No Issues with Voter ID

Gee, whodathunk that almost everyone has a picture ID and carries it with them?

Local election officials reported no problems enforcing the new law as people in about 520 of Wisconsin’s 1,850 cities, villages and towns voted on local races. In Dane County, they cast ballots in a judicial primary, while some also winnowed the candidates for two County Board seats and weighed in on a school referendum.

Man Charged for Warning Shot

“Live free or die” my ass.

A New Hampshire man who fired his handgun into the ground to scare an alleged burglar he caught crawling out of a neighbor’s window is now facing a felony charge—and the same potential prison sentence as the man he stopped.

Dennis Fleming, 61, of Farmington, was arrested for reckless conduct after the Saturday incident at his 19th century farmhouse. The single grandfather had returned home to find that his home had been burglarized and spotted Joseph Hebert, 27, climbing out of a window at a neighbor’s home. Fleming said he yelled “Freeze!” before firing his gun into the ground, then held Hebert at gunpoint until police arrived.

“I didn’t think I could handle this guy physically, so I fired into the ground,” Fleming told FoxNews.com. “He stopped. He knew I was serious. I was angry … and I was worried that this guy was going to come after me.”

No one was injured in the incident, but when the police arrived, they made two arrests. Hebert was charged with two counts of burglary and drug possession. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. Fleming, meanwhile, is scheduled to be arraigned March 20 on a charge of reckless conduct, which could potentially land him a sentence similar to the one Hebert faces.

The grandpa shouldn’t have fired his weapon. There’s really no such thing as a “warning shot.” If you shoot, it better be because you are in fear of your (or someone else’s) life and intend to stop the threat. But his actions were certainly not irrational or reckless. They were deliberate and had the positive outcome of capturing a criminal. At the most, the grandpa should get a light slap on the wrist. Ideally, he should get a stear lecture from the cops and a “thank you” for looking out for his neighbors.

Supreme Court to take on Stolen Valor

Interesting case.

The Supreme Court will take up Alvarez’s case Wednesday to decide whether the 1st Amendment protects not just the freedom of speech but a right to lie about military honors.

Congress enacted the Stolen Valor Act in 2006 to make it a crime to falsely claim a military honor. And Alvarez, once he was exposed, was convicted and fined $5,000.

But his “everyone lies” defense won at the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals, which struck down the law on free-speech grounds on a 2-1 vote. It would be “terrifying,” said Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, if the government’s “truth police” could go after people for the “white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse.”

While lying about military honors is a reprehensible act, I think the SCOTUS should uphold the 9th Circuit. Unless someone lies about military honors in order to gain some benefit through fraud, lying is protected speech.

Tubbs Allegedly Colludes With Protesters

Wow. If Chief Tubbs has been colluding with protesters to circumvent the law, he needs to go.

Justice Breyer Robbed

Wow.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by a machete-wielding intruder at his vacation home in the West Indies, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said Monday.

The 73-year-old Breyer, wife Joanna and guests were confronted by the robber around 9 p.m. EST Thursday in the home Breyer owns on the Caribbean island of Nevis, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The intruder took about $1,000 in cash and no one was hurt, Arberg said.

She said the robbery was reported to local authorities, but she did not know if an arrest has been made.

End Preliminary Hearings?

As a general rule, if something is being waived the majority of the time, it probably makes sense to end it.

Preliminary hearings are an early step in the judicial process for felony cases, in which a judge rules whether there is probable cause a crime was committed by the defendant. Judges are required to look at the evidence in a favorable light toward the prosecution, and almost all preliminary hearings are either waived by the defendant or bound over for trial by the judge.

“Preliminary hearings are inefficient and a cost without clear benefit,” Van Hollen said, according to a copy of his remarks provided by his office. “They have outlived their original intent and usefulness.”

[...]

However, defense attorneys aren’t quite on board with Van Hollen’s call for elimination. The Wisconsin State Public Defender’s office filed a written response defending the purpose of preliminary hearings. The letter acknowledged a majority of defendants waive their preliminary hearings, but said when they are held, the outcome often results in a plea offer.

DOJ Catches Up on Concealed Carry Applications

Excellent.

State Justice Department officials say they’ve caught up with the deluge of concealed carry applications and are meeting turn-around deadlines again.

Obligated to Help?

This is an interesting story.

Coleman likely suffered a stroke and fell out of bed, then lay on the floor for two days, getting no help from her sister or nephew, a criminal complaint charged.

The Kings are scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in the case on Thursday before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington.

But Veronica King’s lawyer, Marcus Berghahn, wrote in court papers filed Monday that the two charges against her that are related to Coleman’s death should be dismissed because they are based solely on a failure on Veronica King’s part to prevent Coleman’s death. State law only recognizes a failure to act as the basis for a crime under certain circumstances involving defined special relationships, he wrote.

In 2008, Berghahn wrote, King suffered a stroke that left her unable to care for herself and incompetent to make important decisions. Coleman was appointed as her guardian, a role she still had at the time of her death. As a ward of Coleman, he wrote, King had no legal duty to act on Coleman’s behalf.

Under Wisconsin law, Berghahn wrote, “there is no legal duty that compels the subject of a guardianship to act for the person who is charged with caring for her, even if ward and guardian are sisters. Acting may be a moral or ethical imperative, but all the same, it is not a legal duty.”

Clearly, as a human beings, Veronica King and her son are disgusting and immoral. They should have helped because that’s what decent people do. But as a matter of law, were they obligated to help? Let’s say you’re driving and see someone lying immobile on the side of the road, are you obligated to stop and help? I think the answer is “no” in both cases, even if you should as a decent human being. But the law isn’t generally set up to force people to be decent.

Fitzgerald to Challenge Enough Signatures to Stop Recall

Now we’ll see what the GAB does...

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he plans on challenging enough signatures on recall petitions to stop any election.

Fitzgerald said Tuesday he will also make a number of other challenges, including arguing that newly drawn legislative boundaries should have been in play for the collection of the signatures.

UW-Parkside Threat Was a Hoax

What in the world posseses people to do stuff like this?

SOMERS, Wis.—The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department said some recent racially motivated threats at University of Wisconsin-Parkside were a hoax.

Authorities said one of the students named on a list of “targeted” black students confessed that she created the list and fliers found in a dormitory. The lists and fliers were found after a report of a rubber band noose found in a residence hall.

Authorities said the student created the list and fliers because she was not happy with the initial response from a resident assistant to the noose.

Ruling on GAB Vacated By Appeals Court

Interetsing.

A state Court of Appeals Friday reversed a lower-court order that the Government Accountability Board must seek out duplicate and obviously fictitious recall petition signatures.

The 4th District panel ruled that Waukesha County Circuit Judge Mac Davis should have allowed pro-recall groups to intervene in the lawsuit brought by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign.

“We conclude that the recall committees are entitled to intervene as a matter of right,” the court said, adding later in the decision that “it cannot be seriously disputed that the recall committees have an interest in the procedures that will be used to review their recall petitions and strike names.”

The decision ordered Davis to reconsider all “later rulings that were made without the participation of the intervenors” — including the Jan. 5 ruling that GAB enact additional procedures to ferret out invalid signatures.

Notice that the court didn’t dipute the actual ruling. They merely said that the recall committees should have been allowed to participate. I suspect that we’ll come to the same conclusion even after listening to the recall folks bloviate for a while.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Busted for Taking Bribe

Ouch.

A Milwaukee County Board supervisor was charged Thursday with misconduct in public office and accepting a bribe for allegedly pocketing $500 in exchange for ensuring a vote on a county contract, according to a criminal complaint filed by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

John L. Thomas Jr., 43, was charged with two felony counts as a result of an investigation by Chisholm’s office aided by Patrick Farley, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services. In addition to serving on the Milwaukee County Board, Thomas is a candidate for Milwaukee city comptroller.

Goons Fight Tickets

If they really did try to grab the lady, they should have been charged with assault.

RACINE — All 17 protesters ticketed last month for allegedly picketing outside of a Racine home during a political fundraiser for state Rep. Robin Vos are fighting the local ordinance violations on constitutional grounds, their attorney said Wednesday.

Seventeen protesters, who live in Racine County and other locales in Wisconsin, were cited Jan. 5 with picketing of residences for protesting in a residential area, according to police reports. The group was accused of picketing outside the home of Fred Young in the 3200 block of Michigan Boulevard. A fundraiser was occurring inside for Vos, R-Rochester.

[...]

Young said several party guests told him “they had been accosted by the picketers” outside his residence, police reports stated.

“Some (guests) were elderly and visibly traumatized by the confrontation,” the report stated. That included a 75-year-old Racine County woman, who “was trembling and near tears,” according to the report. “One (protester) kept trying to grab her and force her to have a photograph taken with the group. She said they were mocking her.”

Indiana Now Right-to-Work

Welcome to the 21st Century, Indiana!

Gov. Mitch Daniels signed “right to work” bill this afternoon without ceremony making Indiana the 23rd state in the nation with the law,

And to the union folks in Indiana whining about the change—if the services your union provides are as valuable as you say they are, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Inside Information

This struck me as a little odd. As part of a puff piece about folks behind United Wisconsin, there was this tidbit:

But, sensing a political opportunity fueled by the John Doe criminal investigation…

Bear in mind that they are talking about a meeting they had in September or October of last year - long before the John Doe investigation issued any charges. Given how badly, and illegally, the John Doe investigation leaked, did they have some inside information? Did the DA collude with them on the timing of the charges? Given that the rationale behind the recall is their opposition to Walker’s governance, why would the John Doe investigation matter? Did they adjust their timing because they knew last fall that charges would be issued in January?

Perhaps somebody should look into if the Milwaukee DA was illegally leaking information to recall supporters.