My family and I went to the State Fair last weekend, the same day as Bobby Joe Snyder, the third registered sex offender to be arrested at the Fair this year. WRAL has the story here. We had a good time, watching some clogging, cheering for the Axe Women Loggers of Maine, and eating fried Oreos.
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It’s a ritual of fall: one faculty member or another receives an inquiry about whether registered sex offenders covered by G.S. 14-208.18 may attend a county fair or the State Fair. I tend to doubt that most agricultural fairs are intended “primarily” for kids, which would make them per se off limits, but I think it would be awfully difficult for a covered offender to make his or her way around most such fairs without running afoul of the 300-foot rule and/or the prohibition against being present at places minors gather for “regularly scheduled . . . programs.” We don’t have a case yet discussing sex offenders at fairs, but we may soon. WRAL reports here that a sex offender has been arrested after allegedly posing as a ride inspector at the “kiddie land” portion of the State Fair. Weirdly, WRAL also reports that a second sex offender has been arrested after flying a camera-equipped drone over the fair.
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I’m going to admit something here: I’ve never called an Uber. Or summoned an Uber. Used an Uber? Whatever. I’m just old fashioned, I guess. The same cannot be said of Dashawn Cochran, who was recently arrested in Maryland after allegedly robbing a store at gunpoint and escaping via Uber. Very cutting edge! But not successful. It turns out that while Uber drivers are readily available, they’re not highly motivated to try to elude the police. CNET has the story here.
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I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but I was on the debate team in high school and college, and I coach a high school debate team now. I’ve coached several students who went on to debate for Harvard, two of whom won collegiate national championships and one of whom won a world championship, a rare feat for an American debater. So I was pretty surprised to read this article from The Guardian, which reports that a team of New York prison inmates defeated a team of Harvard debaters a couple of weeks back. Kudos to the inmates. I know from experience that those Harvard kids are sharp.
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While the General Assembly has closed up shop, Congress is going strong, and a bipartisan group of Senators has introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, which would reform federal mandatory minimums in drug cases, expand the “safety valve,” and require a complete inventory of all federal criminal offenses. The last item especially intrigues me, because several efforts at listing all federal crimes have failed in the recent past. Doug Berman summarizes the legislation here, and a critical reaction to it is here.
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There was a steady stream of news about capital punishment this week. The Pope addressed a special joint session of Congress this week, and among many other things, asked the legislature to abolish the death penalty. The full text of the speech is here. Justice Scalia, one of the Supreme Court’s six Catholics, reportedly stated this week that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the Court bans the penalty in the future, though he personally believes it to be constitutional. Meanwhile, State Rep. Jon Hardister, a Republican from Greensboro, indicated that he believes the death penalty should be eliminated because he doesn’t “trust the government to do it right” and stated that he is starting “conversation[s]” with other Republican legislators on the issue. Finally, Reuters published this long report, the key finding of which is that “[a] review of 2,102 state supreme court rulings on death penalty appeals . . . over the past 15 years found a strong correlation between the results in those cases and the way each state chooses its justices. In the 15 states where high court judges are directly elected, justices rejected the death sentence in 11 percent of appeals, less than half the 26 percent reversal rate in the seven states where justices are appointed.”
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For the second time in two weeks, I’ll start with a heartwarming, positive story about a police officer. In 2014, Raleigh Officer J.D. Boyd broke up an altercation involving a man named Cory Sanders. Sanders confronted Officer Boyd and swung at him with a knife; Boyd drew his pistol on Sanders. Sanders eventually surrendered and was charged with assault. This week, Boyd encountered Sanders again. Sanders apologized for his behavior and told Boyd that he was now working at a good job and was staying out of trouble. On social media, Boyd posted pictures of Sanders and himself and wrote “I was glad it ended well for us both that day, and I am ecstatic now to learn that he has turned his life around and we can embrace as friends.” A number of media outlets have the story, including WRAL here.
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The old media motto is “if it bleeds, it leads.” But today, I’m leading with a good news story of danger averted. Dan Hicks, a Raleigh PD officer, talked a man off the edge of a freeway overpass Wednesday night and gave him a hug. Officer Hicks explained to WRAL that the man in question “got a big old Dan Hicks bear hug, whether he wanted it or not. . . . [H]e was not going to be given the opportunity to go over that bridge again. He got to stand there with me for a second and get that hug. Call it tactical, call it compassionate, I think it was probably both.” Well done, Officer Hicks.
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All eyes were on Houston this week, where Shannon Miles has been charged with murdering Deputy Darren Goforth. Miles allegedly approached Goforth from behind at a gas station and fired 15 rounds into the officer. This CNN story has the details. It includes a statement by the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police that “In the last few years, ambush attacks aimed to kill or injure law enforcement officers have risen dramatically.” I hope that’s a blip, not a trend.
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Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes has been sentenced to 12 life terms plus 3,378 years in prison. He did not receive the death penalty due to the vote of a single holdout juror. CNN’s stories about the sentencing hearing are here and here; the statements from the surviving victims and the families of the deceased are difficult to read.