After pressing this arsenal of nasty charges: Aaron Swartz’s legacy was already guaranteed, even at 26: He helped create Reddit and RSS, which distributes content over the Internet. But his suicide by hanging Friday has also stoked a politically malignant aftermath for the prosecutors pursuing 13 felony charges against him in a trial that was […]
Courts
Posted inCops
Albina Ministerial Alliance: Federal Police Reforms Too Tepid on Race
As I first reported this morning, attorneys for the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform have formally filed paperwork (PDF) asking to intervene as a defendant in the US Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the Portland Police Bureau. The civil rights group—which now joins the Portland Police Association in seeking official legal […]
Posted inPolitics
Anarchist Activity Called “Threat to the Community”
The case of a Portland man accused of throwing a flaming PBR bottle at a marked Portland police car last year took an interesting turn, according to the Oregonian last night, when Sergey Turzhanskiy was ordered released by a federal judge—but told not to associate with known anarchist groups. Apparently, it’s because Turzhanskiy has received […]
Posted inPortland
Alien Boy to (Finally) Premiere at PIFF
Surely you remember Alien Boy, the documentary about one of the Portland Police Bureau’s darkest hours, when James Chasse Jr. was brutally beaten (16 broken ribs, 26 total broken bones, 1 punctured lung) and died in police custody in 2006. Matt Davis was on the Mercury news team at the time, and covered the event […]
Posted inCourts
Meet the Mercury‘s Newest Lawyer
“Waitasecond,” I hear you say. “Why does the Mercury need a lawyer?” Oh, I don’t know… let me ask the filing cabinet full of cease & desist orders, lawsuits from angry people we’ve written about, and old, still pending restraining orders from when Matt Davis was an employee. HOWEVER! I think we’ve finally found a […]
Posted inCourts
Hooray for Symbolic Nudity!
John Brennan, upon hearing his “not guilty” verdict, by lovely courtroom artist Carolyn Main Yesterday’s trial of Naked American Hero John Brennan on charges of indecent exposure for stripping naked at a Portland airport security station is a clear and definite victory for Oregon’s free speech laws. I think Oregon’s protections of nudity as free […]
Posted inCourts
UPDATED: Portland’s “Naked American Hero” on Trial—Not Guilty!
John Brennan: Naked American Hero, now clothed. Update 2:45pm— Not guilty! The judge ruled this afternoon that protester John Brennan is not guilty of incident exposure charges for stripping down at the PDX security station. The issue basically came down to whether Brennan’s striptease was meant to be a protest or whether, as the state’s […]
Posted inMedia
Out of Context Oregonian Snippet of the Day
Well, shoot. The story it’s pulled from is (unsurprisingly) interesting. Last week, a local woman won a total of $900,000 in a lawsuit against a man who had given her herpes in 2010 after meeting on an online dating website. While it sounds like an unlikely situation, apparently these lawsuits aren’t uncommon, but only if […]
Posted inCourts
ACLU Continues to Battle the Feds’ “No Fly List”
Sarah Mirk ACLU lawyers speak with reporters following last January’s arguments Taking the FBI to court is no piece of cake. Since June 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been fighting behind a major lawsuit filed against the FBI, claiming that the federal government’s “No Fly List” is unconstitutional. What does this have […]
Posted inCourts
Judge’s Ruling on Occupy Prosecutions Threatens DA’s Reliance on “Violations”
Thanks to a potentially far-reaching ruling by Multnomah County Judge Cheryl Albrecht, a whole mess of Occupy Portland-related misdemeanor cases that had been busted down to time- and cash-saving citations, or “violations,” may now have to be prosecuted as vigorously as any other criminal case. Instead of the usual routine for so-called violation trials—hearings without […]
Posted inCops
Judge Advances Trial in Campbell Shooting, but Peels Off Two Defendants
While I was at City Hall for today’s police accountability hearing, the Oregonian‘s Maxine Bernstein was minding the latest legal twist in the federal civil rights case filed against the city of Portland and four police officers involved in last year’s shooting death of Aaron Campbell. According to her story, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman […]
Posted inGossip
Michael Jackson’s Doctor Found Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter
Dr. Conrad Murray, the personal physician to Michael Jackson, and who was with him on the night he died has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop king. Murray was accused of poorly administering the powerful anesthetic drug propofol to Jackson on the night of his death, which the star […]