Crime Statistics We Would Like to See

Every day government agencies, especially those involved in law enforcement, deluge us with crime statistics intended to impress upon us the view that we are undergoing a crime wave and that more police, prosecutors, and prisons, as well as new and tougher laws, are needed

SWATstika Policing

At 9:35 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006, in Fairfax county, Virginia, a police SWAT team, armed to the teeth, decked out in battle fatigues, helmets, flak vests, and other military accouterments, arrived at the townhouse of Dr. Salvatore J. Culosi, Jr., a 37-year old optometrist. Culosi was a suspected bookie who had been making illegal sports bets from his home, and Fairfax police had obtained a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant to search his residence for gambling paraphernalia. Culosi had no history of violent behavior and his alleged crimes were nondangerous, but the practice in Fairfax county is for the local SWAT team to serve almost all search warrants. The unarmed, unresisting Culosi was in front of his residence when they arrived, weapons drawn in accordance with police protocol. As they began encircling Culosi, one of the officers, apparently accidentally, fired his large .45 cal. Heckler & Koch handgun, striking Culosi in the chest and killing him instantly. Predictably, the fearsome, fascistic trend towards militarizing American police by, among other things, transforming the serving of warrants into paramilitary commando operations, had resulted once again in lethal police violence and the unjustified death of an American citizen

Circumstances Undetermined: Dorothy Kilgallen and JFK\u27s Murder

This article reviews the mysterious circumstances surrounding reporter Dorothy Kilgallen\u27s death and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The Great Writ: No Longer as Dear to the Tories as to the Whigs -- A Critique of Senator Nunn\u27s Habeas Corpus Article

The days of praise for the Great Writ from all political quarters are over. Today the legal literature includes a growing body of articles lashing out at the modern federal habeas corpus remedy for state prisoners authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and advocating statutory changes to make it more difficult to obtain Section 2254 relief. In the vanguard of these articles are those by conservative political figures or law enforcement officials. In 1984 this criticism of the Section 2254 remedy in scholarly journals arguably reached its zenith, in terms of degree of harshness, when the attorney general of Alabama published an article purporting to debunk the Great Writ. I propose to critique one of these articles attacking the Section 2254 remedy. The article I have chosen was written by Georgia\u27s senior U.S. Senator, Sam A. Nunn, and published in this journal in 1983 [5 Woodrow Wilson J.L. 1]. I have chosen Sen. Nunn\u27s article for several reasons. First, I believe it is beautifully representative of the anti-Section 2254 literature. For example, the article contains a brief statement of the historical argument against postconviction habeas corpus relief that has become de rigueur in articles seeking the curtailment of such relief. Second, Sen. Nunn is not only a rising statesman and distinguished political leader; he is also a fellow Georgian and member of the Georgia bar. And it seems important to me that the people of Georgia be fully informed concerning whether, at least in the matter of Section 2254, Sen. Nunn may not have fallen into error for once

A Civil War Lynching in Athens

Recently, while reading E. Merton Coulter\u27s classic history of antebellum Athens, College Life in the Old South (UGA Press, 1983 reprint), I came across a reference on page 247 to an Athens lynching occurring early in the Civil War. Having checked into the matter, I can now announce that, indeed, there definitely was at least one lynching in Athens prior to 1882. This lynching, possibly but not probably the first lynching in Athens, took place on Wednesday, July 16, 1862

A Most Deplorable Paradox : Admitting Illegally Obtained Evidence in Georgia--Past, Present, and Future

This Article explores the admissibility of illegally obtained evidence in Georgia criminal cases prior to 1961 and during the post-Mapp era and endeavors to assess the future admissibility of illegally seized evidence in Georgia under both federal and state law

JFK Assassination 33 Years Later

A third of a century has passed since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and yet no adequate government investigation of the murder has ever been undertaken. The laughable Warren Commission investigation of 1963-64, which found that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed JFK, was hurried and superficial. The more reliable U. S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations investigation of 1977-78, which found that the JFK slaying resulted from a conspiracy of persons whose identities were unknown, was hampered by political bickering, missing documents, fading memories, and unavailable witnesses

Was Milteer in Dallas?

Was Joseph A. Milteer present in or near Dealey Plaza when President Kennedy was shot? If so, this would transform suspicions that he knew in advance of plans to kill the president into suspicions that he might have been a party to the plot. Milteer\u27s proven presence would be a fact of the gravest concern and the most sinister implication

Police Fatally Tase Another Georgian

This article looks at the most recent taser fatality in Georgia

Taser Time: Electroshock Injustice Coming Soon to Athens-Clarke County

On Sunday, Apr. 19, 2015, an article in the daily newspaper in Athens announced that Athens-Clarke County Police have already received a shipment of 145 tasers and will soon begin using them on the citizenry of this county. Although taser electroshock devices are technically classified as nonlethal weapons, this means only that their purpose is to avoid fatalities, not that they are incapable of resulting in fatalities. Use of a nonlethal weapon may and sometimes does result in death or serious injury. In recent years, at least 600 Americans, perhaps as many as 1,000, have died suddenly, unexpectedly, or shortly after being shocked by tasers deployed by police. An even larger number of Americans have gone into cardiac arrest, stopped breathing, been rendered comatose or have been otherwise seriously or permanently injured by police deploying this supposedly nonlethal electrical shock device that inflicts excruciating pain. This article explores the reasons why Athens-Clarke County should not have tasers and calls for strict written rules for the use of tasers in this county