It doesn’t sound as though the case was going very well for the government so far. – Judge William Fletcher
It’s getting harder to tell the preachers from the cops:
A former [pastor and] teacher at a [Pennsylvania] evangelical school was convicted [on August 31st] of sexually assaulting a first grader there in 2007. Randy Lee Boston…denied the allegations, [claim]ing…that he had barely any interaction with the alleged victim while he was enrolled at the school. But in an interview with police, a recording of which was played in court, Boston admitted to having sexual desires “connected to young boys” and being attracted to their bodies…
Wells Fargo has repeatedly shown itself to be among the worst perpetrators of this abuse:
Sex workers…are reporting that the bank Wells Fargo has sent them notices terminating their accounts effective immediately, in what they see as an extension of the crackdown measures banks and other large institutions have been implementing over the past few years. In the letters, which are dated August 25…Wells Fargo offers zero explanation for the decision…Alana Evans, the president of the Adult Performance Artists’ Guild (APAG), says that she has been a client with Wells Fargo in good standing for nearly 30 years…Spike Irons and Sofie Marie, who run…a porn production company…primarily use[d] the[ir now-closed] account to pay out independent contractors…They have since applied to two other banks and been rejected…Former adult performer Raylene has been out of the industry for a decade, and says she’s had her Wells Fargo account for 22 years. She, too, received the same notice…despite the only adult industry-related payment on her account being residuals from a lifetime contract with Streammate…In 2014, JP Morgan Chase closed down many adult performers’ accounts without providing any explanation…
Legalese for “get out of my courtroom, you opportunist”:
A federal judge…dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who, as a baby, had graced the cover of Nirvana’s seminal album, Nevermind, and argued 30 years later that the iconic photo of him drifting naked in a pool had been a form of sexual exploitation…Spencer Elden…[even] accused Nirvana…of engaging in child pornography…The judge, Fernando M. Olguin, wrote in his eight-page ruling that because Mr. Elden had learned about the album cover more than 10 years ago, he had waited too long to file his lawsuit, making his claims untimely…
The government’s evil clown show continues in a new ring:
Oral arguments in the Lacey/Larkin appeal took place Sept. 2 before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, where the defense presented a forceful case that the government didn’t deserve a retrial…[one] issue was the testimony of California cop Brian Fichtner during last year’s…mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct…the government…repeatedly mentioned or elicited testimony related to sex trafficking or child sex trafficking, though Lacey, Larkin, et al. are not charged with such…[prosecution witness] Fichtner, who investigated Backpage previously for then-Cali AG Kamala Harris’ failed 2016 prosecution of Lacey and Larkin, was…eviscerated on cross-examination by the defense and forced to admit that the content of the ads on Backpage was legal and on its own did not give law enforcement probable cause to arrest anyone for prostitution…this point…is important because the appellate court must find that the government had a reason to sabotage its own case for the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on double jeopardy to kick in…the prosecution faced certain defeat, and so chose to throw the case, and retool its strategy for a retrial…
A Woman’s Point of View (#1201)
Another Vermont city achieves de facto decriminalization:
Montpelier has become the second city in Vermont to repeal its antiquated prostitution ordinance in the past year…most municipalities in Vermont do not have ordinances banning prostitution [so]…repealing the language…bring[s] Montpelier in line with the rest of the state. Though bills proposing to decriminalize prostitution were introduced during the past two legislative sessions, they did not advance and prostitution remains criminalized at the state level…
How long will America ignore the costs of its sick worship of state-sanctioned violence?
California…[cops murder]ed nearly 1,000 people in six years…[despite] recent legislative attempts to curtail police violence by toughening the rules of engagement for officers, requiring deescalation training and bringing in outside investigators when unarmed civilians are killed [but not actually holding the murderers responsible as ifthey were non-cops]…For the sixth straight year, Los Angeles County was the setting for the largest number (172) and highest rate (27.4 incidents per 100,000 residents) of [police violence too serious to ignore] in the state last year…
Modern fascism has spun a terrifyingly-extensive surveillance net:
[Cop shop]s from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, [usually] without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time…[cops] have used “Fog Reveal” to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among [pigs] as “patterns of life”…The tool is rarely, if ever, mentioned in court records, something that defense attorneys say makes it harder for them to properly defend their clients in cases in which the technology was used. The company was developed by two former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security officials under former President George W. Bush. It relies on advertising identification numbers…culled from popular cellphone apps such as Waze, Starbucks and hundreds of others that target ads based on a person’s movements and interests…that information is then sold to companies like Fog…
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