal from 42-year-old Joseph Smith including his challenge of testimony about DNA evidence.
A security camera behind a Sarasota car wash captured the girl's abduction in 2004.
The 5-0 opinion also upheld Smith's kidnapping and sexual battery convictions.
Smith's lawyer had argued that he should get a new trial because the defense had been denied an opportunity to cross-examine a DNA expert and lab workers about past testing problems.
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Re: ~ Mellowing Out on Sinsemilla ~ « Result #6 on Dec 17, 2009, 3:24pm »
Dude, they're putting pot in more than brownies-- December 17, 2009
DENVER – Any slacker living over his parents' garage can make pot brownies. Gourmet chefs are taking the art of cooking with marijuana to a higher level.
In Denver, a new medical-marijuana shop called Ganja Gourmet serves cannabis-infused specialties such as pizza, hummus and lasagna. Across town in the Mile-High City, a Caribbean restaurant plans to offer classes on how to make multi-course meals with pot in every dish. And in Southern California, a low-budget TV show called "Cannabis Planet" has won fans with a cooking segment showing viewers how to use weed in teriyaki chicken, shrimp capellini and steak sandwiches.
The evolution of pot cooking was perhaps inevitable given the explosion of medical marijuana around the country in recent years. Many health-conscious patients would rather eat the drug than smoke it. And they would prefer to eat something other than sugary treats.
"When I started using marijuana, I was eating a brownie every day. I gained a ton of weight," said Michael DeLao, a former hotel chef who hosts the "Cannabis Planet" cooking segments on Los Angeles' KJLA. "Then I learned how to really cook with marijuana, and once more people learn about all the possibilities, we're going to see a lot more people wanting this in their food."
Ganja Gourmet's menu includes lasagna ("LaGanja"), "Panama Red Pizza" and an olive tapenade called "ganjanade," along with sweets such as cheesecake, muffins and brownies. Employees wear tie-dyed T-shirts that proclaim, "Our food is so great, you need a license to eat it!!!"
All patrons at the Ganja Gourmet must show a medical marijuana card that proves they have a doctor's permission to use pot for some kind of malady. The place opened last week, and so far, 90 percent of its business has been takeout.
The food isn't cheap. A whole pizza sells for $89, and a dozen sweet treats called Almond Horns cost $120.
"The food is really good," said Jamie Hillyer, a 41-year-old medical marijuana patient who paid $12 for a serving of vegetable LaGanja. Hillyer said that he can't taste the weed in the food and that it gives him a "more mellow" buzz than smoking pot.
Chefs are able to use marijuana in cooking because its key ingredient, the mind-altering drug THC, is fat-soluble, meaning it binds with oils or fats.
Marijuana chefs put leaves or buds in a food processor and grind the marijuana into green flour. Then they add the flour to oil or butter, cook it slowly for up to a couple of days while the THC binds to the fat, and strain out the green flakes.
The result is "cannabutter," or butter that makes a diner high. Chefs say 2 teaspoons of cannabutter typically contain the amount of THC in an ounce of weed.
The pot-infused oils and butters have a greenish tint and an earthy taste, but chefs say the flavor can easily be masked with garlic or other herbs and spices.
Denver's 8 Rivers Modern Caribbean restaurant does not serve pot-infused food, but its husband-and-wife owners, Scott Durran and Wanda James, plan to offer cooking-with-marijuana classes starting next month. They also own a medical marijuana dispensary, which they hope will eventually offer take-home soups and roasted chicken.
Marijuana chefs say it takes 20 minutes to two hours for the pot-laced food to produce a high. The biggest problem, they say, is that users often eat too much, thinking the food isn't working. While you can't exactly overdose on marijuana food, people who eat too much may feel more sluggish or disoriented than they would like.
So at Ganja Gourmet, customers are allowed to eat only one menu item every 45 minutes.
(The drug takes so long to start working that there's little chance of a customer developing a case of the munchies and getting hungrier the more he ate.)
Ganja Gourmet owner Scott Horowitz tried to get liability insurance of the sort bars take out to protect themselves against damage caused by intoxicated patrons. But he said he couldn't any insurers selling similar coverage for pot shops.
Ganja Gourmet does offer customers a ride home if they need one. "If someone leaves my place wasted, I'm liable," Horowitz said.
Horowitz's liability worry may be shortlived. Denver's City Council is considering an ordinance banning dispensaries from allowing marijuana to be smoked or eaten on site.
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~ 35 Years Inside All The While Innocent ~ « Result #7 on Dec 17, 2009, 5:44am »
Court hearing could result in inmate's release-- December 17, 2009
BARTOW, Fla. (AP) — A central Florida man who has spent 35 years in prison could walk free after being exonerated by DNA evidence.
Advocates say a Thursday morning court hearing in Bartow could result in James Bain's release. He's been moved from a prison to the Polk County jail for the hearing, and may be freed later Thursday.
Bain was convicted in 1974 of kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field in Lake Wales.
But results of DNA testing received last week showed that semen left in the victim's underwear could not have come from Bain.
The Florida Innocence Project says Bain has spent more time in prison than any of the 245 inmates around the country who previously have been exonerated by DNA evidence.
Source: The Tallahassee Democrat
-------------
Corrections Offender Network Inmate Population Information Detail
(This information was current as of 12/17/2009)
DC Number: 043884 Name: BAIN, JAMES B Race: BLACK Sex: MALE Hair Color: BLACK Eye Color: BROWN Height: 5'04'' Weight: 133 lbs. Birth Date: 08/17/1955 Initial Receipt Date: 11/27/1974 Current Facility: OUT OF DEPT. CUSTODY BY COURT ORDER Current Custody: MEDIUM Current Release Date: SENTENCED TO LIFE
Aliases: JAMES BERNARD BAIN
Current Prison Sentence History: Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Prison Sentence Length 03/04/1974 RAPE - STRONGARM 11/12/1974 POLK 7400546 SENTENCED TO LIFE 03/04/1974 BURGLARY ASSAULT ANY PERSON 11/12/1974 POLK 7400546 15Y 0M 0D 03/04/1974 KIDNAP;COMM.OR FAC.FELONY 11/12/1974 POLK 7400546 15Y 0M 0D
Incarceration History: Date In-Custody ~ Date Out-of-Custody 11/27/1974 - Out of Dept. Custody by Court Order
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Re: ~ Gail Owens, (Tennessee) ~ « Result #8 on Dec 15, 2009, 4:01pm »
Delay Sought In Death Penalty Case Involving Woman-- December 14, 2009
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Attorneys for death row inmate Gaile K. Owens have asked the Tennessee Supreme Court for more time to respond to the state's request to set an execution date for her.
Her attorneys on Monday requested a deadline of Feb. 5.
Last week, the state attorney general asked the court to set an execution date.
Owens was convicted in 1986 in Shelby County for the murder-for-hire of her husband. She was accused of hiring Sidney Porterfield to kill her husband with a tire iron. Porterfield was also sentenced to death and is still on death row.
According to court records, the U.S. Supreme Court last month denied her petition for a rehearing.
Owens is the first woman sentenced to death in Tennessee.
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Re: ~ Teens in gang rape linked to crime by DNA ~ « Result #9 on Dec 15, 2009, 6:55am »
Teen Sentenced to 30 Years in Florida Gang Rape-- Monday, December 14, 2009
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — A teen who pleaded guilty to gang raping a Haitian immigrant and beating her young son has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Seventeen-year-old Avion Lawson pleaded guilty in August and testified against three other suspects in the 2007 attack. The others have all received life in prison.
Lawson, who was sentenced Monday, had faced a maximum 11 life sentences plus 50 years.
Lawson and the three other defendants were all teenagers when police say they barged into a 35-year-old woman's apartment, raped her repeatedly, beat her 12-year-old son and then forced her to perform oral sex on the boy.
The victims were doused in chemicals to clean the crime scene, and police say their attackers discussed setting them on fire before fleeing.
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Re: ~ Mellowing Out on Sinsemilla ~ « Result #10 on Dec 15, 2009, 6:39am »
Group: Pot measure has enough sigs for 2010 ballot-- December 14, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – A group campaigning to put a marijuana legalization measure before California voters said Monday it has enough signatures to qualify for the 2010 ballot.
The measure has far more than the nearly 434,000 signatures needed to make the statewide November 2010 ballot, said Richard Lee, an Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur and the initiative's main backer.
"We'll keep our organizers on the street to keep the momentum going strong, but today we're declaring an overwhelming victory," Lee said.
The proposal would legalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for adults 21 and older. Residents could cultivate marijuana gardens up to 25 square feet. City and county governments would determine whether to permit and tax marijuana sales within their boundaries.
County election officials across the state must still validate and count the signatures before the California Secretary of State places the measure on the ballot. Campaign organizers say they will submit more than 650,000 signatures of registered voters next month.
A Field Poll conducted in April found that 56 percent of California residents supported legalizing and taxing marijuana to help bridge the state budget deficit. Still, pro-legalization advocates are divided over whether the ballot measure is being pushed too soon.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law. But some legal scholars have argued the U.S. government could do little to make California enforce the federal ban if the drug became legal under state law.
Supporters point to provisions in the legalization measure that call for jail time for anyone who sells or gives marijuana to children. It forbids smoking pot in a public place or in front of minors.
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~ Panel to study wrongful FL convictions ~ « Result #11 on Dec 12, 2009, 2:36am »
Fla. panel sought to study wrongful convictions-- December 11, 2009
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Sixty-eight lawyers on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set up a panel to determine why at least 11 innocent people have been wrongfully convicted of crimes including rape and murder in recent years and recommend ways to avoid that happening in the future.
Former Florida State University President Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte filed the petition that includes three former state Supreme Court justices a day after an advocacy group announced DNA testing had cleared James Bain for the rape of a 9-year-old boy near Lake Wales.
Bain spent 35 years in prison -- the longest stretch behind bars of 245 people who've been exonerated by DNA nationally.
"Wrongful conviction harms society in a number of ways," D'Alemberte wrote. "The innocent citizen suffers loss of income, damage to reputation, stress on family members, and exposure to brutal prison conditions."
It also means innocent people are imprisoned at taxpayer expense while "the actual criminal goes free and remains a danger to society," D'Alemberte wrote.
The creation of such a panel was one of several recommendations in an 2006 American Bar Association study of capital punishment in Florida. The Supreme Court in October clarified standard jury instructions for death penalty cases in response to another recommendation in that study, which found widespread confusion among jurors.
Lawyers signing the petition included former Justices Harry Lee Anstead, Arthur England and Gerald Kogan and former American Bar Association President Martha Barnett.
D'Alemberte, also a former American Bar Association president, served on the National Advisory Board of the ABA project. It also examined the death penalty in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
The proposal for a Florida Actual Innocence Commission is patterned after a similar panel in North Carolina, one of several states that have taken similar steps including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
The North Carolina commission has made recommendations dealing with mistaken witness identification, improper collection, labeling and preservation of evidence, false confessions, inadequate defense and errors by police and prosecutors.
"The exonerations in Florida have shown that some of the same problems exist in this state's criminal justice system," D'Alemberte wrote.
Another incentive for avoiding such miscarriages of justice is to save the state from paying compensation to innocent people who have been wrongly convicted.
The Legislature in 2005 passed a claims bill that gave Wilton Dedge $2 million as compensation for 22 years he spent in prison for a Brevard County rape he didn't commit before he was freed in 2004 on the basis of DNA testing.
Since then a law has been passed that automatically provides $50,000 in compensation for every year an innocent person has spent in prison.
The law, though, exempts those who have had prior convictions. That includes Roger Dale Chapman, who was cleared by DNA testing after spending 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction, also in Brevard.
D'Alemberte is representing Chapman in a pending request to the Legislature for a claims bill that would pay him more than $1 million.
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Re: ~ Matt Wrinkles, 11 Dec '09 (IN) ~ « Result #12 on Dec 11, 2009, 1:57pm »
Indiana executes man who killed estranged wife, two relatives-- December 11, 2009
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. -- An Indiana death row inmate who refused to request clemency was executed early today for the 1994 shooting deaths of his estranged wife and two of her relatives, saying he was "not proud of the man I was, but I am no longer that man."
Matthew Eric Wrinkles died from a lethal injection at 12:39 a.m. at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, said Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison.
Authorities said Wrinkles was on methamphetamine when he cut the phone lines, broke into his brother-in-law's Evansville home and killed his wife, her brother and her sister-in-law in July 1994.
Moments before his death, he said: "Let's get it done. Let's lock and load. It's plagiarized, but what the hell."
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Re: ~ Matt Wrinkles, 11 Dec '09 (IN) ~ « Result #13 on Dec 10, 2009, 2:12am »
Murders leave only memories-- Wrinkles ended some lives, altered others December 6, 2009
Watching the Fourth of July fireworks on the Evansville Riverfront was a tradition for the family of Mark "Tony" and Natalie Fulkerson.
Their daughter, Kim Dillman, recalled recently the family of four would spend much of the holiday there.
She, her younger brother and her parents would sit on the Riverfront with a bucket of fried chicken in their laps. With their greasy fingers, they would point out a patchwork of bright colors illuminating the night sky.
"We'd get down there at, like, 2 in the afternoon, and we'd be there all day. We'd sit there, and we'd play, and we'd eat ice cream," Dillman said. "It was just great."
But that tradition ended in July 1994, the last time the family celebrated a holiday together.
Less than three weeks later, Matthew Eric Wrinkles broke into the Fulkerson home. Dressed and painted in camouflage and armed with a .357 Magnum revolver, Wrinkles shot and killed the couple along with his estranged wife, Debra Jean Wrinkles, 31, who was Tony Fulkerson's sister.
Dillman was 9 at the time of the shootings, and her brother, Matthew, was 4. Her mother was 26 and her father was 28 at the time of their deaths.
Wrinkles is scheduled to be executed before dawn on Friday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
For the last 15 years, the survivors and victims' family and friends have attempted to find solace in lasting memories, old photographs or character-defining anecdotes.
"We started living that day," said Mary Winnecke, mother of victim Natalie Fulkerson. Winnecke cared for Kim and Matthew after the murders.
"I mean, we had our pictures up. (Matthew and Kim) had their pictures up. We had our Christmas ornaments up, and they had theirs. We just went ahead and lived our days, even though everything was a challenge."
Just a few short years after the death of his parents, a young Matthew Fulkerson carried the crucifix that was displayed during the funeral on his father's coffin into his kindergarten class.
Each student had one item from or about their parents to show in front of the class.
"He went in front of the class, and he said, 'My name is Matthew, and my mommy and daddy were murdered,'" Winnecke recounted.
He then told the story about the night that changed his life.
"(The teacher) said, 'I couldn't hardly handle it, but Matthew did such a beautiful job,'" Winnecke said.
Maybe it was the perseverance of his father or the strong will of his mother, but nonetheless, there was a piece of his parents in Matthew, Winnecke said.
She describes her daughter and son-in-law as an ordinary couple, people who worked hard to love and provide for their children.
"She was opinionated with her ideas, and yet, he had his ideas. And they just kind of blended together, you might say. Where one led off, the other picked up," she said.
Natalie Fulkerson was a Mater Dei graduate, and she worked as a teller at the North Side Citizens National Bank from February 1990 until she resigned in October 1993. After that, she worked as a secretary at the electrical workers union at 2411 N. Lafayette Ave.
Though Dillman said people tell her that she resembles her mother both in appearance and character, she never knew her parents as anything other than "Mom" or "Dad."
And she couldn't share the milestones of graduating from high school, having her first child or getting married with either of her parents.
"When I was pregnant, I couldn't call my mom on the phone and ask, 'Is this normal?'" she said.
After the death of her grandfather, she visited the attic of the grandparents. Over the years, they had accumulated clothes, scrapbooks and other items from Natalie and Tony Fulkerson.
Dillman flipped through a scrapbook the couple kept in high school. It contained old love notes from one parent to the other.
"There was one little coupon in there that said, 'One free kiss, just for you,'" she said. "It was just full of these cute little sentiments for each other."
At 16, Natalie Fulkerson became pregnant with Dillman. In school, rumors of the teen's pregnancy began circulating throughout the hallways.
It was true, but Fulkerson wasn't the type to put up with being the subject of rumors or to duck out on her future obligation as a mother.
"One day in class, Natalie stood up and said, 'Yes, it's true. I'm pregnant. Now, you all know, and we can get on with our lives,'" Winnecke said.
And after having her daughter, she "never tried to hide her," and it wasn't uncommon for the young mother to bring the young infant to classes or even after-school activities, Winnecke added.
"She was a great mom," Winnecke said. "I thought, if I can be half the mom that she was, then I know that I'm a good mother."
Tony Fulkerson was employed at Smith & Butterfield Office Products and was a 1984 graduate of Central High School. He married Natalie the day she turned 18.
"You can see they look pretty happy there," said Mae McIntire, as she pointed to a picture of the couple that was taken in 1990, four years before their deaths.
The 80-year-old Evansville woman has pictures of all the kids she's raised, including pictures of her daughter, Debra Wrinkles, and son, Tony Fulkerson.
She adopted Tony Fulkerson when he was 2 months old, and she became the legal guardian of Debra Wrinkles when she was 4 years old.
As a mother, she respected her children, and "didn't bother with their lives much." And as they grew older, they visited for holiday dinners, where McIntire would cook favorite dishes for them.
"(Tony)'d always say, 'Well, if you're going to have barbecue, I'll come,'" she said. "And it's funny, but that's one of the memories that I still have."
She also remembers Tony Fulkerson as a "handy" person who could make or work with anything. While working at a construction site, he retrieved scrap wood and built his family kitchen cabinets.
"Before everything happened, he had that house looking really good," she added.
Debra Wrinkles was a 1980 graduate of Central High School, and later managed the bread store at Colonial Bakery. After work, McIntire said it was typical of her to give excess bread to the Evansville Rescue Mission.
"She was a sweet person, and I don't think you can find one person in this town that didn't like Debbie," she said.
Her childhood friend, Ramona Burch, agrees with McIntire. The two were friends since they were 10 years old.
"She was kind-hearted, soft-spoken, and she always had a smile on her face," she said.
Burch still carries a picture of Wrinkles in her wallet. It's her high school senior photo, and she's wearing a pink shirt and sporting a hairstyle reminiscent of Farrah Fawcett at the time.
It's her favorite picture of her friend, and Burch said it's the most accurate of Debra Wrinkles.
"What you see in that picture ... that's the way she was all the time," she said.
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