Body-Armor For Felons?: San Francisco Gate writer Bob Egelko reports on the California Attorney General's appeal to at the California Supreme Court to examine a ruling throwing out a state law that bans anyone who has been convicted of a violent felony from owning body-armor. The law, passed in 1998, was intended to protect police against flak-jacketed criminals. The law makes it a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison, for felons with violent offenses on their record to possess or wear body armor. State regulations define body armor as apparel that provides "ballistic resistance to the penetration of the test ammunition" for certain types of guns, a standard also used to certify armor for police. In December 2009, a state appeals court in Los Angeles ruled that the law was unconstitutional because its terms were so vague that the average person wouldn't know when he or she was violating it. "Allowing criminals and gang members to arm themselves with body armor makes no sense, and I'm confident the [California] Supreme Court will reverse this wrong-headed decision," Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday. No hearing date has been set for the case.
White Supremacist Blogger Receives Second Mistrial: New York Law Journal writer Mark Fass reports on the second mistrial of blogger Harold "Hal" Turner, the New Jersey white supremacist charged with threatening to kill three Chicago federal judges. Turner was arrested last June after posting blog entries stating that the three federal judges "deserve to be killed" for their decision upholding handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. At the end of their deliberations Wednesday, the jurors sent a note to the judge stating that another day of deliberations would be useless. This was the third time they had stated that they believed a unanimous verdict was impossible. The mistrial constitutes a serious defeat for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which prosecuted the case. Following the first mistrial in January, in which the threatened judges, Judges Richard Posner, William Bauer and Frank Easterbrook, did not appear as witnesses, a juror told the reporters the jury deadlocked due to a lack of testimony. This time, all three judges flew to New York and took the witness stand. Out Blog Scan reported on Judge Easterbrook's testimony and can be found here. After this second mistrial, an attorney for Turner called the case a "victory." Another article on the story by the Associated Press can be found here.
White Supremacist Blogger Receives Second Mistrial: New York Law Journal writer Mark Fass reports on the second mistrial of blogger Harold "Hal" Turner, the New Jersey white supremacist charged with threatening to kill three Chicago federal judges. Turner was arrested last June after posting blog entries stating that the three federal judges "deserve to be killed" for their decision upholding handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. At the end of their deliberations Wednesday, the jurors sent a note to the judge stating that another day of deliberations would be useless. This was the third time they had stated that they believed a unanimous verdict was impossible. The mistrial constitutes a serious defeat for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which prosecuted the case. Following the first mistrial in January, in which the threatened judges, Judges Richard Posner, William Bauer and Frank Easterbrook, did not appear as witnesses, a juror told the reporters the jury deadlocked due to a lack of testimony. This time, all three judges flew to New York and took the witness stand. Out Blog Scan reported on Judge Easterbrook's testimony and can be found here. After this second mistrial, an attorney for Turner called the case a "victory." Another article on the story by the Associated Press can be found here.
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