Recent News Articles of Interest to Prosecutors
Please note that these news articles are drawn from independent sources. The NDAA does not verify or endorse any of these articles, and takes no responsibility for their contents.
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SUPREME COURT CALENDAR
Burton v. Stewart, No. 05-9222 (U.S.S.C. January 09, 2007)
Denial of a habeas petition challenging the constitutionality of petitioner's sentence under Apprendi is vacated where petitioner failed to comply with the gate-keeping requirements of 28 U. S. C. section 2244(b) and thus, the district court was deprived of jurisdiction to hear his claims in the first place. Consequently, the court did not answer the question on which it granted certiorari, specifically, whether the decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. 296 (2004), announced a new rule and, if so, whether it applies retroactively on collateral review.
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/us/000/059222.html
US v. Acosta, No. 05-51691 (5th Cir. January 09, 2007)
A conviction for drug-related offenses is affirmed over claimed violations of defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront hostile witnesses.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0551691cr0p.pdf
SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO RULE ON MAN'S 47-YEAR SENTENCE FOR RAPE
After Lonnie Lee Burton was convicted in 1994 of raping a 15-year-old Federal Way boy at gunpoint, a King County judge thought the standard range was not harsh enough and sentenced him to 47 years in prison.
The legal fight has continued ever since.
Finally, it appears Burton's last legal door has slammed closed. After agreeing last summer to hear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tuesday it did not have jurisdiction, effectively ending Burton's efforts to challenge his sentence.
CHILD ABUSE 'GOES ON FOREVER'
A 14-year-old girl whose sex abuse images became the centre of an international child porn investigation wants a former Air Canada flight attendant to "really be punished as much as possible."
Once dubbed the Disney Girl when Toronto Police released altered versions of the photos in an attempt to rescue her, Masha Allen offered a victim impact statement at Andy Kwok's sentencing hearing. Her images were among Kwok's massive collection of 2,358 still photographs and 68 videos featuring children between 2 and 12 years of age.
"I know that these pictures will never end and my 'virtual abuse' will go on forever," Crown Attorney Mary Humphrey said, reading Allen's statement to Justice Anne Molloy. "Usually when someone is raped and abused, the criminal goes to prison and the abuse ends. But since Matthew (Mancuso) put these pictures on the Internet, my abuse is still going on.
"I want every single person who downloads my picture to go to jail and really be punished as much as possible. They are as evil as Matthew. They want to see me suffer. Child pornography is not a victimless crime."
Mancuso, a 47-year-old Pittsburgh divorced man, paid thousands of dollars through a New Jersey agency to adopt the Russian orphan when she was 5 so the little girl could be his sex slave.
Det. Const. Scott Purches of Toronto Police's child exploitation section said Allen was forced to have sex with her adoptive father every day. She was also chained and photographed and videotaped in explicit shots. Mancuso was sentenced in November to up to 70 years in prison.
http://torontosun.com/News/Canada/2007/01/10/pf-3276738.html
(Read her Victim’s Statement at http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/169555 )
'HITMAN' E-MAILS RATTLE RECIPIENTS
When Mick Wolcott was skimming through e-mails on his cell phone the Friday before Christmas, he found a disturbing message.
t said a $50,000 hit had been put out on him. But the sender said he'd be willing to forgo his orders to "terminate" him, if Mr. Wolcott paid $80,000.
Since he was reading the message on his phone, Mr. Wolcott couldn't figure out where it had come from or to which of his e-mail addresses it had been sent. So he rushed from his car dealership in Robinson to his home in McCandless, logged on to his computer there and found that the message had been sent to his personal account.
What Mr. Wolcott and at least a few others in the region have received over the past several weeks is another in a long line of e-mail scams, but none has been quite as dramatic as this approach..
Special Agent Bill Shore, supervisor of the FBI's computer crimes squad in Pittsburgh, said this case looks a lot like "spear phishing," where scammers target a specific group of people.