Legal Random, Random

[ashkor87]

Mueller, She Wrote
@MuellerSheWrote
·
1m
BREAKING: My preliminary reading is that the Colorado court found that Trump DID incite the insurrection, but that the president as an officer of the United States under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, so he will be on the ballot.

The Colorado Supreme Court has reversed that... said it is obvious that the President is indeed a federal officer.

[ponchi101]

Can they collect? Does he have that kind of money?
Serious question.

[ti-amie]

Apparently filing bankruptcy to avoid paying a judgment like this is a waste of time. Alex Jones tried it and he's now trying to negotiate his way to a (slightly) reduced payment.

Because defamation is an "intentional tort" — meaning Giuliani broke civil laws on purpose — he can't jettison the $148 million judgment through the bankruptcy process, according to Eric Snyder, the chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander LLP.

"If you owe somebody money and you get a judgment, you can get rid of that in the bankruptcy," Snyder told Business Insider. "But if the judgment comes from certain things — like fraud, breach of your duties, intentional torts — then you can't get rid of them."

https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-gi ... 11-2023-12

[Owendonovan]

By all legal definitions, I am a full time employee by the amount of hours I work, 35+ ,but am designated part time via my title as an assistant. I receive no full time benefits that those considered full time do. I receive absolutely no benefits. (though I have had some fun throwing labor law at the HR person to educate her) I want to present my accurate employment status to them (probably gonna be a problem for them), but frankly I don't want the benefits offered, my healthcare is top notch through my husband. Does anyone know if I can take the cash equivalent instead of those benefits?

[mmmm8]

By all legal definitions, I am a full time employee by the amount of hours I work, 35+ ,but am designated part time via my title as an assistant. I receive no full time benefits that those considered full time do. I receive absolutely no benefits. (though I have had some fun throwing labor law at the HR person to educate her) I want to present my accurate employment status to them (probably gonna be a problem for them), but frankly I don't want the benefits offered, my healthcare is top notch through my husband. Does anyone know if I can take the cash equivalent instead of those benefits?

You may want to speak with a NY labor lawyer, but my haunch from working in benefits (not in NY) is that if you are covered by another health insurance plan, you do not have any legal right to a health benefit. However, you can negotiate a cash allowance if they want to offer it to you - but it's likely just a matter of negotiation not any obligation. You might be entitled to other benefits they offer to full-time employees but those would be minor in a cash equivalency, except potentially for retirement.

Anyway, late response, you may have already found an answer.

[ti-amie]

Zachary Cohen @ZcohenCNN
A “cyber security incident” is causing a disruption withing the Fulton County (Georgia) government.

Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman announced a “widespread system outage” during brief press briefing today.

Fulton DA office among agencies affected, per source.

The FBI in Atlanta told CNN they are aware of the incident and are in contact with Fulton County IT.

“While we cannot comment on any specific incidents, the FBI routinely advises the public & private sectors about cyber threats …”

Some details …

The Fulton County DA’s office has also been impacted by the cyberattack, according to a source with direct knowledge of Fani Willis' office.

The source said Fulton prosecutors lost access to their phones, internet, and the court system website on Monday.

Also...

YancyFaith@YancyFaith
Jacksonville Beach, Florida, too. Hit this morning.

[Owendonovan]

Mother of Michigan Gunman Found Guilty of Manslaughter
Jennifer Crumbley was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student her son killed in Michigan’s deadliest school shooting.
On Count 1 of involuntary manslaughter as to Madisyn Baldwin, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. On Count 2 of involuntary manslaughter in regards to Tate Myre, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. On Count 3 as to involuntary manslaughter regarding Hana St. Juliana, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. And in Count 4 of involuntary manslaughter against Justin Shilling, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
By Jacey Fortin
Feb. 6, 2024
Updated 4:37 p.m. ET
Michigan jurors, after 11 hours of deliberations, found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday for the gun rampage committed by her teenage son, who carried out the state’s deadliest school shooting more than two years ago.

The trial became a lightning rod for issues of parental responsibility, in a time of frequent cases of gun violence carried out by minors. It was the most high-profile example of prosecutors seeking to hold parents responsible for violent crimes committed by their children.

Ms. Crumbley, 45, was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the four students who were shot to death by her son at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. The son, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, used a pistol to kill Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14. Seven other people were injured. The gun was a gift from his parents.

“We all know that this is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done,” Judge Cheryl Matthews of the Oakland County Circuit Court told jurors at the courthouse in Pontiac, Mich., immediately after the verdict was read.

Ms. Crumbley sat mostly still, with downcast eyes, until she was handcuffed and led out of the court. She has been held since December at the Oakland County Jail.

Ms. Crumbley faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison after being convicted of all four counts. Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.

Ethan, who pleaded guilty to 24 charges including first-degree murder, was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He did not testify in his mother’s trial.

Ms. Crumbley’s husband, James Crumbley, 47, will be tried separately in March.

In the last few months, parents whose children carried out gun violence in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect, part of a push by some prosecutors to hold parents accountable when they are suspected of enabling deadly violence by their children.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, right, shakes hands with parents of some of the victims of the Oxford High shootings after Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter.Credit...Pool photo by Mandi Wright

The charges against Ms. Crumbley were more serious, making her trial a significant test case for prosecutors.

The decision to charge the parents with manslaughter was something of a gut judgment, Karen D. McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor, said in an interview shortly after the charges were filed, adding that it even drew pushback from some members of her staff.

But she stressed in her closing argument on Friday that the severity of the charges reflected the depth of Ms. Crumbley’s negligence and the horrific crime that resulted from it.

She said Ms. Crumbley was guilty of “failing to exercise ordinary care when the smallest tragically simple thing could have prevented” a disaster.

Still, the guilty verdict on Tuesday may have ramifications in other trials, according to Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
“We pay attention to spectacular cases,” he said, “and we don’t pay attention to how much they change the law in nonspectacular cases — how many plea bargains, how many people will spend more time in prison because they won’t want to risk a guilty verdict like this.”

Ms. Crumbley’s defense lawyer, Shannon Smith, argued during the trial that parenting could be a messy and unpredictable job, and that no mother could be perfect. “This case is a very dangerous one for parents out there,” she said during her closing arguments on Friday.

Mr. Yankah said that after this verdict, “I think there are going to be a lot of parents out there who think: If I have a troubled kid, and I’m doing my best, at what point is his or her behavior no longer my responsibility?”

At the courtroom in Pontiac, Mich., jurors spent seven days listening to wrenching testimony from nearly two dozen witnesses, including Ms. Crumbley, who testified in her own defense for about three hours last week.

The prosecutors argued that Ms. Crumbley should have noticed her son’s distress and stopped him from committing an act of unspeakable violence. Marc Keast, one of the prosecutors, said that she and her husband “didn’t do any number of tragically small and easy things that would have prevented all of this from happening.”
For the defense, Ms. Smith depicted Ms. Crumbley as a “hypervigilant mother” who was attentive to her son’s needs and could not have foreseen what would happen.

“I am asking that you find Jennifer Crumbley not guilty,” Ms. Smith told the jury on Friday. “Not just for Jennifer Crumbley, but for every mother who’s out there doing the best they can, who could easily be in her shoes.”

During the trial, the prosecutors focused in part on Ethan’s access to a firearm. But jurors also had to wrestle with a more abstract question: whether witness testimony — along with an extensive collection of text messages — could be a reliable window into a troubled teenager’s state of mind or a mother’s relationship with her son.

Jurors were shown messages that Ethan sent to a friend in April 2021, complaining of insomnia, paranoia and hearing voices. The jurors were also shown messages that he sent to his mother in March 2021, in which he suggested that their home was haunted by a demon. Ms. Crumbley, prosecutors pointed out, did not always respond.

But in her testimony, Ms. Crumbley said that Ethan and his parents had joked for years about whether their house was haunted, adding that her son was just “messing around.”

Prosecutors also shared messages exchanged between Ms. Crumbley and her husband, colleagues and friends, which they said suggested that Ms. Crumbley had paid more attention to her two horses, and her extramarital affair, than to her son’s needs.

Ms. Crumbley testified that she had not seen her son as a danger to others. “As a parent, you spend your whole life trying to protect your child from other dangers,” she said. “You never would think you have to protect your child from harming somebody else.”

While Ms. Crumbley accompanied Ethan to a shooting range a few days before the rampage, she testified on Thursday that her husband, who had purchased the gun used in the shooting, was more familiar with firearms and had been responsible for storing the Sig Sauer pistol.

Ms. Crumbley also described a meeting with school officials that took place about two hours before the attack. She and her husband had been called to the high school after Ethan wrote troubling things on a math worksheet, including the phrase “blood everywhere.”
Ms. Crumbley said that after a counselor shared his concerns about Ethan’s mental health, they decided together that her son could stay at school rather than go home alone. They did not search his backpack, which contained the pistol that he would soon turn on his schoolmates.

On Thursday, a detective guided jurors through the pages of Ethan’s journal, which was found at the school after the shooting. The teenager had written about a plan to cause bloodshed, adding drawings of guns and pleas for help regarding his mental health.

“My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist,” Ethan wrote. But Ms. Crumbley said that she had never seen the journal entries, nor heard her son ask for a therapist.

Prosecutors had also suggested that the Crumbleys tried to flee the authorities by leaving their home in Oxford shortly after the shooting. The couple was arrested in Detroit on Dec. 4, 2021. Ms. Smith, the defense lawyer, argued that they feared for their safety in the face of relentless threats, and Ms. Crumbley testified that she had planned to turn herself in.

Cold comfort in this verdict, the murdered are still murdered and a boy will spend the rest of his life in jail. Hopefully "bad parenting" will continue to be exposed in ways like this. Just because people want children, doesn't mean they should.

[ti-amie]

On Thursday, a detective guided jurors through the pages of Ethan’s journal, which was found at the school after the shooting. The teenager had written about a plan to cause bloodshed, adding drawings of guns and pleas for help regarding his mental health.

“My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist,” Ethan wrote. But Ms. Crumbley said that she had never seen the journal entries, nor heard her son ask for a therapist.

Prosecutors had also suggested that the Crumbleys tried to flee the authorities by leaving their home in Oxford shortly after the shooting. The couple was arrested in Detroit on Dec. 4, 2021. Ms. Smith, the defense lawyer, argued that they feared for their safety in the face of relentless threats, and Ms. Crumbley testified that she had planned to turn herself in.

The bolded part is what makes me say this is the right verdict. They were in Detroit because they were headed to Canada.

That said this can have a huge effect on cases like this going forward. Let's see if there's an appeal.

[ponchi101]

Your son just shot 4 people to death.
I wonder in what state of mind that would put you.

Side track:
Now, regardless of how well you try to raise your kids, you can still be tried for stuff they do. Imagine how the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer would feel. One more reason not to have any.

[skatingfan]

Side track:
Now, regardless of how well you try to raise your kids, you can still be tried for stuff they do. Imagine how the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer would feel. One more reason not to have any.

I don't think parents are going to be charged in situations where they didn't have a direct role, and or negligence, that leads to a criminal act. That's the way the laws are supposed to work.

[ti-amie]

What a poorly written lede.

To collect $1.5B from Alex Jones, Sandy Hook families vote to liquidate assets
BRANDI BUCHMAN Feb 22nd, 2024, 10:17 am

In order to collect on the $1.5 billion in defamation judgments they won against Alex Jones, the families of the victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut have voted to liquidate the far-right conspiracy theorist’s assets.

The unanimous decision was filed on the docket at the federal bankruptcy court in Texas where the Infowars host’s empire — which also includes the company Free Speech Systems — is being picked over more than a year after he first filed a petition for personal bankruptcy protection. He filed for bankruptcy for Free Speech Systems while he was on trial in July 2023. Ultimately, he was held liable for his defamatory comments about the 2012 mass shooting in Newton, including repeatedly calling the tragedy a “giant hoax.”

In fact, the massacre left 26 people dead and two injured. Twenty children who attended the primary school and six adults were killed.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Jones is not able to cast off the staggering award ordered by Judge Christopher Lopez because his conduct was formally considered “willful and malicious,” and under bankruptcy laws in the United States, when an individual debtor causes such an injury of intentional emotional distress, there is no relief.

As part of the liquidation process, items like real estate, cars, cash and more are expected to be sold off. According to Bloomberg Law, there will be a hearing next month where a detailed plan for the liquidation will be sorted out.

Jones had initially proposed that his assets be broken apart differently, offering to pay down his debt over a decade. The offer was to pay no less than $5.5 million during that time with proceeds coming out of his personal income, the sale of his assets and profits drawn off First Speech Systems. That was rejected.

An attorney for Jones and the families did not immediately respond to request for comment.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/to ... te-assets/

[ponchi101]

On the one hand, of course he has to pay.
On the other: does he really have $1.5B in assets? I mean, some of these settlements, at times, seem absurd. It would be as if somebody were to sue me, win, and get a settlement of $10 Million. I simply don't have it.
Am I missing something?

[ti-amie]

In my opinion he has it. It's hidden overseas and/or is probably non liquid. Selling off his assets is their only recourse.

[ti-amie]

Joyce Alene
@JoyceWhiteVance

Last night we learned DOJ re-arrested Smirnov after his release. Now we know why. A California judge seems to be suggesting his lawyers are complicit in his efforts to flee, in a remarkable line ordering detention for the FBI source whose lies propelled Biden impeachment efforts.

[ti-amie]

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1

BREAKING: A New York jury has held the NRA liable for financial mismanagement and found that the group's former CEO, Wayne LaPierre, corruptly ran organization.

Jurors ordered LaPierre to pay $4,351,231 in restitution.

The verdict is a win for New York AG Letitia James.