Articles related to news roundup - Page 9 of 12

The anti-government occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge appears to be winding down this week with The Oregonian reporting here that the “ragtag remnants” of the occupying group seem to be surrendering or leaving.  The dissolution of the occupation follows the arrests earlier this week of the group’s leaders and the killing of the group’s de facto spokesman.   In other news:

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Americans across the nation observed the national holiday and celebrated Dr. King’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.  ABC 11 reports here that N.C. State professor Jason Miller launched a website that contains a restored recording of a November 1962 speech that King delivered in Rocky Mount.  The website explains that King first delivered the famous “I have a dream” refrain during the Rocky Mount speech.  The tape recording of the speech was stored for nearly 50 years before being discovered in a library in 2013.  The analog tape was digitally restored and the nearly hour-long speech is now available for listening on the website.

My colleagues and I have been busy orienting new district court judges this week, so I haven’t paid much attention to events taking place outside the confines of the Knapp-Sanders building. But that hasn’t stopped the criminal news from coming. Here are the highlights:

Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Walter Scott. Freddie Gray. The past year has been dominated by news of encounters between police officers and unarmed black citizens that have resulted in tragedy. Sandra Bland is the latest name on the list. She died in jail from what is reported to be a self-inflicted hanging, but the videotape of the traffic stop that led to her arrest has many questioning why the encounter, which began with an officer stopping Bland for failing to use her turn signal, ever resulted in her arrest.

In an odd turn of events for the person known as the “champion of the falsely accused,” WRAL reports that Christine Mumma was accused herself this week by the North Carolina State Bar of violating the Rules of Professional Conduct. Mumma serves as executive director and legal counsel for the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. The allegations arise from Mumma’s work to free Joseph Sledge, who spent thirty-six years behind bars for the killing of a mother and her daughter in Bladen County in 1976 before he was exonerated last January.

Yesterday a jury in Wake County convicted Markeith Council, a former detention officer at the Wake County jail, of involuntary manslaughter for killing inmate Shon McClain, who was jailed on […]

Jeff is away from the office today so he entrusted me with the keys to the blog. I briefly considered filling this post with a series of hilarious 6-second Vines […]

Jeff’s away and has left me in charge of the news roundup.  So there’ll be no Gizmodo stories this week.  (I’m still figuring out how to work my iPhone.)  Fortunately, […]

Jeff has entrusted me with the virtual keys to the blog while he is away on vacation, and today will be my first crack at rounding up the week’s criminal […]

The biggest headlines this week surrounded the confirmation of Elena Kagan as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The New York Times has the basics here, and […]