Jonathan Montgomery | Virginia Department of Corrections

Good for Gov. Bob McDonnell, that he’s signed a pardon for Jonathan Montgomery, a young man sent away to prison in 2008 based on lies that Virginia’s criminal justice system finally recognized. I wrote about this injustice last week.

From the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Speaking about the granting of the pardon, Governor McDonnell said, “It is a travesty of justice when an innocent person is confined in a jail or prison, and it should never occur in our society. Our office became aware of Mr. Montgomery’s situation last week. Since that time members of my staff, along with the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, the Mid-Atlantic Actual Innocence Project, the Hampton Police Department, the Hampton Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Attorney General, the Virginia Department of Corrections and the Virginia State Police have worked diligently to gather all necessary information in this case and review the matter thoroughly. I asked Mr. Montgomery’s attorneys to file a petition for a pardon with our office, as that action would allow me to exercise my gubernatorial authority and take immediate action. We received that petition at 10pm last night, and began reviewing it immediately.

The law should be changed in some way, however, so that innocent people who are wrongfully  convicted can get relief other than through emergency pardons by the governor. McDonnell did the right thing; that it took action from him to do this is not necessarily the right system.

More changes to Virginia’s 21-day rule are in order.

(h/t to the blogger here Chuck)

Jonathan Montgomery | Virginia Department of Corrections

Here’s some info about the troubling case of a wrongful sexual abuse conviction of a young man, Jonathan Montgomery, on charges later proved fabricated.

He was charged (and convicted) m as an adult even though he had “committed” the (fabricated) offense when he was 14. His accuser has since been charged with perjury.

And Montgomery is still in prison, where he has been wrongfully since 2008. This is because of Virginia’s 21 day rule, and despite a judge’s order for his release. Apparently, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is keeping him there.

From the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union:

Richmond, VA – November 15, 2012 -The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sent a letter to Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli encouraging them to take action to assist an innocent Hampton man in gaining his freedom and to reform the state’s 21-day rule.

“No person in Virginia should be deprived of liberty for crimes he or she did not commit nor held any longer than necessary once known to be innocent,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Gastañaga. “This is another unfortunate example of the problems stemming from Virginia’s 21-day rule. Wrongfully convicted individuals need a quicker process to have their convictions overturned and gain their freedom.”

Despite the recantation of the victim, and agreement by all involved parties – defense counsel, prosecutors and the court-that Jonathan Montgomery is an innocent man, Montgomery remains in prison. Montgomery is sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit because evidence of his innocence was not discovered until more than 21 days after his conviction. Under Virginia law, a convicted person has just 21 days to return to the circuit court to have the conviction vacated. After 21 days, the individual must appeal to the higher courts for a “writ of actual innocence.” The only other course of action is to appeal to the Governor for a pardon. Read more »

Efrain Moreno Alvarez

Meet Efrain Moreno Alvarez, soon to be featured on The Smoking Gun.

When the cops in Waynesboro busted him for DUI Sunday afternoon, they detected not only a “strong odor of alcohol,” but the overpowering stink of skunk.

From the News Leader:

Police said a witness saw Alvarez strike a guardrail Sunday with his 1990 Chevrolet Lumina on Interstate 64 around 2:30 p.m. After the collision, the witness called authorities and followed Alvarez as he drove into the city limits of Waynesboro. A police officer intercepted Alvarez in the parking lot of Plaza Azteca on Windigrove Drive.

Things got a bit stinky after the stop.

When the officer approached Alvarez, he detected a strong odor of alcohol along with a “strong odor of skunk,” according to Sgt. Brian Edwards, a spokesman for the Waynesboro Police Department. The officer had Alvarez perform a series of field sobriety tests and then placed him under arrest. When the officer inquired about the plastic bag attached to the back of the van, Alvarez explained that it contained a dead skunk.

Monday morning breakfast, perhaps? Or an anticipated fat bounty at the perfume factory? Perhaps he was thinking of skinning it and fashioning a hat as as a Christmas gift?

I dunno. But let the puns begin!

(RWers, this 100 percent unpolitical post is your opportunity to demonstrate you have a sense of humor. Don’t let that slip by!)

Sheldon Adelson | AP

Sheldon Adelson is a casino mogul with gamblings operations in both in the U.S. and abroad. He put millions into Newt Gingrich’s presidential primary campaign before it imploded; he’s socked $5 million in Rep. Eric Cantor’s Young Guns PAC (which goes to other congressional Republicans and helps Cantor keep his leadership role).

All told, Adelson has socked $54 million into this year’s elections, spending all of it on Republicans. He is the biggest single-year campaign contributor in the history of America. And a lot of the money has been spent to see that Mitt Romney wins the White House. He even accompanied Romney on the presidential contender’s fund-raising mission to Israel.

One of the questions hanging out there for awhile has been, why has Adelson gotten so involved this year? Now we have an answer that makes sense.

It’s likely because the U.S. Justice Department has been going after Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corp. for apparent violations involving money laundering through his casinos by two foreigners to the tune of $185 million. One is a convicted criminal and the other is shady, too. Read more »

Santa Maria Church in Paganica, damaged by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake | pablo72 | Wikimedia Commons

By Mark Jurkevich

Six Italian scientists were found guilty of manslaughter by an Italian court for failing to predict the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.

They were each sentenced to six years in prison, plus damages. They were also ordered to pay the massive court costs, including that of the prosecution, as well as damages. Finally, the guilty scientists were barred from ever holding public office again.

Among those convicted was Enzo Boschi, one of the world’s most respected seismologists, and former head of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

The Oct. 22 guilty verdict is the culmination of a trial that began in September 2011. The judge deliberated for only four hours before issuing his verdict. Consistent with Napoleonic law used throughout most of continental Europe, a jury was not involved.

More than 300 people perished in the central Italy 6.9 magnitude earthquake. The region resides on an active volcano and earthquake zone.

The 6 convicted scientists were members of the Great Risks Commission, an Italian committee of scientists which evaluates potential for natural disasters. The week before the earthquake, they met to discuss the small earth tremors that had rattled the area for several months.

After the meeting, they issued a statement concluding that a major quake in the near future was improbable, although one could not be excluded. The meeting and statement led to manslaughter charges on grounds that the scientists failed to alert the Aquila population of “an impending major earthquake.” Read more »

Colin Small

Meet Colin Small. He’s a Pennsylvanian who until recently was working for Virginia Republicans in the Harrisonburg area. He’s been arrested for allegedly destroying voter registration application forms.

From Talking Points Memo:

Colin Small, a 31-year-old resident of Phoenixville, Pa., worked for Pinpoint, a company hired to register voters on behalf of the Republican Party of Virginia. Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice.

Wow. That’s a lot of crimes. Small was allegedly spotted disposing of completed voter registration forms in a dumpster behind a Harrisonburg store. Presumably, he was not ditching applications from anybody he expected would vote for Romney or other Republicans.

Keep in mind the GOP is the party that has been crying wolf for at least two years about nonexistent “voter fraud,” and, as a “solution” pushing voter ID laws that will tend to suppress the votes of college students, minorities and the elderly.

Not coincidentally, those were all big constituencies for Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Their chutzpah and hypocrisy on this issue is extraordinary.

cchan199206 | Wikimedia Commons

You may want to think twice before you drive a hard bargain on your next new-auto purchase. Because a customer in Chesapeake who did that wound up in the pokey, arrested by police.

To make a long story short: The dealership screwed up and wrote him a sales contract that was $5,600 less than it should have been. When he refused to renegotiate the deal in their favor, they called the cops on him and reported the vehicle stolen.

The whole story is right here, in The Virginian Pilot:

On June 15, three Chesapeake police officers arrested [Danny] Sawyer in his front yard and took him before a magistrate judge. He was released on bond after about four hours at the Chesapeake jail, the suit said.

The head of the dealership has since apologized for the arrest, admitted it was their own dumb error, and says Sawyer can keep the deeply-discounted SUV without coughing up the $5,600.

But that hasn’t satisfied him, and no wonder, eh? He’s filed a lawsuit.

If I were the dealership I’d offer him another car, gratis, and try to make this go away.

westernvirginiaregionaljail.org

Ewell Hunt will likely go down in Franklin County history as the most boneheaded lawman ever to reign over the hills of Ferrum and the hollows of Snow and Shooting creeks.

The ex-sheriff made some grievous errors in the 2011 case of one of his deputies who went out of control and (allegedly) shot and killed his ex-wife outside a convenience store in front of one of their daughters. And then Jonathan Agee allegedly shot a state trooper, too.

That Hunt tried to keep that rampage on the down-low before those shootings is accepted as a matter of fact. But is a crime? I don’t think so. So why is he on trial, under the theory that his misconduct in office is a misdemeanor violation of common (but not written) law? For more on this, read today’s story by my colleague Neil Harvey.

Hunt was the epitome of incompetence. He allowed his teenage daughter, the infamously nicknamed “Hurricane Ashley,” to play armed cop and issue orders and generally run roughshod over his department. The verdict was returned by Franklin County voters almost a year ago in an election in which Hunt, the incumbent, barely managed to pull 20 percent in a three-way contest.

That was the most important trial. This one seems like piling on. Let it go. Hunt’s and the sheriff’s department’s insurance company has already settled with the estate of Jennifer Agee. This trial simply seems like piling on.

As always, your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

Wikimedia Commons

Another person stung by a court ‘processing fee’

Mr. Casey,

I was telling a friend here at work her car’s inspection sticker was ready to expire this month (Aug 2012); I wanted to warn her she needed to get it inspected.  Being overheard, another employee told me about your column and she emailed it to me … now that I’ve read it, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to tell my story.

July 2007 my youngest son finished his studies in Orlando Florida after 21 months being away from home.  He had his car with him and for the sake of clarity, let me add during those 21 months, the times he came home for a visit were by plane.  When he arrived home the first week of July, after the dust settled from his return, I made an appointment to have his car inspected the following week.  Well, naturally within three days, Roanoke County had sited him with an expired inspection sticker. He shouldn’t have been driving it but that’s what happened.  No problem, I thought, I’ll call and explain.

I called the phone number on the citation to try and talk to someone about what had already been arranged and on my third attempt to get a real person I was successful.  The clerk on the other end of the line totally agreed with me and said they were more than willing to take the offense off his record if I produced a receipt showing the inspection was done…and then [quote]: “you’ll still have to pay the processing fee of $60.00” ! —that’s what it was in 2007.  Dumbfounded, I asked the clerk if he was kidding and I was advised in a polite way no he wasn’t. Read more »

Amin Eshaiker | Wikimedia Commons

You know those kindly and smiling retail employees who stand near the exit door and check your receipts to make sure you’re not stealing something?

They’ve demanded it of me at Kroger (Towers) and at Best Buy and it happens every time at Sam’s Club. They want you to prove you just bought the item that you now own, before they let you go.

It’s particularly nettlesome if you’re buying one or two items at Sam’s Club, which I do on occasion. Because not only do you have to line up and show your card to get into the joint, you have to line up to pay, and THEN you often have to line up to leave. With your own, recently purchased property.

And if you’re No. 9 in a line of people with loaded carts, who have bought dozens of items, and you’re carrying one, it’s particularly aggravating.

It never occurred to me, until I read this post on The Consumerist, which says there’s a Virginia law that says customers aren’t required to show a receipt for items they have purchased in order to get out of a retailer. It makes sense, though. You own the thing. Why should you have to prove that?

But that doesn’t stop the retailers from trying to get you to cough up the receipt.

If you feel the same way, you may want to read the tale of Rick (below) and his experience in a Virginia Wal-mart, after he had just purchased a TV and was trying to get out of the store. Read more »