Penny Dean and Your Rights

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — Sacramento police made an arrest in Friday’s shooting at Arden Fair Mall, a shooting that took the lives of brothers 17-year-old Sa’Quan Reed-James and 19-year-old Dewayne James Jr.

They were shot as crowds limited by coronavirus restrictions took advantage of Black Friday sales.

The suspect, 18-year-old Damarion Beck, was on the run through the weekend before being picked up by police.

While law enforcement officers take an oath to serve and protect, they are not bound to do so legally, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

“The law doesn’t require law enforcement officers to protect you from other people,” said Rodney Jacobs, assistant director of the Civil Investigative Panel, a police oversight committee for the city of Miami.

What if government agents could, by declaration, make you into a criminal? What if, without legislative change, bureaucrats could decide that what was legal yesterday is a felony today? What if we were governed not by law, but by arbitrary statements telling us what we may or may not do?

Scientists have unearthed a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America which counters the long-held belief that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered.

“An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” said Randy Haas, lead author of the study from the University of California (UC), Davis in the U.S.

The researchers believe the findings, published in the journal Science Advances, are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labour practices and inequality.

From firearmspolicy.org:

Bill/Issue: S 4841The ATF Improvement and Modernization Act of 2020
Sponsor: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
Position: Opposed
Summary: Gives the ATF more power/money, removes limits on the sharing of firearms trace data

Sen. Van Hollen has just introduced a Senate bill that would dramatically beef up the ATF's power. But that's not all because this draconian legislation would also allow for the indefinite retention of NICS data. Check out our analysis below for the disturbing impacts of this bill.

Earlier this year, in a ruling of first impression in Washington State, the Kitsap County District Court decided that the state’s compulsory “firearm surrender” laws violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and the analogous provisions in the state constitution. “In our constitutional system of government, individuals have rights that the government and its agents (including courts) must respect.

Springfield, VA – In an apparent reversal of a longstanding interpretation of the statutory and regulatory definition of “handguns” under the Gun Control Act (GCA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) appears to have determined that certain handguns which fire ammunition that is traditionally used in rifles – or handguns made from receivers that have also been used to produce rifles (including many of the AR or AK variant) – are not eligible for importation.

The agency appears to have determined this by using novel and restrictive standards in a revised importation test, which is arbitrarily used to evaluate whether a weapon meets the statutory “sporting purposes” requirement. Congress has never defined what “sporting purposes” means.

As the extradition hearing for Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange unfolds, it is increasingly clear that the prosecution of Assange fits into a pattern of governments selectively enforcing laws in order to punish those who provoke their ire. As we see in Assange’s case and in many others before this, computer crime laws are especially ripe for this form of politicization.

Robert Earl Lawrence found a dog wandering in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Lawrence picked up the dog and took it to the county animal shelter. The shelter attendant asked Lawrence to complete a form and provide identification. He declined, citing his desire for privacy. When the attendant told him the shelter would not accept the dog without completion of the form, Lawrence said he would just leave the dog at the gate.

Sergeant Woodruff overheard Lawrence and followed him out to the parking lot, noting his license plate. She asked for his driver license once he was seated in the car. Lawrence declined to provide a driver license and they argued for several minutes. Lawrence’s girlfriend recorded the encounter. After further argument, Lawrence gave Sergeant Woodruff his “Affidavit of Identity” that declared him to be “Flesh and blood of living Man.”

Sergeant Woodruff called for backup. She asked Lawrence, “Do you know how foolish you sound?” Sergeant Woodruff made fun of Lawrence’s teeth, saying, “You’re so smart, you got half your teeth in your mouth.” The court, having heard the recording of the encounter, observed that the event was one in which “you can see the bad luck tumbling, as if the devil himself had shaved the dice.” Lawrence got out of the car. (more)

Frances Choy, a 34-year-old woman from Brockton, Massachusetts who was wrongfully convicted and spent 17 years in jail for the death of her parents, has been freed after the recent discovery of racist emails between prosecutors in her case.