Jacob Wohl, a right-wing fraudster with ties to GOP felon and gay-sex troller Ali (Akbar) Alexander, has his Twitter presence "nuked" for creating fake accounts

Jacob Wohl

A Republican political hoaxwe -- who created false online narratives about Robert Mueller, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Kamala Harris -- was banned from Twitter yesterday after bragging about his plans to create more deceptive content.

USA Today published an article about Jacob Wohl's boasts at 6:14 a.m. CST yesterday,  under the headline "This 21-year-old tweeted lies about Robert Mueller and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now, he’s eyeing the 2020 election." A few hours later came stories, like this one from engadget.com, under the headline "Twitter bans right-wing activist Jacob Wohl over fake accounts." Sub-title of the engadget article: "It's not a good idea to admit you want to manipulate elections."

In what should be a surprise to no one, the bumbling Wohl is aligned with Ali (Akbar) Alexander, the slimy GOP operative who has a history as a felon and troller for gay sex at grindr.com. Akbar has bragged of his connections to Alabama, via governors (Riley, Bentley, or both) and the legal tribe, likely the Alabama State Bar. Adding to this carnival of GOP clowns, Wohl and Akbar are aligned with Laura Loomer, a loon who is famed for handcuffing herself to Twitter headquarters in New York after having her account suspended.More on a recent Wohl-Loomer-Akbar expedition in an upcoming post.

Wohl, an ardent Trump supporter, first came to our attention last November when he was found to have created false online posts that Robert Mueller was the target of sexual-harassment allegations. The FBI reportedly is investigating that episode. Alabama political insider Jill Simpson said at the time that Wohl was connected to Akbar and his National Bloggers Club. As usual, Simpson proved to be right -- Wohl is aligned with Akbar, and we will have more on that shortly.

USA Today quoted one legal expert who says Wohl is playing a dangerous game by publishing admittedly false narratives designed to affect political outcomes:

Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg said Wohl’s actions could be construed by a federal prosecutor as wire fraud, obstruction of justice or conspiracy – or as possibly violating various state statutes – but likely fell into a legal “gray zone.”

Ali Akbar mugshots

 “The whole thing smacks of illegality and nefariousness and deception, but it still needs to have an anchor in criminal statute,” Weisberg said.

How did Wohl cross the line with Twitter? USA Today, in a followup yesterday afternoon to its earlier post, explains:

Twitter announced that it is permanently suspending Jacob Wohl, a 21-year-old Internet hoaxer and supporter of President Donald Trump, following the publication of a USA TODAY article in which he boasted of using the social media platform to spread lies and disinformation.

In the article published Tuesday morning, Wohl disclosed what he claimed were his plans to create “enormous left-wing properties,” including Facebook and Twitter accounts, before the 2020 presidential election in order “to steer the left-wing votes in the primaries to what we feel are weaker candidates compared with Trump.”

Throughout the day, Twitter users had messaged the platform's CEO, Jack Dorsey, demanding that the company take action against Wohl.

In announcing the suspension Tuesday afternoon, Twitter said in a statement: “The account was suspended for multiple violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically creating and operating fake accounts.”

Is Wohl a tad reckless, even dim? Consider this from USA Today:

According to Twitter, after Wohl bragged of his intentions to violate its rules against the creation of fake or misleading accounts, the company scrutinized his activity on the platform and found he already created multiple fake accounts.

Ali Akbar at Grindr

Wohl said when reached by USA TODAY that he had never created a false or misleading account. "I've had accounts for my businesses and my future think tank, but that's about it," Wohl said, confirming that all of those accounts had been "nuked" Tuesday afternoon. "I've not created fake accounts or bot armies or anything like that."

When asked the name of the "future think tank," Wohl declined to provide it, saying he planned to use it in a "clandestine manner."

Among accounts that were suspended was that of Surefire Intelligence, Wohl's operation that played a central role in his scheme to disgrace Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the days before the midterm elections.

If you need another reason to despise Brett Kavanaugh and the disgusting process that put him on SCOTUS -- we have one, thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Brett Kavanaugh

Do you tend to look back at the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) as an exercise in partisan rancor? If so, we invite you to think again. That's because we have identified a constitutional right that is likely to be eroded with Kavanaugh on the nation's high court.

We are talking about the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. It generally has been held to mean that an individual cannot be subject to incarceration in a criminal trial if he has not been afforded assistance of counsel, even if he cannot afford to pay for one. SCOTUS most recently addressed this issue in a case styled Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002)

This issue hits close to home because Missouri Judge Jerry Harmison violated Shelton when he imposed a suspended imposition of sentence (SIS) on my wife, Carol in the bogus "assault" case brought against her related to our unlawful eviction, where deputies broke her arm. Carol did not have counsel in the case, and she did not waive her right to counsel. The SIS means Carol could be subject to incarceration if she violates terms of her probation -- and that is not allowed under Shelton.

Why is that not allowed? Well, we can thank the court's liberal-to-moderate bloc at the time (Stevens, Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg), who, surprisingly, were joined by Sandra Day O'Connor. The court's right-wing bloc (Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, Kennedy) dissented, trying their best to plunder a constitutional right. In what should be a surprise to no one, former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor argued for the state, siding with the right wingers.

Here is the primary holding in the Shelton majority opinion, written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Held: A suspended sentence that may "end up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty" may not be imposed unless the defendant was accorded "the guiding hand of counsel" in the prosecution for the crime charged. Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40.

(a) The controlling rule is that "absent a knowing and intelligent waiver, no person may be imprisoned for any offense ... unless he was represented by counsel at his triaL" Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37.

Ginsburg's opinion was grounded in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972), which held:

The right of an indigent defendant in a criminal trial to the assistance of counsel, which is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, is not governed by the classification of the offense or by whether or not a jury trial is required. No accused may be deprived of his liberty as the result of any criminal prosecution, whether felony or misdemeanor, in which he was denied the assistance of counsel. In this case, the Supreme Court of Florida erred in holding that petitioner, an indigent who was tried for an offense punishable by imprisonment up to six months, a $1,000 fine, or both, and given a 90-day jail sentence, had no right to court-appointed counsel, on the ground that the right extends only to trials "for non-petty offenses punishable by more than six months imprisonment."

The right of an indigent defendant to have assistance of counsel in any prosecution where his liberty might be at stake has been solidly grounded in U.S. law for more than 45 years -- but right wingers tried to chip away at it in 2002. Even Brett Kavanaugh's predecessor -- the renowned swing voter Anthony Kennedy -- sided with Scalia and Co. on the issue.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

What will happen if a right-of-counsel case comes before SCOTUS, now that it includes Kavanaugh. Donald Trump's appointee likely will side with the court's right wingers (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch) to override Shelton -- assuming specifics in the new case are the same as those in Shelton; a variety of issues can come under the broad right-of-counsel heading..

Do you like the idea of Brett Kavanaugh, famed for his buddies "Squee" and "Moose",  being involved in such profound decisions? I sure don't. Do you believe a "president," who apparently has acted as a Russian asset, should have two nominees (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) help take away rights that long have been grounded in the U.S. constitution? I don't.

But that is what we could be facing. And it's because the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were more than a grotesque example of political theater. They were, in essence, an attack on our constitution.

Under a U.S. Supreme Court case called Alabama v. Shelton, Carol's sentence of probation in Missouri "assault" case is invalid and due to be reversed

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The suspended sentence that a Missouri judge placed on my wife, Carol, in a bogus "assault of a law enforcement officer" case is "invalid" and a "nullity," and it must be reversed,  according to U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) precedent.

We already have shown that, by placing a suspended imposition of sentence (SIS) on Carol, Judge Jerry Harmison Jr. ensured there is no final, appealable judgment in the case and no conviction (even though Carol, contrary to fact and law, was found guilty). Now, we learn that the SIS and two-year probation Harmison imposed are unlawful and due to be vacated.

How many ways can one compromised judge screw up a case?

This all goes back to Missouri's denial of Carol's right to counsel, and the relevant law comes from the nation's highest court in a case styled Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002). How rich is the irony that the cheat job heaped on Carol in Missouri would be -- or should be -- decided by a SCOTUS case that originated in Alabama?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with dissents from -- surprise, surprise -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, and Anthony Kennedy) wrote the opinion in Shelton. Here is it's central holding:

Held: A suspended sentence that may "end up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty" may not be imposed unless the defendant was accorded "the guiding hand of counsel" in the prosecution for the crime charged. Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40. Pp. 660-674.

What does this mean for Carol's case?

(1) She was placed on probation, but a violation of its terms could lead to a jail term. That, SCOTUS found in its 2002 Shelton ruling, is not allowed under the Sixth Amendment;

(2) Carol at one point had an attorney -- public defender Patty Poe -- but when Poe bailed out of the case, jail was waived as a possible punishment, by law;

(3) Carol never had another attorney, and she never waived her right to counsel, so Harmison committed a huge blunder by adding probation to the equation -- and probation, by definition, means jail is on the table. And that, Justice Ginsburg found, is a no-no.

(4) Both Poe and Margaret Palmietto (the original judge in Carol's case) apparently have more functioning brain cells than Harmison, who took over after Palmietto recused -- or maybe Poe and Palmietto are slightly less corrupt than Harmison. Either way, Poe told us upon exiting that, with jail off the table, the court could only sentence Carol to a fine, community service, or some type of educational course. Palmietto, in her final days on the case, said multiple times in open court "it's just a fine" -- as if Carol should have no problem being fined for an offense she did not commit, even according to the written and verbal statements of the so-called "victim."

Carol Tovich Shuler

Where does the SCOTUS case have its roots? The answer is Etowah County, Alabama, (county seat is Gadsden), where LeReed Shelton represented himself and twice was found guilty of third-degree assault -- being sentenced to a suspended 30-day jail term and unsupervised probation. Shelton appealed, and the Alabama Supreme Court ultimately reversed his sentence, finding it invalid because he did not have counsel, violating his Sixth Amendment rights.

SCOTUS upheld the Alabama Supreme Court's finding, with these words from Ginsburg:

Defendant-respondent Shelton represented himself in an Alabama Circuit Court criminal trial. The court repeatedly warned Shelton about the problems self-representation entailed, but at no time offered him assistance of counsel at state expense. He was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to a 30-day jail term, which the trial court immediately suspended, placing Shelton on two years' unsupervised probation. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed Shelton's suspended jail sentence, reasoning that this Court's decisions in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25, and Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, require provision of counsel in any petty offense, misdemeanor, or felony prosecution, Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37, "that actually leads to imprisonment even for a brief period," id., at 33. The State Supreme Court concluded, inter alia, that because a defendant may not be imprisoned absent provision of counsel, Shelton's suspended sentence could never be activated and was therefore invalid. . . .

The Sixth Amendment does not permit activation of a suspended sentence upon an indigent defendant's violation of the terms of his probation where the State did not provide him counsel during the prosecution of the offense for which he is imprisoned. A suspended sentence is a prison term imposed for the offense of conviction. Once the prison term is triggered, the defendant is incarcerated not for the probation violation, but for the underlying offense. The uncounseled conviction at that point "result[s] in imprisonment," Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 746; it "end[s] up in the actual deprivation of a person's liberty," Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40. This is precisely what the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in Argersinger and Scott, does not allow.

Carol was the victim of an uncounseled (and unlawful) conviction, and SCOTUS makes clear that her sentence must be reversed as invalid. Whether the dictates of the nation's highest court has any impact on Jerry Harmison Jr. -- or anyone else in Missouri's perverse "justice system" -- remains to be seen. But it's clear Carol's sentence is a nullity, meaning it is legally void and is based on . . . well, nothing.

U.S. Supreme Court restricts judge's discretion in Florida death-penalty sentencing, while ignoring an almost identical issue in the Don Siegelman case

To a great extent, the whole purpose of appellate courts in the United States is to ensure laws are applied in a uniform fashion. With that in mind, we have new evidence that our nation's highest courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), are failing miserably.

I joined Andrew Kreig, attorney and journalist with the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Integrity Project, for a discussion last week about inconsistency in the courts on the Peter B. Collins Show (PBC) out of San Francisco.

The issue began to take shape when SCOTUS refused on January 11 to hear the latest appeal in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Attorneys for Siegelman argued that trial judge Mark Fuller improperly based sentencing, in part, on conduct for which the defendants were acquitted. That, Siegelman argued, interfered with his Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, two of the court's most conservative justices, had indicated in a dissent from a 2014 case (joined by liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that they were ready to take on that very issue. Assuming those three voted to hear the Siegelman appeal, that means a yes from only one other justice was needed for the court to accept the case. But no other support was forthcoming, not even from Obama appointee Sonia Sotomayor.

Consider the irony when SCOTUS, one day after refusing to hear the Siegelman case, released Hurst v. Florida, which involved almost the identical judge-vs.-jury question present in Siegelman. Here is how the Orlando Sentinel described the issues in Hurst:

By an 8-1 vote the U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's capital sentencing scheme unconstitutional, saying in death penalty cases juries – not judges – must spell out at least one reason why the defendant should be put to death.

Under the old system, jurors listened to evidence then voted on whether to recommend life in prison without the possibility of parole or death. Their decision did not need to be unanimous.

The final decision was left to a judge.

In Tuesday's majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that by having the judge make the final decision, Florida was violating a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his peers.

The test case involved Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of murdering his boss in a Pensacola Popeye's restaurant in 1998.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not convert his sentence of one of life in prison. It merely threw out his death sentence. He is still a convicted murderer. It's now up to the state to figure out what sentence to mete out and how to do it.

Yes, you read the highlighted section above correctly. Sonia Sotomayor, who apparently voted not to hear the Siegelman case, wrote the majority opinion finding that Florida's capital-sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because it "was violating a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his peers."

Sonia Sotomayor

That is precisely the argument Siegelman made regarding the sentencing in his case. So why did the high court hear one case--and essentially rule in favor of the Siegelman view--and ignore the case that involved Siegelman himself? If that question leaves you scratching your head, join the crowd. It certainly had Andrew Kreig, Peter B. Collins, and I scratching our heads.

From the PBC Web site, which includes links to audio of our discussion, and notes a number of Siegelman-related issues that were raised:

In the Siegelman case, now-disgraced Judge Mark Fuller sentenced the former governor for acts the jury had acquitted Siegelman of. In the recent death penalty case, styled Hurst v. Florida, the Supreme Court overturned Hurst's death sentence and struck down part of Florida's capital punishment system because the judge unilaterally imposed the death penalty after the jury merely recommended by 7-5 vote that Hurst be executed.

We discuss how this principle should have been applied to the Siegelman appeal, which was based on Fuller's over-sentencing of Siegelman.

We also talk about President Obama's failure to pardon or commute Siegelman's sentence, and the former governor's recent stretch in "the hole" after prison officials abruptly cut off an interview he was doing with a substitute host on the Thom Hartmann radio show. We discuss the new documentary expected this summer that recaps the layers of injustice in this case, which will be narrated by Martin Sheen.

Is consistency supposed to matter in our courts of law? Consider Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, which addresses the circumstances under which en banc review can be conducted. The rule holds that such a full-panel review is appropriate when it "is necessary to secure or maintain uniformity of the court's decisions."

Rule 10 of the U.S. Supreme Court holds that "certiorari review is properly considered when "a United States court of appeals has entered a decision in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter."

What does this tell us in light of the high court's recent handling of the Hurst and Siegelman cases? The lesson seems to be this: Consistency matters on paper; in real life, not so much.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas appeared poised to side with Siegelman in SCOTUS case that could have protected the right to trial by jury

Don Siegelman
(From Montgomery Advertiser)

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision yesterday not to hear the latest appeal in the Don Siegelman case, of course, is a blow to the former Alabama governor. But it's also a blow to a supposedly bedrock concept of our demorcracy--the right to a jury trial. That means yesterday's decision is a blow to all Americans, even those who've never heard of Don Siegelman and have no idea what his case is about.

Here is the central issue in the Siegelman appeal: May a court consider acquitted conduct to increase a sentence within the statutory range of the offense for which the defendant was convicted? That is precisely what U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller--who since has resigned from the bench in the wake of a wife-beating scandal--did in the Siegelman case. And it's a big reason Siegelman is not scheduled for release from federal prison until August 8, 2017.

To a considerable extent, he is being held now based on charges of which a jury acquitted him. A number of constitutional and legal groups have filed briefs in the case, arguing that such an outcome violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and violates the Right to Popular Sovereignty inherent in the U.S. Constitution.

Based on news reports about a similar 2014 case, two of the Supreme Court's most conservative justices--Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas--appeared ready to side with Siegelman, a Democrat. Liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who joined Scalia and Thomas in a 2014 dissent, also appeared ready to side with Siegelman.

If Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg voted to hear the Siegelman case--as seems likely--that means no other justice provided a fourth vote needed to hear the case. SCOTUS announced that Obama appointee Elena Kagan did not participate in deliberations because, as solicitor general, she had written a brief urging the high court to uphold the Siegelman convictions.

If this scenario played out behind the scenes, that means two liberal justices--Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer and Obama appointee Sonia Sotomayor--could have provided the fourth vote needed to hear the Siegelman case. But they apparently did not do it.

That raises this question: If Democrats are the party that champions constitutional rights, what kind of rights are Breyer and Sotomayor supporting--especially on an issue where even Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas see constitutional problems?

Here's another question--Hillary Clinton has powerful ties to both the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations. What does this outcome say about her priorities regarding civil rights? Should she be pressed about this issue on the campaign trail? Could this cause Democrats who truly care about constitutional protections to support Bernie Sanders?

The 2014 case was styled Jones v. United States. Here's how the Stanford Daily summarized the facts and legal issues surrounding the case:

The case arose in Washington, D.C. Three men, Joseph Jones, Desmond Thurston and Antwuan Ball, were charged with, among other things, running an “open-air” drug market — essentially a conspiracy to distribute large amounts of drugs. If convicted on that charge, the men would effectively be held liable for all of the drugs dealt by the entire “organization,” much more than any of the men had personally distributed. The jury, however, did not convict on the conspiracy charge, and instead merely found the men guilty of distributing the relatively small amount of drugs that each had personally dealt— between two and 11 grams of crack cocaine. . . .

Nevertheless, the judge accepted the government’s argument and sentenced the defendants as if they had conspired to distribute more than 500 grams of crack, even though they had been specifically acquitted of those charges. The defendants therefore received sentences varying from 15 years to almost 19 years, sentences nearly four times the length of the next highest sentences imposed for similar convictions.

How did that sit with Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg? Not well, as the Stanford Daily reports:

The Court, however, denied certiorari, but not without dissent. Justice Scalia published a vigorous dissent, insisting that it was time for the Court to put an end to this practice. First marshaling precedent, Justice Scalia explained that any fact that increases the penalty to which a defendant is exposed is essentially an element of a crime, and therefore must be proved to a jury, not a judge. The Court has also held that a substantively unreasonable sentence is unconstitutional and must be set aside. It follows, then, according to Justice Scalia, that “any fact necessary to prevent a sentence from being substantively unreasonable — thereby exposing the defendant to the longer sentence — is an element that must be either admitted by the defendant or found by the jury.” Because the defendants argued that their sentences were only reasonable if the conspiracy was considered relevant conduct that could increase the Guideline penalty, the Sixth Amendment was implicated. Justice Scalia then closed by insisting that the Court should have taken this opportunity to “put an end to the unbroken string of cases disregarding the Sixth Amendment.”

Justice Scalia was not alone in his dissent. In fact, criminal cases can often lead to unusual lineups of Justices, and this case was one such example. Joining Justice Scalia in his dissent from denial of certiorari were Justices Thomas and Ginsburg. Given just one more vote, then, the Court would have granted certiorari to resolve this important issue.

Dissents from denial of certiorari are rare, and no such dissents were forthcoming in the Siegelman case. But three justices, from a wide range of political perspectives, have already made it clear where they stand on the issue.

Antonin Scalia
(From Mother Jones)

That leaves us with Don Siegelman to voice his own dissent, writing on his Facebook page from the Federal Correctional Institute in Oakdale, Louisiana. Siegelman starts by quoting Bob Dylan:

"It is hard to believe we live in a country where justice is just a game.” Bob Dylan

"U.S. Citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed": The U.S. Solicitor General, January 4th, 2010, in an argument to the U.S. Supreme Court defending Iowa law enforcement in a civil suit by two men who spent 25 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit. They were intentionally framed.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court gives its stamp of approval to the practice of allowing judges to add years to a defendant's sentence for matters a jury found the defendant innocent!

We criticize North Korea, China and other countries for human rights violations while turning a blind eye to our own.

Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision is so extraordinarily shocking and is an example of America's democratic hypocrisies.

116 former state Attorneys General and The Constitution Project argued that a jury decision is final, that the U.S. Constitution gives the people, speaking through a jury, the final decision on guilt or innocence. The U.S. Supreme Court has thumbed its nose at justice."

Don E. Siegelman

Governor of Alabama, 1999-2003

Did Alabama officer commit a crime when he initiated a traffic stop to "serve" papers in Rob Riley lawsuit?

Was it a crime for an Alabama deputy to conduct a traffic stop of my wife and me in order to serve us with court papers in the Rob Riley/Liberty Duke defamation lawsuit? Does a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision add to the likelihood that the deputy committed a crime? Was a well-known legal analyst wrong to shrug off the officer's actions as fallout to be expected from "the war on drugs"?

The answer to all three questions appears to be yes--meaning Officer Mike DeHart probably went beyond just a violation of our civil rights into criminal territory.

We already have shown that DeHart's own words on a log of service attempts in the Riley/Duke case suggest he had no probable cause to believe I had committed a traffic violation and no grounds to stop us at all. Even if he did have grounds to make the initial stop, he clearly violated the law by prolonging the stop beyond its original purpose, with no grounds to do so.

Can this amount to criminal behavior? A recent case from Georgia, styled United States v. House 684 F. 3d 1173 (11th Cir., 2012), shows that the answer is yes. Ironically, Birmingham-based federal judge Bill Pryor, who has curious connections to 1990s gay pornography, wrote the opinion in House.

The case involved Stephen G. House, a former officer of the Federal Protective Service who made it a habit to stop people in traffic for no lawful reason. House wound up being convicted in federal district court on eight counts of willfully depriving a person of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure by a law enforcement officer, 18 U.S.C. § 242. An 11th Circuit panel, headed by Pryor, upheld most of the convictions. Here is the gist of the case against House:

When the driver of a motor vehicle notices blue lights flashing in the rear view mirror, the driver cannot help but feel a sense of dread. The public reposes a special trust in the peace officers we empower to patrol our highways. That power includes the authority to disrupt the flow of motor vehicle traffic, often traveling at high speeds, and the power to detain a driver and vehicle on the side of a road, which can be a dangerous place. This appeal involves a federal officer with limited authority who repeatedly usurped the power to patrol traffic, violated the civil rights of motorists, abused the public trust, and lied about it in official reports.

Much of the section in yellow applies to DeHart's actions against us. And an April 21 U.S. Supreme decision, styled Rodriguez v. United States, adds to the likelihood that DeHart acted unlawfully. Rodriguez involved an officer who prolonged a traffic stop by calling for a drug-sniffing dog, without reasonable suspicion for doing so. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the 6-3 majority opinion, which even right-wing stalwarts John Roberts and Antonin Scalia joined. Among the key findings in Rodriguez (citations omitted):

Beyond determining whether to issue a traffic ticket, an officer’s mission includes “ordinary inquiries incident to [the traffic] stop.” Typically such inquiries involve checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance. These checks serve the same objective as enforcement of the traffic code: ensuring that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly.

A dog sniff, by contrast, is a measure aimed at “detect[ing] evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” Candidly, the Government acknowledged oral argument that a dog sniff, unlike the routine measures just mentioned, is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop. Lacking the same close connection to roadway safety as the ordinary inquiries, a dog sniff is not fairly characterized as part of the officer’s traffic mission.

Likewise, serving court papers is not part of an officer's traffic mission--and that adds to the dubious nature of DeHart's actions against us.

What about the legal analyst who got it wrong about our traffic stop? That would be Ken White, the Los Angeles-based author of the Popehat blog. White wrote several posts about my arrest in the Riley/Duke case, correctly noting that it was wildly unlawful under longstanding First Amendment precedent. White also discussed the DeHart traffic stop, but the Popehat analysis there was not so accurate. Here is what White wrote:

Maybe you're outraged because the Sheriff violated Shuler's Fourth Amendment rights by pulling him over to serve him with legal papers on behalf of the son of the former governor of Alabama. If you want to be outraged, it should be because under current law it's probably not a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.

You can thank the Great War on Drugs for that. [Eighteen] years ago the Supreme Court, in one of its innumerable drug cases, ruled that a cop can run a traffic stop on you on a pretext. That is to say, if cops want to question you, or sniff around your car in hopes of developing probable cause to search it, they can follow you until they think you've broken a traffic law, and stop you for it, even if they would normally never bother with that particular traffic infraction. So: is it outrageous that a deputy would follow Roger Shuler until he (allegedly) broke some traffic law, and then stop him and use that opportunity to serve papers on him? Hell yes. Is it legal? Unfortunately, it probably is.

That case from 18 years ago is styled Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), and we've written about it here several times. Unfortunately, Popehat's analysis goes awry with the "pretext" concept at the heart of Whren. As we explained in a recent post, it helps to know exactly what is meant by a "pretext traffic stop":

The Web site knowmyrights.org addresses pretext stops and Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), the primary U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) case on the subject. Here is how knowmyrights.org defines a pretext traffic stop:

A "pretext" or "pretextual" stop is a stop in which the officer detains the citizen for a minor crime (i.e. traffic offense) because the officer actually suspects the person of involvement in another, more significant crime (i.e. drug possession).

That definition is in keeping with Whren, which involved an officer who stopped a vehicle, on the surface, for a traffic violation--but the real reason for the stop was suspicion of illegal drug activity.

It's clear that, by definition, a pretext traffic stop involves suspicion of criminal activity. DeHart never articulated the slightest hint that he suspected criminal activity associated with our car; he wanted to serve court papers--and probably because the case involved Rob Riley--was desperate enough to break the law in the process.

As for Popehat, he addressed our pretext traffic stop in a second post, after a tipster sent him the log of service attempts in our case. (We now have the log, too, and you can view it at the end of this post.) Even Popehat was taken aback by the brazen actions of Shelby County deputies, writing:

One of Roger Shuler's loudest complaints has been that Shelby County Sheriff's deputies pulled him over for the purpose of serving him with papers in Robert R. Riley, Jr.'s defamation suit against him.

Shuler sees that — law enforcement stopping his car and detaining him, however briefly, for the purpose of serving him in a civil case – as a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. In my first post on the subject I pointed out that, regrettably, it probably isn't a Fourth Amendment violation — as part of the Great War on Drugs, the Supreme Court long ago decided that police may make pretextual stops. That is to say, police who wish to ask you questions, or sniff about your car, or otherwise develop probable cause to arrest you or search your car, may stop you for any traffic violation they (purportedly) observe even if under normal circumstances they would not bother to do so. Having stopped you, they may then talk to you and observe you and your car in an effort to develop sufficient cause to take further investigative steps. That doctrine probably allows Shelby County Sheriff's deputies to stop Shuler for a purported traffic violation and, as long as they are lawfully in contact with him, serve him with papers.

What I did not anticipate is how brazen law enforcement has become about this sort of thing. A helpful tipster sent me the Shelby County Sheriff's return of service and log of service attempts. The log generally supports the assertion (admitted by Shuler) that Shuler was evading service of process, which is part of the pattern of nutty pro se conduct that contributed to his trouble. But it also contains this entry describing the eventual traffic stop:

"CONDUCTED A PRETEXT TRAFFIC STOP ON SHULER'S BLUE NISSAN AFTER OBSERVING IT ROLL THRU STOP SIGN AT MAC lAN/ KEITH DR; STOP WAS AT NORTH SHELBY LIBRARY; WARNING ISSUED FOR TRAFFIC VIOLATION AND BOTH PARTIES WERE SERVED WITH PAPERS, WHICH THEY DISCARDED IN THE PARKING LOT AS THEY LEFT."

Thanks to the United States Supreme Court, law enforcement can feel free to admit that their traffic stops are pretextual. Thanks, War on Drugs!

While we appreciate Popehat's not-so-subtle digs at Shelby County deputies, it's unfortunate that he is wrong about the actual definition of a pretext stop. (He's also wrong about me admitting to avoiding service.) As we showed above, a pretext stop involves suspicion of criminal activity. That was not present in our case, so Officer DeHart did not conduct a legal pretext stop.

The record shows DeHart certainly violated our civil rights and probably committed a crime as well--and nothing about the "war on drugs" excuses that.

Shelby County Service Record by Roger Shuler

New U.S. Supreme Court ruling helps show that traffic stop leading to my incarceration was unconstitutional

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling yesterday adds to the body of law that shows my wife and I were subjected to an unlawful traffic stop in the Rob Riley/Liberty Duke lawsuit that led to my five-month incarceration. The new ruling also adds to the law showing I never was lawfully served with the Riley/Duke complaint, meaning the court had no jurisdiction over me--as I argued in a court filing prior to my arrest and during a hearing after my arrest.

In Rodriguez v. United States, SCOTUS found that a stop prolonged beyond the time for an officer to complete his traffic-based inquiries is "unlawful," especially where there is no reasonable suspicion of any criminal activity connected to the vehicle. The majority opinion, written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, says even a brief extension of a stop, once a citation or warning is given and traffic-related documents are returned, runs afoul of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures.

That means Shelby County deputy Mike DeHart violated the Fourth Amendment when he prolonged a traffic stop at the North Shelby County Library in order to serve me with court papers in the Riley/Duke complaint. That means service was unlawful, and I lost five months of my freedom because of a ruling from a court that had no jurisdiction over me.

We recently received documents from the court file showing that DeHart admitted his traffic stop, on September 29, 2013, was a "pretext" stop--meaning the real reason he stopped me was to deliver the court papers and not because of any alleged traffic violation. That strongly suggests DeHart's "pretext" reason for stopping me--that I had rolled through a stop sign--is false. If that's the case, the traffic stop was unlawful from beginning to end, and the Shelby County Sheriff's Office has stepped in some serious constitutional doo-doo. (More on DeHart's admitted "pretext" stop in an upcoming post.)

The Rodriguez ruling does not change the law as it relates to our encounter with DeHart. It just affirms a legal precedent under slightly different facts than the high court has addressed before. In other words, DeHart's stop already was unlawful--it's even more unlawful as of yesterday.

As we stated in a post on October 16, 2013--just one week before my arrest--the law already was clear that prolonged traffic stops are illegal, in the absence of reasonable suspicion regarding criminal activity connected to the vehicle. Even DeHart never made the slightest hint that criminal activity was associated with our car. The following paragraph sums up the law as it stood before yesterday's Rodriguez opinion:

Ordinarily, when a citation or warning has been issued and all record checks have been completed and come back clean, the legitimate investigative purpose of the traffic stop is fulfilled. United States v. Simms, 385 F.3d 1347, 1353 (11th Cir., 2004)

What element did Rodriguez add to the equation? A Nebraska officer had prolonged a traffic stop of Dennys Rodriguez in order to walk a drug-sniffing dog around the car. Given that it was unclear whether the officer had reasonable suspicion of a crime, SCOTUS found that extension of the stop violated the Fourth Amendment.

Our encounter with DeHart did not involve a drug-sniffing dog or anything else remotely related to an alleged crime. But yesterday's Rodriguez ruling drives home a legal principle that already had been clear in Simms and numerous other cases. Here, in the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is the fundamental finding in Rodriguez (citations omitted):

Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been completed. The Fourth Amendment may tolerate certain unrelated investigations that do not lengthen the roadside detention . . . but a traffic stop “become[s] unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete th[e] mission” of issuing a warning ticket. . . .

The Government’s argument that an officer who completes all traffic-related tasks expeditiously should earn extra time to pursue an unrelated criminal investigation is unpersuasive, for a traffic stop “prolonged beyond” the time in fact needed for the officer to complete his traffic-based inquiries is “unlawful. . . . ” The critical question is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, but whether conducting the sniff adds time to the stop.

In our case, the issue wasn't a dog sniff, but court papers--which DeHart handed me after giving me the traffic warning and returning my traffic-related documents. And his actions unquestionably added time to the stop. In the words of Ginsburg, DeHart's "authority for the seizure" ended the moment his traffic-related tasks were completed.

A trial judge in the Rodriquez case found that the dog sniff extended the stop by only "seven or eight minutes," and thus was a de minimis intrusion that is permissible by law. But the SCOTUS majority disagreed, saying an extension of any duration is unlawful, in the absence of reasonable suspicion regarding criminal activity. Wrote Ginsburg:

We granted certiorari to resolve a division among lower courts on the question whether police routinely may extend an otherwise-completed traffic stop, absent reasonable suspicion, in order to conduct a dog sniff. . . . Without additional reasonable suspicion, the officer must allow the seized person to depart once the purpose of the stop has concluded.

Even before yesterday's ruling, DeHart was required to let us depart once his traffic-related tasks were completed. Rodriguez drives home the fact that an extension of the stop, even a brief one, was unlawful.

Federal Judges on Siegelman Appeal Prove To Be Both Corrupt And Lazy

Don Siegelman

A federal appeals court might have unwittingly provided insight yesterday about its muddled handling of appeals in the Don Siegelman case.

The ruling from the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals had been widely anticipated for several reasons: (1) Following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling, federal law on both honest-services mail fraud and bribery--the two key issues in the Siegelman case--has been shifting; (2) The Eleventh Circuit's ruling was expected to provide some clarity on important criminal issues in a changing landscape; (3) Siegelman is the most high-profile victim of a Bush-era political prosecution, and the former governor of Alabama figured to receive at least some relief from convictions reached in a Montgomery, Alabama, trial court.

Alas, yesterday's ruling from a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit accomplished almost nothing. The judges provided no insight on Skilling or its impact on bribery convictions. And they provided zero relief for Siegelman. The only relief came for codefendant Richard Scrushy, who had two of his convictions on honest-services fraud reversed.

That means the defendants likely will turn to the U.S. Supreme Court, wasting more public resources--not to mention their own personal resources--on a case where the convictions, by law, cannot stand. We have known for a long time that the three-judge panel in the Siegelman case--J.L. Edmondson, James C. Hill, and Gerald Bard Tjoflat--is corrupt. We spelled that out in a multi-post series, which concluded with the following summary:

How the 11th Circuit Cheated Don Siegelman: A Summary

Yesterday's ruling reveals that the three judges also are lazy. Huge portions of the ruling are lifted word-for-word from their previous order, which was issued on March 6, 2009. And we're not talking about just the section dealing with factual aspects of the case. Large segments of the legal analysis have not changed at all. It's as if all of the new briefs, and the oral argument conducted in Jacksonville, Florida, never took place.

A comparison of the two rulings--the one from yesterday and the one from March 2009--strongly suggests that the three judges had a predetermined outcome on the Siegelman/Scrushy case, and nothing was going to change their minds, not even directives from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case was back before the Eleventh Circuit only because the nation's highest court had ordered a review in light of the Skilling ruling. Edmondson, Hill, and Tjoflat apparently could not be bothered by  Skilling and the U.S. Supreme Court. They swatted the issue away with barely a mention. From yesterday's opinion:

In Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. ___, 130 S. Ct. 2896 (2010), the Court held that Congress intended these statutes to reach only those schemes to defraud the public that are based upon allegations of bribery and/or kickbacks. After Skilling, therefore, prosecutions based upon any other theory--for example, self-dealing--are not permitted. The defendants contend that Skilling, and other errors, require that their honest services convictions be overturned. . . . Counts 6 and 7 charge that Scrushy’s bribery of Siegelman deprived the public of the right to the defendant’s honest services. Thus, there is no Skilling error here--a bribery (or kickback) scheme is required under Skilling and one was alleged.

Skilling, of course, is not just about what the government alleges. It also is about what the government must prove. From the Skilling opinion, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

The "vast majority" of the honest-services cases involved offenders who, in violation of a fiduciary duty, participated in bribery or kickback schemes.

It's not enough for the government to allege that Siegelman and Scrushy engaged in a bribery or kickback scheme. The government must also prove it.

And the government only received a conviction on bribery because of a flawed jury instruction from trial judge Mark Fuller. Without getting into too much legalese, this involves an analysis of the McCormick and Evans cases, which we examined previously. In fact, we clearly showed that, based on the actual law, the jury instruction was unlawful, and you can check it out at the following link:

The Cheating of Don Siegelman: Part III 

In yesterday's ruling, the Eleventh Circuit stuck by its earlier contention that the jury instruction was "sufficient." In essence, the three-judge panel found that the jury instruction was "in the ballpark," and that's close enough for a criminal conviction. Any American who does not find that appalling, should be checked for signs of a functioning conscience.

What is the three-judge panel really up to? We suspect a major clue comes from page 38 of yesterday's opinion, where the judges heap praise on the Siegelman/Scrushy jury:

This sort of split verdict is itself evidence that the jury considered the charges carefully and individually, addressed the strength of the evidence on each charge, and reached a reasoned conclusion. See United States v. Dominguez, 226 F.3d 1235, 1248 (11 Cir. 2000) (making these comments in the context of allegations of premature jury deliberations)

The judges make this point at least twice in the ruling, that a split verdict is a sign of careful consideration on the part of the jury. That is curious because the judges themselves are rendering all kinds of split verdicts, as if they are trying to tell the public, "Hey, look, we examined this case closely."

Split verdicts, of course, do not necessarily mean that a jury or judicial panel gave careful consideration to the matters at hand. They can simply mean that the jury or judges were incompetent, lazy, confused--or some combination of all that.

The judicial panel's regurgitation of huge chunks from its earlier ruling indicate it did not give careful consideration to the matters at hand. And by blowing off Skilling, they essentially are saying to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, "Hey, up yours, lady!"

Did we mention that Americans should be appalled by these three judges on the Eleventh Circuit panel?

Here is all you probably need to know about these three "jurists." It tells you that Siegelman and Scrushy never had a chance with this panel. We spelled it out in a post at the following link:

Siegelman Team Probably Expected to Get Cheated on Appeal


Our post borrowed heavily from a piece by Raw Story's Muriel Kane about the three judges. Here is a key excerpt from out post:

Muriel Kane has written an excellent overview of the three judges on the Siegelman panel. She notes that Gerald Bard Tjoflat and James C. Hill both originally were appointed to the federal bench by Richard Nixon and to the appellate court by Gerald Ford. The third, J.L. Edmondson, was appointed first by Ronald Reagan and named chief judge of the 11th Circuit by George W. Bush in 2002.

Let me repeat: One of the Siegelman panelists owes his title as chief judge to George W. Bush--and it's reasonable to assume that Karl Rove played a hand in making that appointment!

Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would raise concerns about the impartiality of this panel.

We specifically noted Judge Tjoflat's ties to Republican strategist Karl Rove:

Perhaps most alarming is the role Tjoflat played in Karl Rove's ascendancy to political prominence. Tjoflat was part of a three-judge panel that weighed in on the 1994 election contest for Alabama Supreme Court chief justice between Republican Perry Hooper Sr. and Democrat Sonny Hornsby.

The panel upheld a lower-court ruling that threw out 1,700 unwitnessed absentee ballots, making Hooper the winner.

Karl Rove was intimately involved in the Hooper/Hornsby race, and his efforts to get Hooper elected under controversial circumstances signaled a sea change in Alabama courts, which once were all Democratic and now lean way to the right.

Rove used his success in the Hooper/Hornsby race as a springboard to national political prominence.

The only way the deck could have been stacked more against Siegelman would have been for the panel to include William Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general who initiated the state investigation of Siegelman. Pryor did that, of course, after winning a campaign that was managed by . . . Karl Rove.

The bottom line? The three-judge panel on the Siegelman/Scrushy appeal has been hopelessly tainted from the outset. In their laziness, the judges show that they gave little consideration to matters of profound importance to the American public.

Siegelman Judgment is Vacated--What Does It Mean?

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning vacated a judgment that upheld the convictions of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy, ordering the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case in light of last week's ruling on honest-services fraud.

What does it all mean? There is no simple answer to that question. But it probably means that Siegelman and Scrushy, the former CEO of HealthSouth, stand a heightened chance of having their convictions overturned. It should mean that Mississippi attorney Paul Minor, and codefendants Wes Teel and John Whitfield, stand a significantly heightened chance of having their convictions overturned. And it means Siegelman supporters probably will want to bone up on a case called Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957).

On the down side, today's Supreme Court finding is, in a sense, a smokescreen. It might lead to long-delayed justice for victims of political prosecutions. But it does not address the real problem--that corrupt federal prosecutors and judges caused this grave injustice to happen.

From a Siegelman standpoint, today's ruling is filled with irony. That's because the 11th Circuit already has overturned the honest-services fraud convictions against him--although those convictions stand against Scrushy.

The issues remaining against Siegelman involve bribery and obstruction of justice. So how could last week's Supreme-Court ruling on honest-services fraud--involving former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling and former media magnate Conrad Black--help Siegelman?

Well, that's where the Yates case enters the picture. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the case in her majority opinion last week. And here is the key general finding in Yates:

Constitutional error occurs when a jury is instructed on alternative theories of guilt and returns a general verdict that may rest on a legally invalid theory.

It's undisputed that the Siegelman jury was instructed on theories involving honest-services fraud. But the U.S. Supreme Court has found that theory now is legally invalid. Yates states that such an instruction, in essence, "muddies the water" of a case and raises issues of constitutional error.

Here is the reference to Yates in Ginsburg's opinion in the Conrad Black case, which is styled Black v. the United States:

On appeal, Defendants urged the invalidity of the jury instructions on honest-services fraud. Under the rule declared by this Court in Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298, 312 (1957), a general verdict may be set aside “where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected.” Relying on that rule, Defendants urged reversal of their mail-fraud convictions.

While this all sounds like good news for Siegelman and Scrushy, here is one major word of caution: Yates is subject to a "harmless error" analysis. In other words, on remand, the 11th Circuit could find that the invalid instruction on honest services did not have a major impact on the verdict. Given that the 11th Circuit already has proven unfriendly to the defendants in the case, that certainly could happen.

Today's finding definitely should be good news for the Minor defendants. That's because their bribery convictions were overturned by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and fraud is the central issue remaining. Based on the Supreme Court's new definition of honest-services fraud, the chances of those verdicts being overturned should be high.

On the down side, however, we do not even know if the Supreme Court will hear the Minor case, and Raw Story reports that a notice is not expected until October. Also, the Fifth Circuit, much like the 11th Circuit in the Siegelman case, already has proven unfriendly to the defendants.

That brings us back to the real issue in these cases: The district courts and circuit courts have acted in an abominably corrupt manner--and yet the Supreme Court keeps remanding issues back to courts that already have proven they can't rule lawfully in these cases.

Today's news is encouraging in the sense that the Siegelman and Minor defendants now stand a better chance of being freed. But they never should have been in prison in the first place. Ethical prosecutors, not under the influence of the corrupt Bush Justice Department, never would have brought these cases. Under the law, there was never any bribery or honest-services fraud from the outset. If prosecutors somehow did manage to bring the cases, ethical district judges would have kicked them out long before they ever reached a jury.

That's not just our opinion, by the way. We have written numerous posts that conclusively show that both the Siegelman and Minor cases were based on unlawful jury instructions and other wrongheaded rulings by the trial judges--Mark Fuller and Henry Wingate, respectively. Here are links to just a couple of many posts that show the convictions in both cases were unlawful:

How the 11th Circuit Cheated Don Siegelman: A Summary

The Paul Minor Ruling: More Evidence of Our Crumbling Justice System

Consider what these defendants have lost while corrupt prosecutors and judges played games with their lives. Just consider this curious timeline from the Siegelman case:

Conviction, June 29, 2006

Sentencing, June 29, 2007

Supreme Court Order, June 29, 2010

How ironic is that? Siegelman and Scrushy have lost four years of their lives--and that doesn't count all of the headaches they went through leading up to the trial. The same general time frame applies to the Minor case, although it has been even worse for those defendants. They had to go through two trials because the first resulted in a hung jury.

Paul Minor, in fact, has now served four years in federal prison. He was not allowed to attend his wife's funeral, nor the wedding of his only son.

All for alleged "crimes" that he did not commit--and, in fact, do not exist under the law. We say that because the Minor defendants were convicted on jury instructions that Judge Henry Wingate pulled out of thin air. They had little, if anything, to do with the actual relevant law.

Today is a step forward for justice in the Siegelman and Minor cases. But when will those responsible for these travesties be held accountable? And how will these defendants ever be made remotely whole?

Until those questions are addressed, justice remains a long way off.