The late Edgar Maddison Welch (1988-2025) was the poster boy of rightwing vigilantes. On December 4, 2016, Welch (photo, left) barged into the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria (photo below) in Washington, D.C., with an AR-16 and a handgun, and fired several shots. No one was hurt, but incident traumatized e[...]
Archive for the ‘Law and Courts’ Category
January 9th, 2025 - 7:13 pm § in Law and Courts, Misc.
“Pizzagate” vigilante dead after pulling gun in traffic stop
This Supreme Court 5-4 ruling should’ve been 9-0
Kings answer to no one, and nobles answer only to kings. Supposedly egalitarian communist societies have nobility, too, the ruling class. America was supposed to be different. Our founding fathers wanted a classless society, under rule of law, where everyone was treated equally (except slaves, women[...]
January 7th, 2025 - 12:45 am § in Law and Courts, Politics
Rudy Giuliani’s complaint
Rudy Giuliani complains a lot these days. About being forced to cough up assets to pay the black Georgia election workers he falsely accused of election fraud. The questions lawyers ask him in court. Even the courtroom artist’s sketches of him. “You made me look like my dog!” he wh[...]
January 3rd, 2025 - 11:59 pm § in Law and Courts, Politics
Ex-sheriff who harassed black newspaper carrier faces another harassment accusation
Ed Troyer (photo, left), the elected sheriff of Pierce County, Washington whose January 27, 2021, belligerent encounter with a black newspaper carrier (details here) cost the county a $500,000 settlement (see story here), didn’t seek re-election (see story here). His last day in office was Dec[...]
December 29th, 2024 - 5:48 pm § in Law and Courts
No one oversees Washington jails
Washington has no statewide jail standards or oversight. It’s badly needed. Washington has America’s 4th worst jail death rate. Investigative journalists have found crumbling facilities, untrained or no on-site staff, sexual abuse, suicides, poor nutrition, and absence of medical care. T[...]
Racist Trumper stalks and attacks TV reporter
Trump doesn’t hesitate to incite his supporters against minorities and the news media, and that exploded into violence against a Colorado TV reporter on December 13, 2024. Patrick Thomas Egan (photo, left), 39, spotted a reporter in a TV station car, followed him 40 miles to the station, then [...]
December 27th, 2024 - 7:17 pm § in Law and Courts
Guards beat black inmate to death
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) ordered 13 guards and a prison nurse fired for the fatal beating of an inmate (read story here). Robert Brooks, 43, was serving a 12-year sentence for “stabbing his girlfriend multiple times” (see story here). He was being transferred to Marcy Correctional Facili[...]
December 26th, 2024 - 8:18 pm § in Donald Trump, Law and Courts
Trump retaliates (sort of) against former death row inmates
Before leaving office, Biden deprived Trump of whatever grisly enjoyment he might have gotten from presiding over the executions of 37 of the 40 inmates on the Bureau of Prisons death row (see story here). There’s likely a public consensus that he’s welcome to the remaining three: Dzhokh[...]
December 26th, 2024 - 4:26 pm § in Law and Courts
How to keep police from rounding up immigrants
If you’re in the U.S. illegally, you don’t have a right to be here, and the government can deport you. But that’s a federal responsibility, and there’s a strong legal argument (known as the “preemption doctrine”) that states have no authority to enforce immigratio[...]
Should Biden commute all the federal death sentences?
Forty people are on federal death row. Biden is under pressure to commute their sentences (read story here). I’ll skip over the usual anti-death penalty arguments: Botched executions, racial bias, the danger of executing an innocent person, etc. The best argument for leaving no one on federal [...]