Tommy Edman, the rookie who sparked the St. Louis Cardinals' run to the playoffs.

LF -- Lou Brock
CF -- Curt Flood
1B -- Bill White
3B -- Ken Boyer
C -- Tim McCarver
RF -- Mike Shannon
SS -- Dick Groat (or Dal Maxvill)
2B -- Julian Javier
P -- (Bob Gibson, Ray Sadecki, Curt Simmons, Ray Washburn)

Atatiana Koquice Jefferson

A black woman was shot and killed by a white police officer in her Fort Worth, Texas home after a neighbor called dispatchers to report the woman's front door was open, police said.

The officers were searching the perimeter of the woman's home when they saw a person standing near a window inside and one of them opened fire, killing her, Fort Worth police said.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner identified the woman killed as 28-year-old Atatiana Koquice Jefferson. She died at 2:30 a.m. Saturday in the bedroom of her home.

Hours after the shooting, police released a heavily edited version of the officer's body camera footage. The nearly 2-minute video shows officers walking outside the home with flashlights for a few minutes before one of them yells, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!" and shoots his weapon through a window. (The body-cam footage is embedded at the end of this post. Warning: The sheer stupidity of the officer -- firing his weapon into a home without identifying himself as a cop -- is disturbing.)

"The Fort Worth Police Department is releasing available body camera footage to provide transparent and relevant information to the public as we are allowed within the confines of the Public Information Act and forthcoming investigation," police said.

In a statement, police said the officers entered the home and gave the woman medical treatment, but she died at the scene.

James Smith, Jefferson's neighbor, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he called a non-emergency police number when he saw her doors open and lights on in the early morning hours. He said he knew Jefferson was home with her nephew.

He said he was trying to be a good neighbor and called authorities so they could check on Jefferson.

"I'm shaken. I'm mad. I'm upset. And I feel it's partly my fault," he told the news outlet. "If I had never dialed the police department, she'd still be alive."

Jefferson was playing video games with her nephew when they heard what they believed to be a prowler outside, her relatives’ attorney said. When she went to the window to see what was going on, she was shot, the attorney said.

Police said that the officer, who joined the department in April 2018, saw a person standing inside the house near a window.

“Perceiving a threat, the officer drew his duty weapon and fired one shot striking the person inside the residence,” the department said in a news release. “Officers entered the residence locating the individual and a firearm and began providing emergency medical care.”

Police released photographs of a gun they said that they found in a bedroom at the house. They did not say whether Jefferson was holding the weapon when the officer shot her.

The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest.

The physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed. To be arrested in the home involves not only the invasion attendant to all arrests, but also an invasion of the sanctity of the home, which is too substantial an invasion to allow without a warrant, in the absence of exigent circumstances, even when it is accomplished under statutory authority and when probable cause is present. In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant. 

The reasons for upholding warrantless arrests in a public place, United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598, do not apply to warrantless invasions of the privacy of the home. The common-law rule on warrantless home arrests was not as clear as the rule on arrests in public places; the weight of authority as it appeared to the Framers of the Fourth Amendment was to the effect that a warrant was required for a home arrest, or at the minimum that there were substantial risks in proceeding without one. Although a majority of the States that have taken a position on the question permit warrantless home arrests even in the absence of exigent circumstances, there is an obvious declining trend, and there is by no means the kind of virtual unanimity on this question that was present in United States v. Watson, supra, with regard to warrantless public arrests. And, unlike the situation in Watson no federal statutes have been cited to indicate any congressional determination that warrantless entries into the home are "reasonable."

Forth Worth cop Aaron Dean: Charged with murder in the shooting death of Atatiana Koquice Jefferson

Atatiana Koquice Jefferson

A former Fort Worth officer has been arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson, according to jail and court records. Aaron York Dean, 34, resigned from Fort Worth Police Department on Monday morning. Early Saturday morning, he shot and killed Jefferson, 28, inside her home on Allen Avenue while responding to a call from a neighbor about the front door being open, police said. Dean was listed as an inmate in the Tarrant County Jail as of 6:50 p.m. Monday night, according to records.

Activist Shaun King, who has 1.1 million followers on Twitter, tweeted about Dean’s arrest: "This is a tiny measure of progress.

"This arrest is not justice. It's a half-step toward it, but this county has so many wrongs to get right."

S. Lee Merritt, Jefferson family attorney: "The family of Atatiana Jefferson is relieved that Aaron Dean has been arrested and charged with murder. We need to see this through to a vigorous prosecution and appropriate sentencing. The City of Fort Worth has much work to do to reform a brutal culture of policing."

The Fort Worth officer who shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson likely relied on police training that overemphasized the risk to an officer’s life while ignoring basic patrol guidelines every cop learns, law enforcement experts said Monday.

Jefferson, 28, was at her home in southeast Fort Worth when she was shot around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. She was up late playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when a neighbor — concerned because Jefferson’s door was open and the lights were on — called a non-emergency police number.

When officer Aaron Dean and his partner arrived, they went to the backyard. Dean shot Jefferson through a bedroom window. It appears they did not yell “police” or go to the open front door, according to the snippet of body camera footage released Saturday by the Fort Worth Police Department. Both approaches should have been part of Dean’s training after he joined the department in 2018, the experts said.

Kia Motors Manufacturing of Georgia

Andrea Gogel

Along with millions of Tellurides, Sorrentos and Optimas, the Kia plant in west Georgia has produced an intricate legal dispute that tests the competing rights of human resources officials and the companies they represent.

The case, set to be argued en banc at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Oct. 22, has sparked a debate within the court and drawn the interest of employment lawyers and business groups around the country.

At issue is Andrea Gogel, a human resources director at the company who heard complaints that the company’s Korean executives discriminated against women and Americans. When she came to believe she was a victim herself, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—which soon afterward received two more complaints from Kia employees.

After company executives noticed the same Atlanta law firm represented Gogel and two co-workers who filed claims within a month of her, they fired Gogel for violating her job duties. According to the Eleventh Circuit panel decision, one executive said, she was ”paid to prevent lawsuits,” not encourage them.

[Gogel] worked as a Team Relations Manager at Kia's West Point, Georgia plant. The "overall purpose" of the Team Relations department was to "support an environment of positive team relations." Among her duties were "conducted investigations into policy violations, including attendance issues and allegations of harassment or discrimination." Between the lines, part of Gogel's job was to smooth over differences between the American employees and Korean-national management.

The record evidence in this case demonstrates that Gogel engaged in protected activity and creates a triable issue as to Gogel’s retaliation claim, particularly in light of testimony from decision-maker Randy Jackson that he fired Gogel for encouraging and assisting another employee in filing an EEOC charge. That Gogel’s job responsibilities involved managerial and/or equal employment functions does not alter this conclusion. Indeed, the district court’s narrow focus on this aspect of the record led it to err in analyzing the central issue in this (and any) Title VII case—whether the plaintiff was discriminated against in violation of the statute. See U.S. Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 714 (1983) (“The ‘factual inquiry’ in a Title VII case is ‘whether the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff.’”).

Gogel appealed, and last year an Eleventh Circuit panel agreed with Batten on tossing the gender and national origin claims, but it split 2-1 in favor of reinstating Gogel’s retaliation claim. The full court then agreed to rehear the case.

The fault lines are delineated between the majority decision by Judge Beverly Martin, who was joined by Senior Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit, and the dissent by Senior Judge Julie Carnes of the Eleventh Circuit.

Martin wrote that a 1989 precedent instructed the court to balance the purpose of Title VII and its protection of claimants “against an employer’s legitimate demands for loyalty, cooperation and a generally productive work environment.”

Viewing the facts of the case in light most favorable to Gogel, as required at this stage of a case, Martin held that all Gogel did was provide to a colleague the name of an attorney she was considering hiring for herself. That activity would be protected activity for anyone who wasn’t in human resources, Martin added, and under these circumstances Gogel was protected, too.

Carnes responded in her dissent that a 1980 precedent held that an employee’s opposition to an employer’s actions—in this case, alleged discrimination—isn’t protected when the means by which she expresses that opposition makes her ineffective at her job.

“It is hard to argue that a high-ranking manager whose job duties include working to resolve employee disputes without litigation can be effective in that position if she instead solicits subordinates to sue the company,” Carnes wrote.

J. Randy Jackson

During discovery, Gogel suggested that Kia include several explicit search terms in their e-discovery process. She explained that she had reason to believe such explicit terms would appear in e-mails: "For example, we are aware that Randy Jackson circulated offensive pornographic materials on his computer" while employed with Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Inc. Kia adamantly denied the allegations against Jackson, which ""appear[] to have been included solely to harass [him] and compromise his standing with his current employer." Gogel then subpoenaed Toyota's corporate designee to testify at a deposition in Covington, Kentucky.

1. J. Randy Jackson's complete personnel file and/or other files or compilations of documents, including but not limited to all applications for employment, offer letters, performance appraisals, credentials, resumes, commendations, reprimands, warning letters, correspondence relating to employment, resignation letters, and all other documents contained therein for the time period of 1996 through 2003.

2. Any e-mail sent or forwarded by J. Randy Jackson during his employment with Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TEMA), for the period of 1999 through 2003 that was considered offensive, pornographic in nature or sexual in nature, and/or derogatory towards women.

3. The Separation Notice TEMA filed with the Department of Labor regarding the end of J. Randy Jackson's employment.

4. Any separation agreement or severance agreement between J. Randy Jackson and TEMA.

In his Objections, Jackson maintains that all of the subpoenaed documents are non-discoverable because they have no relevance to Gogel's gender discrimination claims. He notes that the requested emails are over a decade old and pertain to his past employment with Toyota. Although Jackson insists that the emails do not contain sexually explicit material, in the event that they do contain questionable material, he argues that they are still irrelevant because they were sent to a non-employee attorney. Thus, the emails reveal nothing about his attitude towards female employees. Jackson also contends that "[w]hether or not sexual material was sent to a non-employee is not probative of [Gogel's] claims" because her claims involve an entirely different type of conduct. Specifically, Gogel bases her gender discrimination claims on Jackson's alleged failure to promote her and wrongful termination of her employment; there are no allegations of sexual harassment.

Jackson's argument blurs the line between discoverability and admissibility. . . . While material must be discoverable in order to be admissible at trial, it is not necessarily admissible simply because it is discoverable. Discovery must only be reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Through these emails, Gogel seeks to discover whether Jackson engaged in inappropriate behavior during his former employment. She reasons that this information is relevant and discoverable because it illustrates Jackson's attitude about females in the workplace, which allegedly influenced his decision to terminate her employment. With this explanation in mind, the Court cannot conclude that the requested documents are not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Jackson's concerns about the age, origin and context of these emails may very well affect their admissibility in later stages of the litigation, but they are not grounds to bar discovery of these documents altogether.

Jackson also insists that this subpoena is intended to harass and annoy him because it was issued just after the parties' e-discovery dispute. The Court [finds] that the timing of the subpoena is not inherently suspicious. As for Jackson's assertion that releasing these documents will harm his reputation with Kia, the Court finds these concerns to be overstated as well. As Jackson's current employer, Kia "already knows — or reasonably should already know — [his] employment record with Toyota.". Thus, the potential harm to Jackson does not outweigh Gogel's need for these documents and their relevance to her claims. Having conducted its in camera review, and after balancing the required factors of relevance, need, confidentiality and harm, the Court concludes that 32 of the 117 pages of email correspondence are discoverable under the applicable standard.

The murder arrest warrant for a white officer who shot and killed a black woman on Saturday says that the victim was holding a gun after she heard noises outside her window.

But holding a gun inside your home is not illegal in Texas, and the former police officer who shot her was arrested on Monday.

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said on Monday that the gun was irrelevant to the investigation. In Texas, homeowners have a right to be armed on their own property, Price said.

A witness, the woman’s 8-year-old nephew, told a forensic interviewer that after Atatiana Jefferson heard noises outside their home and thought there might be a prowler in the back yard, she reached into her purse, grabbed a handgun and pointed it toward the window, the warrant said.

At a press conference Tuesday, Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus said it made sense that Jefferson had a gun if she felt threatened by an unknown person being in her yard.

He called Dean’s actions inexcusable.

The Fort Worth officer who shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson likely relied on police training that overemphasized the risk to an officer’s life while ignoring basic patrol guidelines every cop learns, law enforcement experts said Monday.

Jefferson, 28, was at her home in southeast Fort Worth when she was shot around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. She was up late playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when a neighbor — concerned because Jefferson’s door was open and the lights were on — called a non-emergency police number.

When officer Aaron Dean and his partner arrived, they went to the backyard. Dean shot Jefferson through a bedroom window. It appears they did not yell “police” or go to the open front door, according to the snippet of body camera footage released Saturday by the Fort Worth Police Department. Both approaches should have been part of Dean’s training after he joined the department in 2018, the experts said.

Jefferson’s death shows that overall police training in the United States hasn’t changed much, said Johnny Nhan, a criminal justice professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Police academies and departments focus their initial and subsequent training on the fact that officers can be hurt or killed at any time, said Nhan, who studies police use of force.

Aaron Dean was booked into the Tarrant County Jail Monday, Oct. 14, 2019. He resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department after he fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in her home Oct. 12.(Tarrant County Jail)

“It focuses on the risk, officer safety. To not get killed and go home,” he said. “Whenever you have someone just out of the police academy, they have a very heightened sense of danger and risk.”

Nhan said that although policing is inherently dangerous, officers tend to go into situations feeling their lives are constantly in danger.

He compared Jefferson’s death to the September 2018 shooting of Botham Jean in Dallas. . . .

Amber Guyger was off-duty but still in her Dallas police uniform in September 2018 when she entered Botham Jean's apartment and shot him while he watched football on TV. She told jurors that she thought his apartment was her own and that she mistook Jean for a burglar. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this month for murdering Jean.

“That’s their default mentality: ‘Something is wrong and I need to prepare for it,’” said Nhan, who has written a book calledIssues and Controversies in Policing Today.

Jefferson was the sixth person shot and killed since June by Fort Worth officers. Jefferson was black, and Dean is white.

The Fort Worth police department is 63% white, 21% Hispanic and 12% black, according to data released by the city in June. The city is more diverse, according to 2018 census data. Fort Worth is about 40% white, 35% Hispanic and 19% black.

Law enforcement officers in the United States have shot and killed 709 people in 2019 as of Monday afternoon, according to a database kept by The Washington Post.

Texas officers killed 79 (11%) of those people as of Thursday. Only seven were women. Overall, nine were black, 18 were Hispanic, 21 were white and the race is unknown for 31.

According to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, Dean underwent training classes for crisis intervention, a refresher on using less lethal options, and courses on cultural diversity and on conflict resolution in the past several months.

Craig Miller, a former Dallas police deputy chief who testifies in cases about police use of force, said it appeared Dean fired his weapon into the house through a window very quickly after arriving and yelling for those inside to show their hands.

“Those commands are pretty quick,” he said. “They almost came at the same time as the shooting.”

Miller said that it appears from the body camera footage that there was no reason for the Fort Worth officer to act so quickly. (The footage is embedded at the beginning of this post.)

“He had time on his side,” Miller said. “He could have moved more slowly with this.”

Miller said Dean is likely to say that he fired into the window because he feared for his life. Using deadly force for that reason is a defense to a murder charge. If the case goes to trial, a jury will decide whether a “reasonable officer” would have acted similarly, Miller said.

When Miller was with DPD, he oversaw investigations into police shootings and typically went to the location where they occurred along with his detectives. He recently consulted with the defense team for Guyger, the Dallas officer serving a prison sentence for killing Jean.

Miller said if he were investigating this shooting, he would want to see the house during daylight to compare with the lighting officers saw that night. He’d also want to trace what happened in the lives of both Jefferson and the officer to get a better idea of their state of mind before the shooting.

Miller said it’s also important to know what the officer knew about the neighborhood and that particular call before the shooting, as well as what other calls he had answered and if he’d been involved in prior shootings.

Despite the months of training officers go through, how it applies in the field depends on each scenario.

Former Dallas police Officer Vana Hammond Parham, who spoke about race and policing at the Texas Tribune Festival last month, said she spent several months under the supervision of a senior corporal when she was a rookie officer. During that time, she was evaluated at different phases on what was done well and what needed improvement.

“In the world, things are fluid. They are not black and white,” Hammond Parham said.

She said trainers always stressed the importance of identifying yourself as law enforcement when responding to calls.

Hammond Parham said a wellness check call — typically a low priority — is different than a call about a so-called “open structure,” meaning a home or other building with doors and or windows open.

“It’s usually someone calling saying, ‘Something doesn’t seem right. Can you check it out?'” she said.

But officers would approach an open-structure call differently, she said.

The officer will need to search the building and make sure there are no threats, she said. It’s not uncommon for an officer to have their weapons out, but she said identification is very important with those calls.

“The first thing we do is announce ourselves because you don’t know who is in there,” she said.

Kraus, the Fort Worth police chief, said the officers were not aware the call originated out of concern for Jefferson’s welfare. They were told it was an “open structure” call. The chief said it would be typical for officers to announce themselves on a welfare check, but not if they thought the incident might involve a criminal situation.

Reynold Verret, the president of Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically black college from which Jefferson graduated in 2014 with a biology degree, said in a statement that there is “an urgent need to fix a law enforcement system that is broken.”

Verret said that while many officers fulfill their duty to their communities, the system does not serve everyone equally.

“We should expect safety when we call on our police, whose mission is to protect and serve,” Verret said. “Sadly, our fathers and mothers must caution daughters and sons on their interactions with officers. Families in our communities hesitate to call on their protectors out of fear they will be killed. This should not be.”

(From NPR)

Hours before the first federal trial in the opioid epidemic was set to begin, four pharmaceutical companies reached a settlement totaling $260 million.

The four companies -- McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. -- reached a settlement Monday morning with the two plaintiffs, Summit and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio. McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. will pay out a combined $215 million immediately, and Teva Pharmaceutical will pay $20 million, officials said at a press conference Monday. . . .

The defendants were supposed to appear in a Cleveland court Monday in the first federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) trial involving the opioid epidemic. Thousands more plaintiffs' cases are awaiting trial.

The nation's response to the deadly opioid epidemic has been broadly bipartisan, but deep divides have emerged over a settlement plan offered last month by Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin.

Democratic state attorneys general have generally panned the deal, which would force Purdue's owners, members of the Sackler family, to give up control of their company while paying roughly $3 billion in cash from their personal fortunes.

So far, only two Democratic attorneys general nationwide have backed the plan, with more than 20 rejecting it.

Republican attorneys general, meanwhile, have mostly embraced the structured bankruptcy plan. They say the deal isn't perfect but it would get money to communities fast.

NPR found that much of the political pressure faced by Republican AGs who pursued opioid litigation has come from one highly influential conservative: Luther Strange.

He's a former US Senator from Alabama who served as that state's Republican attorney general. He also led the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) until 2017.

Strange didn't respond to NPR's repeated requests for an interview but, over the last year, he emerged as a prominent critic of opioid lawsuits.

He objects to state attorneys general hiring outside law firms to help sue Big Pharma. He also argues that AGs who use so-called "public nuisance" claims to hold companies accountable set a dangerous legal precedent, expanding liability for companies accused of harming the public.

"I've written on this recently because it is a blooming problem and issue around the country," Strange said at a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in June.

He predicted the public nuisance legal arguments now being used against opioid defendants like Purdue Pharma "will be used against almost any other broad social issue."

NPR has learned that while Luther Strange was championing conservative arguments against opioid lawsuits, he was also working behind the scenes as a paid attorney for members of the Sackler family.

According to a source with detailed knowledge of the matter, Strange represented his clients at a gathering of the Republican Attorneys General Association in West Virginia over the summer, where he worked to convince AGs to accept Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy plan.

Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James subpoenaed 33 financial institutions with ties to the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. The subpoenas are tied to James’ effort to track billions of dollars the family allegedly transferred out of Purdue Pharma to hide profits before the company declares bankruptcy, The New York Times and other media reported.

The findings announced on Friday come from only one of the financial institutions that responded to the subpoenas, the Times said.

The attorney general’s office said it found about $1 billion in wire transfers by the Sackler family, some of which went through Swiss bank accounts.

“While the Sacklers continue to low ball victims and skirt a responsible settlement, we refuse to allow the family to misuse the courts in an effort to shield their financial misconduct. The limited number of documents provided to us so far underscore the necessity for compliance with every subpoena,” James said in a statement.

Jeannine Dorroh

We’ve created seven drugs that are helping win the war on cancer. More are on the way. When HIV threatened the world’s future, we helped develop a course of treatment that changed the course of history. We’re creating better ways for you to have cleaner air and water. Our technologies help men and women in uniform remain safe overseas. We’re developing methods to build energy efficient cars out of plant fiber that will get 80 mpg. We are Southern Research. We’re taking on the world’s hardest problems. And solving them. This has been our mission since 1941.

And we’re just getting started.

Founded in 1941, Southern Research (SR) is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, scientific research organization with more than 400 scientists and engineers working across four divisions: Drug Discovery, Drug Development, Engineering, and Energy and  Environment. SR supports the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, defense, aerospace, environmental, and energy industries as we work on behalf of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, major aerospace firms, utility companies, and other private and government organizations. We pursue entrepreneurial and collaborative initiatives to develop and maintain a pipeline of intellectual property and innovative technologies that positively impact real-world problems. SR is headquartered in Birmingham with additional laboratories and offices in Wilsonville, Alabama; Frederick, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina; Cartersville, Georgia; and Houston, Texas.

* We’re developing 18 drugs to combat various forms of cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, kidney disease, Parkinson’s and tuberculosis, among others.

* We’ve developed 20 other drugs, including seven FDA-approved cancer drugs—a number rivaling any other U.S. research institute.

* We’re developing new medical devices.

* We’re helping to launch manned missions to Mars.

* We’re making the air and water cleaner here on Earth.

* We’re helping to keep the men and women of our military safe from harm.

Roger Shuler (RS): Apparently, the officer went to see [McGarity] first, and he claims I hit him . . .

Jeannine Dorroh (JD): I did not see that.

RS: That's because it didn't happen.

JD: I saw him hit you in the back of head with a sign. [Actually, the blow landed on my upper back.]

RS: I don't know if you know the Shelby County Courthouse is a mess. This guy has trespassed against us, and he admitted it, but was found not guilty and turned around and sued us. Judges in Shelby County are so corrupt it boggles the mind. That's why I'm hesitant about what to do. But the fact there is an eyewitness . . .

JD: The officer said it's your word against his, so he wanted to get my account of it.

RS: I just happened to see your license plate as I was walking away. [McGarity went to] a couple of cars in front of you, and he said, "You didn't see that."

JD: My window was up when he said that, but as you were walking away, I heard you say, "You saw that?" and I said yes.

RS; I guess you would be willing to testify . . . ?

JD: I gave my account, and I wouldn't go back on that, of course not.

RS: He's claiming I hit him with a sign, and I didn't even have a sign in my hand.

JD: I did not see that at all. If someone asked if I saw you hit him, I would have to say no because I did not see that.

RS: I had what I call a weed whacker in my hands. I didn't touch him with anything. I was walking away, if I had hit him, I'd be running away.

JD: I just happened to be driving by at that time, and talked to the police officer, and he took down my statement.

RS: I appreciate you being honest and talking with me.

JD: I Hope you are OK.

RS: My back is sore, and it drew blood. But I'll be fine.

Hope Johnson

A jury in Opelika, Alabama, awarded $9 million to the family of a young woman who died after being prescribed birth control pills that led to the development of a blood clot in her lung.

A screening prior to her receiving the medication revealed that Hope Johnson had a genetic predisposition for blood clots, but the obstetrician-gynecologist prescribed the pills anyway. When Johnson became ill a couple of weeks later, a doctor at an Auburn urgent care facility at first diagnosed her with bronchitis and prescribed an antibiotic. She returned two days later complaining of sharp chest pains, and another doctor—who was on his first day working at the center and unable to access its electronic records—prescribed an inhaler.

Johnson died the next day of a massive pulmonary embolism. The Auburn University student was 20 years old.

In an unusual twist, Turnbull said Urgent Care and Bednarski were represented by counsel, but Willis was left to represent himself. The discovery that Willis would appear pro se “was one of the most vexing moments of my career,” said Turnbull, who tried the case with filing attorneys Leila H. Watson and Nina Herring, his former colleagues at Cory Watson in Birmingham.

“[Willis] had the full ability to participate; he made opening and closing statements; he had the ability to call witnesses; … he was given as fair a shake as possible,” Turnbull said.

Because Alabama does not have an apportionment statute, Turnbull said he didn’t think the issue of representation would matter as far as collecting the judgment.

“We have joint and several liability in Alabama, so all three defendants are responsible,” he said.

According to Turnbull and court filings, Johnson consulted with OB/GYN Kerri Hensarling at Lee Obstetrics and Gynecology in October 2014 about getting birth control pills.

“Her mom went with her. She has a history of blood clots and realized there may have been a genetic issue,” he said.

A blood test came back positive for a Factor V Leiden mutation, but court filings said staffers incorrectly interpreted the result as normal, which is what Johnson was told.

She began taking the pills that November, and on Dec. 1 she went to Urgent Care complaining of shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, headache and sore throat. She told Bednarski that she was taking birth control pills but did not report the blood clotting issue because she was unaware of it, according to plaintiff’s filings.

She was diagnosed with “possible pneumonia and bronchitis,” said Turnbull, and prescribed an antibiotic.

When she returned two days later she “was much worse, experiencing chest pain and extreme shortness of breath” resulting from “any activity.”

Willis ordered blood work and found that Johnson had an elevated white blood count and prescribed an inhaler. She died Dec. 4, 2014.

Johnson’s mother and executor, Cortney Johnson, filed suit in Lee County Circuit Court in 2016.

Turnbull said he was not at liberty to discuss any settlement demands or offers, and the case went to trial Oct. 7 before Judge Jacob Walker III.

At trial, Turnbull said the defense argued that the doctors responded reasonably to the symptoms Johnson displayed and had no way of knowing about the predisposition for blood clots, pointing to the dismissed co-defendants who misread the test results as the culprits.

“Our position was that they hired Dr. Willis to come in on his first day, at the busiest and most popular Urgent Care facility, in December—the height of flu season—and he got behind,” said Turnbull.

He said there was some effort to argue that Willis may not have even examined Johnson.

“They said, ‘Oh, it’s a big mystery, maybe we didn’t even see her,’” Turnbull said. “They took her vitals and gave her a prescription. I actually got angry at that defense.”

In closing, Turnbull said he asked the jury to award $9 million in damages.

“I said it was a symbol that Hope’s life matters, that her death matters; that the tools of the law in Alabama should be used to deter similar conduct in this community,” he said.

The jury took about 1½ hours to award exactly that amount on Oct. 11, Turnbull said.

My mugshot after Alabama cops beat me up in my own home and hauled me for a five-month stay in jail -- all for practicing investigative journalism.

House Republicans storm a secure deposition room in the U.S. Capitol

“House rules and committee rules allow the Intel committee to close hearings and other meetings behind closed doors,” said George Washington University political science professor Sarah Binder. “The House — and its committees — adopt their rules by majority vote at the start of each Congress.”

As agreed upon, House rules limit the members who are able to participate in the impeachment inquiry’s closed-door interviews. Because these interviews are classified as “depositions,” only the members and staff of the relevant committees are able to attend them.

“These are regulations for the conduct of depositions that extend beyond the impeachment inquiry and were established before the impeachment inquiry began,” Brookings Institute’s Molly Reynolds told Vox. . . .

In addition to Republicans’ breach of House deposition rules, members who brought their cellphones into the secure space were violating the protocol on SCIFs, which individuals are not able to enter with such devices. Ultimately, as Politico reports, the House sergeant at arms — a law enforcement official based in the Capitol — arrived at the SCIF and conducted a sweep for surveillance devices because of this breach.

Keith Wildhaber

Scott Harrison

[Last] Friday, a St. Louis County jury awarded $19 million dollars to a St. Louis County police sergeant who said the department repeatedly passed him over for promotions because he is gay.

Sgt. Keith Wildhaber filed a lawsuit against the St. Louis County Police Department in 2017 in which he claims he was told he should “tone down [his] gayness” if he ever wanted to be promoted to lieutenant.

Wildhaber has worked for the police department since 1994. The lawsuit details dozens of times where Wildhaber was passed over for a promotion despite positive feedback about his work performance.

The lawsuit details an incident in 2014 when Sgt. Wildhaber spoke to John Saracino, a member of the St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners at the time, about his application for a promotion.

“The command staff has a problem with your sexuality. If you ever want to see a white shirt [i.e. get a promotion], you should tone down your gayness,” the lawsuit reads.

The discrimination lawsuit went to trial [last] week and on Friday, a jury awarded Wildhaber nearly $20 million. Multiple officers and Chief John Belmar took the stand in the trial. Now there are calls for changes in leadership in the police department.

The week-long trial, which ended Friday, included testimony about several times Sgt. Keith Wildhaber was denied a promotion, about the use of demeaning, homophobic terms to refer to him, as well as the retaliation he faced, after filing a complaint.

Additionally, accounts from fellow department employees, who were witnesses to the discrimination he faced, made for a lively and dramatic Hollywood-like trial.

In about three hours of deliberation, the jury sided with Wildhaber on both the discrimination and retaliation counts. It awarded him $1.9 million in actual damages, and $10 million in punitive damages on the discrimination allegation; as well as $999,000 in actual damages and $7 million in punitive damages for the retaliation allegations.

“We wanted to send a message,” juror No. 4 said of the verdict, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch“If you discriminate you are going to pay a big price. … You can’t defend the indefensible.”

Wildhaber said he was passed over a promotion 23 times. After he filed an EEOC complaint, he alleges he was retaliated against and transferred to another, less desirable precinct.

“Defendant believes plaintiff’s behavior, mannerisms, and/or appearance do not fit the stereotypical norms of what a ‘male’ should be,” the lawsuit read.

In the trial, Dana Woodland, the girlfriend of an St. Louis police officer, corroborated his story, saying that he was referred to as “fruity” by police Capt. Guy Means in 2015, and added that Means told her that Wildhaber would never get a promotion because he was “way too out there with his gayness and he needed to tone it down if he wanted a white shirt.,” a term that refers to a higher position in the force.

Means testified Thursday claiming he didn’t even know Woodland, and said that he didn’t recall attending the 2015 event, when he had supposedly used the derogatory term to refer to Wildhaber.

The following day, in a scene that could’ve been written to a clichéd court drama, Woodland produced a set of three pictures showing Means and Woodland posing for a photo booth shoot, taken at a St. Louis County Police Welfare fund-raiser, where the two can be seen smiling and hugging.

Riggan told the jurors, “[Means] blatantly perjured himself.… How credible are the rest of their witnesses? You don’t think they sent other people in here to lie? They will stop at nothing to bury this case.”

Harrison's false statement under oath is one of several such statements cop-witnesses for the state made in Carol's trial. But Harrison's is the one we can prove -- right this minute, with no additional investigation or discovery -- is perjurious. Other deputies' sketchy statements generally were inconsistent -- their trial testimony differed from written statements in incident reports -- so it would take some research to determine what might rise to the level of perjury. Either way, they apparently committed perjury or filed false police reports, both of which are crimes. 

At least one statement from Harrison -- the deputy who burst into our apartment and pointed an assault rifle at my head during an unlawful eviction in September 2015 -- leaves no doubt. This is from page 3 of Judge Jerry Harmison Jr.'s judgment in Carol's case: (The judgment and Carol's Motion to Vacate Judgment That Was Procured by Fraud, Perjury, etc. are embedded at the end of this post.)

Harrison stated he initially focused on Roger Shuler once the front door was open because Roger Shuler had called and expressed threats to law enforcement on August 12, 2015.

We have recorded evidence that Harrison's statement is false, and we presented that evidence in a recent post, with more relevant posts to come. (The video/audio is embedded at the end of this post.)

We review a district court’s sua sponte dismissal for failure to effect service under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m) for an abuse of discretion. Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 738 (11th Cir. 2010) (per curiam). “We affirm unless we find that the district court has made a clear error of judgment, or has applied the wrong legal standard.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Without addressing the merits of the appeal, we reverse the district court’s dismissal because it should have effectuated service for the Shulers, who had IFP status. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(c)(3), the district court must order that service be made by either a United States marshal, a deputy marshal, or by any person specially appointed by the court when the litigant is proceeding under IFP status.

REVERSED.

Alexander Vindman

Roger Shuler mugshot after "arrest for blogging"

Top Democrats at the deposition of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, said his testimony Tuesday was “extremely disturbing” and praised him for appearing despite attacks from the White House.

The closed-door deposition before House impeachment investigators lasted more than 10 hours.

Once it concluded, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters that he hopes Vindman's example of patriotism "will be emulated by others."

Schiff said that he was "deeply appalled" by attacks made against Vindman on Fox News Tuesday night.

"The suggestion that because he's of Ukrainian origin, that he has some dual royalty...this purple heart recipient deserved better than that scandalous attack," Schiff said.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's broken arm.

Regarding reported attempts by GOP lawmakers to get Vindman to reveal the whistleblower's identity, Schiff said that Trump would love to "punish" the whistleblower. He also said the president's comments and actions have "jeopardized the whistleblower's safety."

"The President's allies would like nothing better than to help the president out this whistleblower. Our committee will not be a part of that. We will not stand for that," he said. "They have the right to remain anonymous. They certainly should not be subject to these kind of vicious attacks and other words and actions that threaten their safety for doing their patriotic duty," he said about whistleblowers.

Wasserman Schutlz said the Republicans present for the deposition were trying to get Vindman to reveal the identity of the whistleblower.

"What the Republicans are trying to do very clearly in their questioning is try to front door or back door Lt. Col. Vindman into revealing who the whistleblower is, even though in his testimony he says he doesn't he didn't know," she said.

"They've been unsuccessful," she added.

Leaving the deposition, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said that he was concerned that Republicans in the room were trying to out the identity of the whistleblower, which caused a tense moment between Swalwell and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.

"My concern inside the room is that you know there, there’s an intent to out the whistleblower, and you know risk that person's life which is why we're trying to protect them," he said. "And that's what the quote, unquote tense moment was about."

Deutsche Bank in Jacksonville, FL

Gerald Bard Tjoflat

Jeffrey Epstein used Deutsche Bank since 2013 to move millions of dollars through dozens of accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal, and while the embattled German bank is cooperating with federal investigators, it took months for the bank to close Epstein’s accounts and flag suspicious activity. . . .

The Epstein fallout is the latest gut punch for Deutsche Bank. In addition to laying off 18,000 employees by 2022, the bank is cooperating with two federal investigations: one on Trump’s financial ties to Russia and the other for money laundering.

Around 170 police officers and other officials seized documents during searches through six different properties Thursday, including one employee’s home, according to authorities.

The raid was a visible sign of mounting legal problems for the German lender, which has faced a string of allegations and costly legal settlements tied to failures to prevent money laundering and other banking violations.

Thursday morning, police vehicles lined up outside Deutsche Bank’s central Frankfurt headquarters, and German federal police and other officers crowded into the lobby of the high-rise towers. Officers soon filtered upstairs onto other floors of the bank to search records, a person inside the bank said. . . .

The probe includes two unidentified Deutsche Bank employees aged 50 and 46 and other unidentified employees suspected of helping clients create offshore entities in tax havens, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The person who works in the financial crime-fighting division remained an employee Thursday, the people familiar with the matter said.

Deutsche Bank confirmed the investigation. Both the bank and prosecutors said it is related to the Panama Papers, a trove of records revealed by a consortium of journalists in 2016 tied to a Panamanian law firm that specialized in offshore holding companies.

House Democrats gearing up for fresh investigations into President Donald Trump's businesses and money laundering involving Russia are setting their sights on the German lender Deutsche Bank.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said his committee would be working alongside House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters to probe the bank, a major lender to the Trump Organization. Both chairs had previously signaled interest in Deutsche Bank while they were still in the House minority. . . .

Deutsche Bank has been of interest to lawmakers because it is one of the few big banks that has been willing to lend to the Trump Organization. Trump businesses have borrowed over $300 million for a Florida golf course and hotels in Chicago and Washington, according to financial disclosures and public filings from 2012 to 2015.

Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has also disclosed an unsecured line of credit from the bank ranging between $5 million to $25 million that he's shared with his mother since 2015.

Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump

President Donald Trump and other top 2016 Trump campaign officials repeatedly privately discussed how the campaign could get access to stolen Democratic emails WikiLeaks had in 2016, according to newly released interview notes from Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation.

CNN sued the Justice Department for access to Mueller's witness interview notes, and this weekend's release marks the first publicly available behind-the-scenes look at Mueller's investigative work outside of court proceedings and the report itself. Per a judge's order, the Justice Department will continue to release new tranches of the Mueller investigative notes monthly to CNN and Buzzfeed News, which also sued for them.

A retelling of events from former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, who served alongside campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is the fullest detail revealed by the Justice Department yet on discussions within the Trump campaign as it pursued damaging information about its Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. The documents were stolen by the Russians, the American intelligence community has found.

"Flynn had the most Russia contacts of anyone on the campaign and was in the best position to ask for the emails if they were out there," the investigators also wrote about Gates' interview.

Gates described in an interview with Mueller investigators last year how several close advisers to Trump, Trump's family members and Trump himself considered how to get the stolen documents and pushed the effort, according to investigators' summary. "Gates said Donald Trump Jr. would ask where the emails were in family meetings. Michael Flynn, [Jared] Kushner, [Paul] Manafort, [Redacted] [Corey] Lewandowski, Jeff Sessions, and Sam Clovis expressed interest in obtaining the emails as well. Gates said the priority focuses of the Trump campaign opposition research team were Clinton's emails and contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Flynn, [Redacted] [Jeff] Sessions, Kushner, and [Donald] Trump Jr. were all focused on opposition topics," Gates told investigators, according to the interview summary.

Paul Manafort was pushing the unfounded conspiracy theory — now part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump — that Ukraine hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails as early as 2016.

The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, "had to keep Trump out of the messaging related to Russia” in preparation for his testimony to Congress under oath and that the false testimony was "not his idea."

Top Trump campaign aide Rick Gates said the campaign was “very happy” when a foreign government helped release the hacked DNC emails.

These are some of the revelations that BuzzFeed News pried loose after pursuing five separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for all the subpoenas and search warrants that then–special counsel Robert Mueller’s team executed, as well as all the emails, memos, letters, talking points, legal opinions, and interview transcripts it generated.

In response to a court order, the Justice Department released the first installment of documents: hundreds of pages of summaries of FBI interviews with witnesses, available here for the first time. Another installment will be released every month for at least the next eight years.

The documents revealed Saturday, known as “302 reports,” are summaries of interviews with former White House official and Trump campaign manager Stephen Bannon, Cohen, Gates, and more. They are some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from Mueller’s investigation. They reveal what key players in the campaign told FBI agents about Russia, Trump, the email hack during the 2016 presidential campaign, and Trump's associates’ handling of the special counsel’s investigation.

Mueller’s 448-page report last March was the most hotly anticipated prosecutorial document in a generation, laying out the evidence of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry. The report, however, reflected only a small fraction of the billions of primary-source documents that the government claims Mueller’s team may have amassed over the course of its two-year investigation.

Those documents are a crucial national legacy, a key to understanding this important chapter in American history. But the public has not been allowed to see any of them. Until now.

It turns out BuzzFeed isn’t the only one who’s managed to get its hands on memos from the Robert Mueller investigation today. Even as BuzzFeed is exposing that the Republican National Committee was at least indirectly conspiring with WikiLeaks on the release of stolen DNC emails, CNN is revealing that Donald Trump himself was directly in on the plot to illegally obtain the stolen emails.

Trump 2016 Deputy Campaign Chairman Rick Gates testified to Mueller that he heard Donald Trump say “get the emails” to his team. Michael Flynn responded that he could try to obtain the emails from his Russian intel sources, and Trump did nothing to discourage this offer. Knowingly receiving stolen goods is a felony, so this proves that Donald Trump criminally conspired to obtain the stolen DNC emails. Worse, Trump entered into a criminal conspiracy to obtain the emails from Russia.

We all saw Trump stand there on the debate stage and publicly ask Russia to obtain and release Hillary Clinton’s emails – but he’s since tried to play this off as a joke. Now it turns out Trump really was trying to criminally conspire with Russia behind the scenes to obtain stolen emails during the 2016 election cycle.

This FOIA treasure trove of Mueller memos comes even as House Democrats are fighting in court to obtain the full unredacted Mueller report so it can be used in the impeachment process against Donald Trump. While it’s shocking and outrageous that Mueller uncovered proof of Trump’s guilt and it never saw the light of day until now, the timing nonetheless works well for the impeachment process.

Thanks to newly granted FOIA requests on the part of CNN and BuzzFeed, we’re getting a look . . . at the first batch of internal memos from the Robert Mueller probe. These stunning memos reveal that Donald Trump, his campaign, and the Republican National Committee were conspiring with Russia and WikiLeaks on a level far deeper than anyone knew.

For instance, it turns out Donald Trump instructed his team to obtain the stolen DNC emails, and Michael Flynn then told Trump that he would use his Russian intel contacts to try to obtain them. The Republican National Committee also had advance knowledge of when WikiLeaks was going to release new batches of stolen DNC emails.

These are the kinds of felonies that send people to prison for a very long time. Robert Mueller had all of this information dating back to when Rick Gates cut his plea deal in February of 2018 – and yet nothing came of it. This was long before Bill Barr came on the scene. We don’t know if Mueller put prosecutions in motion that were later shut down by Barr, or if those prosecutions are still underway, or if Mueller just didn’t do anything.

We do know that Robert Mueller apparently ended up including all of this damning evidence in his final report, which he expected would make its way to Congress. By that time Barr was in charge, and he redacted the most incriminating parts of the report. Now it’s finally starting to come out, and it should play a key role in impeachment. But now more than ever, we deserve answers on why Mueller was sitting on a goldmine of information that could have sent Donald Trump and dozens of other people to prison forever, and nothing came of it. Did Mueller simply fail us, or was Mueller’s work sabotaged on a criminal level?

There is no doubt that the knobs of gaslighting were switched to “high” when new Attorney General William Barr — also known as Trump’s Roy Cohn — arrived at the Justice Department in February. Under Barr’s thumb, Mueller appeared newly pressed to quickly wrap things up. The end of his investigation came with a weeks-long delay before his actual report — a vacuum that was filled with Barr’s Trump-serving four-page memo with his own conclusions that there was no obstruction of justice and no collusion with Russia. Barr even staged a press conference hours ahead of the actual report with misleading spin on what was in it.

In the end — as the memos dropped on Saturday reveal — the Mueller report was not the definitive word on what happened with Trump, Russia and the tainted 2016 election. Rather, it was a series of not-always-great prosecutorial decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out, and what conclusions to make of it all — reached by an iconic-but-fading prosecutor no longer on top of his game, under relentless pressure from a justice apparatus that has been politicized and warped by the president and his Cohn-like hatchet man.

What’s telling is that Mueller’s impotent testimony before Congress came just one day before Trump’s extortionist phone call with Ukraine’s Zelensky — suggesting the presidential beatdown on the Mueller probe had inspired the delusion that he was now untouchable. The next few months on Capitol Hill will prove whether Trump was actually right — and if he was right, you can kiss goodbye to the United States of America.

Interestingly, the new Mueller info came just a day after an interview in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to confound expectations that she plans to limit the Trump impeachment probe to Ukraine and nothing more.

“What we’re talking about now is taking us into a whole other class of objection to what the president has done. And there may be other — there were 11 obstruction of justice provisions in the Mueller report. Perhaps some of them will be part of this,” Pelosi told Bloomberg Television. “But again, that will be part of the inquiry, to see where we go.”

This is a tough call, because every day that Donald Trump remains in the Oval Office is a danger to America and the world. But it’s increasingly clear that the speediest narrow impeachment — one confined solely to his Ukraine dealings while ignoring the naked corruption of obstructing the Mueller probe and his efforts to become president through lawbreaking, either through stolen emails or hush money, and then use his office to line his own pockets — would be a terrible mistake.

That’s because — as noted earlier — the real scandal of Trump’s presidency is his amoral and narcissistic willingness to do any and all things that are terrible for the country but are good for his own personal power and ambition. The symptoms of that corrupt disease played out on a global canvas from Kyiv to Trump’s golf resort in Scotland to the corridors of the Justice Department. If we don’t make it clear that no president is above the law — all of the laws, including obstruction of justice and the Emoluments Clause — then we will only be setting the stage for a future president who will be even more dangerous than Donald Trump.

Judge Carole Smitherman

Burt Newsome

Smitherman approved over $192,000 in redacted attorney fees against Burt Newsome. In other words, Newsome and his legal team were given bills that were blacked-out, they couldn’t read, and then told to pay up. . . .

This is more than a miscarriage of justice against Newsome.

This is a horn, a loud horn exposing to the world what unconscionable and unsavory depths to which Balch and Bingham and its stooges will allegedly go to destroy the rule of law and to carry on an arrogant march of defiance with impunity.

I. Date: 7/26/17

A. Payments to Smithermans: Judge Smitherman's husband receives $2,500 from Alabama Power PAC -- then run by former Balch partner Alexia Bolden.

B. Act, Oder, or Context: Smitherman grants Balch's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's complaint 29 days before the scheduled hearing on the motion.


II. Date: 8/31/17

A. Payments to Smithermans: Judge Smitherman's husband receives $2,500 from Hare, Wynn, Newell Newton -- the attorneys for, and employer of, a witness adverse to Newsome. First money ever from Hare Wynn to Rodger Smitherman.

B. Act, Order, or Context: Judge Smitherman orders the entire case file be sealed at Balch's request. Judge Smitherman's husband starts attending closed-door, sealed hearings on this case, inside his wife's courtroom.


III. Date:  11/1/17

A. Payments to Smithermans: NEWPAC, run by former Balch attorney Clark Fine, provides its first ever $5,000 to Judge Smitherman's husband.

B. Act, Order, or Context: Balch files Motion for Attorney Fee Award against Newsome.


IV. Date: 11/16/17

A. Payments to Smithermans: BIPAC, also run by former Balch attorney Clark Fine, provides $5,000 to Judge Smitherman's husband.

B. Act, Order, or Context: Judge Smitherman denies Plaintiff's Motion to Stay Case Pending a Ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court on the "Order" that was Never Entered into the SJIS.


V. Date: 12/4/17

A. Payments to Smithermans: NEWPAC, run by former Balch attorney Clark Fine, provides a second $5,000 to Judge Smitherman's husband. He does not report the contribution until 4/4/18 on his campaign-finance report.

B. Act. Order, or Context: Balch files Motion to Disallow the Testimony of (Robert) Serrett and (John) Manning, showing a single phone number that appears to tie the Balch conspirators together was from a pre-paid "burner" cell phone. The number is (205) 410-1494.


VI. Date: 2/6/18

A. Payments to Smithermans: Andrew Campbell enters the case as counsel for Balch and gives his first ever $2,000 to Judge Smitherman.

B: Act, Order or Context: Balch files its objection to Newsome's Renewed Motion to Stay Case Pending a Ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court on the "Order" that was Never Entered Into the SJIS.

The [Balch] assertions that Judge Smitherman needed campaign contributions, as judges are forced to run in "partisan elections" is inpplicable to the case at bar as neither Judge Smitherman nor her husband had any opposition in their respective races, the contributions were made while motions were pending and at critical times in the case, they were made by numerous entities who had never contributed to the Smithermans before this case, and the contributions were substantial. Also, the appearance of State Senator Rodger Smitherman at multiple sealed hearings in the case after he had received substantial sums from entities associated with the Appellees/Defendants creates an even further impression of bias and improprieties. 

Since his brother Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a New York federal jail in August, Mark Epstein has been worried that his own life, and the lives of other people, may be in danger because federal authorities, believing it a suicide, have not fully investigated the circumstances of the sex trafficker’s death.

Now a private forensic pathologist hired by Mark Epstein to monitor his brother’s autopsy has offered an opinion that bolsters what conspiracy theorists have suggested for months: that the available evidence does not support the finding that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.

Dr. Michael Baden, one of the world’s leading forensic pathologists, viewed Jeffrey Epstein’s body and was present at the autopsy — held Aug. 11, the day after Epstein was found dead at the notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Manhattan.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Baden described Epstein’s jail cell, the ligature he allegedly used to hang himself, and his own suspicions that federal authorities have not conducted a thorough probe into Epstein’s cause and manner of death.

“They rushed the body out of the jail, which they shouldn’t do because that destroys the evidence,’’ Baden told the Herald.

“The brother, Mark, doesn’t think it was suicide — he is concerned it might be murder. It’s 80 days now and if, in fact, it is a homicide, other people might be in jeopardy,’’ Baden said.

Baden’s observations . . . include that Epstein suffered multiple fractures in his neck — injuries he said are more consistent with strangulation than suicide by hanging. Epstein, who was found dead Aug. 10, had three fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, Baden said.

He told the Herald that it is rare for any bones to be broken in a hanging, let alone for multiple bones to be fractured.

“Those fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” said Baden, who added that there were hemorrhages in Epstein’s eyes that are also more common in strangulation than in hangings.

His findings will likely fuel online conspiracy theories that have suggested, with no evidence, that Epstein was killed to keep him from incriminating other wealthy and powerful men involved in his sex trafficking crimes.

On the day before his body was discovered, more than 2,000 pages of court documents were unsealed, revealing that one of Epstein’s young victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, had provided sworn testimony in a 2016 court case that Epstein directed her to have sex with a number of men who were prominent figures in politics, finance, science, academics and philanthropy.

Those men have all denied her allegations. But the timing of Epstein’s death, coming just weeks after federal authorities claimed he had previously tried to kill himself at the jail, raised further questions as to why Epstein — one of the most high-profile inmates imaginable — wasn’t being monitored more closely.

Baden’s opinion contradicted New York City Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson, who ruled Epstein’s cause of death to be a suicide by hanging.

Sampson, in a statement . . . , said she is confident in her conclusion that Epstein hanged himself.

“Our investigation concluded that the cause of Mr. Epstein’s death was hanging and the manner of death was suicide. We stand by that determination. We continue to share information around the medical investigation with Mr. Epstein’s family, their representatives, and their pathology consultant. The original medical investigation was thorough and complete. There is no reason for a second medical investigation by our office.”

Baden told the Herald that the pathologist who actually conducted the autopsy, Dr. Kristin Roman, also had trouble determining that Epstein hanged himself, and initially determined that the manner of death was “pending.’’

“The autopsy did not support suicide,’’ Baden said. “That’s what she put down. Then Dr. Sampson changed it a week later, manner of death to suicide. The brother has been trying to find out why that changed. … What was the evidence?”

Sampson has not released the full autopsy report.

Baden acknowledged that there could be additional evidence that led to Sampson’s conclusion that she has not shared with him or Epstein’s brother.

Baden, 85, who once led the New York City Medical Examiner’s office, has participated in some of the country’s most infamous death investigations, including the congressional inquiry into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

For nearly five decades, Baden has also been a member of a New York state commission that reviews deaths in the state’s prisons, and knows how crime scenes within the isolation of prisons can be tainted and even staged.

“There’s always concern that if the only reporting you are getting is from those involved in the care of that inmate that it may be biased,’’ Baden said.

In this case, Baden said he saw a photograph of Epstein’s cell after his body was removed. It showed a ligature fashioned from an orange bed sheet on the floor of the cell. Baden said he was told — but shown no written report — that a corrections officer found Epstein’s body, on his knees, with the orange ligature around his neck, tied to the top bunk in his cell.

He pointed out that authorities have only the word of the people in the jail as to what happened, and his impression is that the officers were not forthcoming.

“He was stone-cold dead when they found him,’’ Baden said. “He had been dead for three hours. Rigor mortis set in, and it was apparent he was dead, yet they called EMS and didn’t photograph how the body was found.’’

Baden said Sampson’s conclusion sends a message that there is no need to look further into how Epstein died.

Mark Epstein, Epstein’s only sibling and his next of kin, has been frustrated that he has not been able to obtain the EMS report or the hospital report, Baden said.

“I’d like additional information. Whose DNA is on the ligature? Was the FBI able to get any information from the jail cell’s video and hall video? Did they find it shows him hanging himself up or someone unauthorized went into the cell from the hallway? Did the FBI interview any of the inmates? Did they interview any of the guards who were allegedly asleep?’’

Baden said that these are all questions that should be answered before concluding that Epstein committed suicide. And he said questions about the federal facility’s apparent security lapses should also be a factor to explore.

Following the autopsy, it was revealed that the two prison officers who were assigned to monitor Epstein at 30-minute intervals fell asleep and that at least some of the security cameras in the wing were not operating.

Baden, who has conducted more than 20,000 autopsies, said that in 50 years he has never had a prison death where two corrections officers fell asleep, nor has he ever had a case where three bones were broken in an alleged suicide by hanging.

He said that in hangings most deaths occur as a result of compression or obstruction of the carotid arteries in the neck, which would restrict blood flow to the brain, causing death. The fact that Epstein suffered fractures suggests that force was used, he said.

About three dozen people packed into the busy Popeyes in Oxon Hill, Md., on Monday night, with many of them waiting to order one of the fast-food restaurant’s popular chicken sandwiches.

One man entered the store before 7 p.m., and over 15 minutes “methodically” cut ahead of people in line until reaching the front counter, Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said Tuesday. But before he could buy the meal he intended to get, an argument broke out between him and a man who confronted him about skipping the line, Stawinski said.

Within 15 seconds after words were exchanged, police said, a fight spilled out into the parking lot of the restaurant, leaving the man who had been line-jumping fatally stabbed.

The killing of the man, who police identified Tuesday as Kevin Tyrell Davis, 28, of Oxon Hill, left authorities stunned over the “pointless” violence as they continued to search for the assailant.

Outside of Davis’s home Tuesday evening, family members gathered in mourning. They declined to give their names or speak to the specifics of what occurred Monday night but said they did not think the altercation was over a sandwich.

“He was awesome,” a cousin said. “It surely wasn’t over no chicken sandwich. It was senseless.”

“He was a great young guy trying to get his life together like all young people,” said a woman who identified herself as an aunt. “He was a great kid.”

Suspect in the Popeyes stabbing

Why did such issues confront us? We had the misfortune of having a man named Mike McGarity move in next door to us in late 1998. McGarity has the trappings of a standard-issue suburban dad -- a wife, two kids, a job at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama. But his belligerent and threatening tone, which we encountered regularly, hinted that something dark was going on. We eventually learned that McGarity, in fact, has at least eight criminal convictions in his background.

And yet, this menacing fellow decided he, his kids, his kids' friends, other adults, and a veritable cast of thousands (other neighborhood kids, many of whom we didn't know, didn't know their parents) should be able to turn our yard into a playground -- without bothering to ask for our permission. When I instructed McGarity to keep himself and his minions off our property, I was greeted with "I'm going to sue you for harassment" and "We're going to keep on coming."

Why was that a concern, aside from the fact McGarity had proven he's an ass, the kind of person we didn't want to deal with? (When asked to control the ear-splitting barking of his coonhound dog, McGarity's reply: "You just need to get ear plugs."). Well, it involved . . . legal issues . . .

One such issue is called "premises liability." Here is how findlaw.com defines it:

When someone enters your property, they have a reasonable expectation of not getting injured. This means that you, as a property owner (or non-owner resident), are responsible for maintaining a relatively safe environment. This is known as "premises liability." For example, a courier delivering a package may sue you for injuries if he slips and falls on an oil slick in the driveway.

What if McGarity, or another adult or child from his yard, had slipped and fallen on our property? The injured party likely would have sued us, even if we had maintained a safe environment. (Note: McGarity had already hinted that he was a litigious sort, threatening to sue us for harassment because we tried to exercise our right to keep him off our yard. This just added to the mountain of reasons we did not want him, or anyone affiliated with him, coming on our yard.)

What if a child had fallen on our concrete driveway and sustained serious head trauma? Our insurance rates likely would have skyrocketed, and we might have been dropped as an insured altogether.

Premises liability cases, under Alabama law, involve numerous variables, so its hard to predict the outcome of a particular case. But even if the homeowner prevails in court, the defense of such a lawsuit is likely to be expensive and might still count as a mark against you with an insurance company. The best idea is to try to prevent injuries on your property, and that's exactly what we tried to do.

Popeyes' wildly popular chicken sandwich will remain on menus nationwide, despite the chaos it's causing at several locations ... including a fatal stabbing.

A rep for the fried chicken fast-food chain tells TMZ the sandwich is still available ... meaning it's not being pulled in the wake of scattered mayhem erupting across the country since its return to the menu this week. . . .

The chicken chain says the safety of its employees and customers is always a priority, and franchisees have worked to boost staffing during this craze to be ready to serve guests quickly and safely.

It adds that most Popeyes restaurants are franchised and "additional onsite security matters are handled by the franchisees."

Jerry Harmison

In Missouri, perjury is considered a fraud on the court, and a trial court is not limited in its ability to set aside a judgment procured by fraud. From In Re Marriage of Clark, 813 S.W.2d 123 (1991): “Where there is fraud upon the court, Rule 74.06 does not limit the power or time of the court to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment. Rule 74.06(d); McKarnin v. McKarnin, 795 S.W.2d 436, 439 (Mo.App.1990). . . .

Although the rule makes no distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic fraud, see Rule 74.06(b)(2), intrinsic fraud is the use of perjured testimony or fabricated evidence. McKarnin, 795 S.W.2d at 439. "Extrinsic" fraud is fraud which induces a party to default or consent to the judgment. Id.

Scott Harrison

The nation’s highest court long has held that the kind of perjured, false, and fabricated evidence present here requires a trial court to vacate a guilty verdict. From Napue v. Illinois, 360 US 264 (Supreme Court, 1959): “First, it is established that a conviction obtained through use of false evidence, known to be such by representatives of the State, must fall under the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . The same result obtains when the State, although not soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorrected when it appears. . . . 

The principle that a State may not knowingly use false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a tainted conviction, implicit in any concept of ordered liberty, does not cease to apply merely because the false testimony goes only to the credibility of the witness. The jury's estimate of the truthfulness and reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence, and it is upon such subtle factors as the possible interest of the witness in testifying falsely that a defendant's life or liberty may depend. 

As stated by the New York Court of Appeals in a case very similar to this one, People v. Savvides, 1 N. Y. 2d 554, 557; 136 N. E. 2d 853, 854-855; 154 N. Y. S. 2d 885, 887:"It is of no consequence that the falsehood bore upon the witness' credibility rather than directly upon defendant's guilt. A lie is a lie, no matter . . . what its subject, and, if it is in any way relevant to the case, the district attorney has the responsibility and duty to correct what he knows to be false and elicit the truth. . . . That the district attorney's silence was not the result of guile or a desire to prejudice matters little, for its impact was the same, preventing, as it did, a trial that could in any real sense be termed fair."

Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions

Leaked emails from White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller from 2015-2016 reveal an obsession with white nationalism, the Confederacy and the denigration of black and Hispanic communities.

More than 900 private emails between Miller and Breitbart News were examined by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch section, revealing that 80 percent of the messages pertained to race or immigration. The emails sent between March 2015 and June 2016 straddle Miller's time as an aide to then-Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions and his later role on as a senior adviser for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign. Miller's emails tout eugenics and white nationalist conspiracy theories and offer news tips to Breitbart on how to cover immigration and amplify stories about black and Hispanic crime.

Katie McHugh, the former Breitbart editor who leaked the emails to Hatewatch, told the SPLC that "what Stephen Miller sent to me in those emails has become policy at the Trump administration." McHugh, who publicly renounced her alt-right ties and beliefs in an interview with Buzzfeed News, was fired from Breitbart in 2017 for an anti-Muslim tweet.

Miller's conversations with McHugh and the Breitbart editors show him suggesting story ideas as well as directing the right-wing publication on how to report anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim news narratives. The now-senior Trump administration adviser who has been instrumental in crafting the president's immigration policies delves into topics ranging from Central American refugees to Nazi literature.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.

In this, the first of what will be a series about those emails, Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in Mein Kampf.

Hatewatch reviewed more than 900 previously private emails Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016. Miller does not converse along a wide range of topics in the emails. His focus is strikingly narrow – more than 80 percent of the emails Hatewatch reviewed relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration. Hatewatch made multiple attempts to reach the White House for a comment from Miller about the content of his emails but did not receive any reply. 

Miller’s perspective on race and immigration across the emails is repetitious. When discussing crime, which he does scores of times, Miller focuses on offenses committed by nonwhites. On immigration, he touches solely on the perspective of severely limiting or ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. Hatewatch was unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.

Miller used his government email address as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions in the emails Hatewatch reviewed. He sent the majority of the emails Hatewatch examined before he joined Trump’s campaign in January 2016 and while he was still working for Sessions. Miller also used a personal Hotmail.com address in the emails and did so both before and after he started working for Trump. Hatewatch confirmed the authenticity of Miller’s Hotmail.com address through an email sent from his government address in which he lists it as his future point of contact:

“I am excited to announce that I am beginning a new job as Senior Policy Advisor to presidential candidate Donald J. Trump,” Miller wrote from his government email on Jan. 26, 2016, to an undisclosed group of recipients. “Should you need to reach me, my personal email address is [redacted].”

Miller sent a story from the white nationalist website VDARE to McHugh on Oct. 23, 2015, the emails show. White nationalist Peter Brimelow founded VDARE in 1999. The website traffics in the “white genocide” or “great replacement” myth, which suggests that nonwhite people are systematically and deliberately wiping white people off the planet.

McHugh started the email conversation by asking if Hurricane Patricia could drive refugees into the United States. The hurricane battered parts of Central America, Mexico and Texas, and the media heavily covered the storm. Miller replied to her by underscoring the possibility that Mexican survivors of the storm could be given temporary protected status (TPS), a George H.W. Bush-era policy that would enable them to live and work in the United States for a limited stay.

The VDARE story by Steve Sailer, an anti-immigration activist who traffics in discredited race science, focused on instances in which the United States offered refugees temporary protected status. The article was posted the same day Miller shared it with McHugh.

Miller recommended in a Sept. 6, 2015, email that Breitbart write about The Camp of the Saints, a racist French novel by Jean Raspail. Notably, The Camp of the Saints is popular among white nationalists and neo-Nazis because of the degree to which it fictionalizes the “white genocide” or “great replacement” myth into a violent and sexualized story about refugees.

The novel’s apocalyptic plot centers on a flotilla of Indian people who invade France, led by a nonwhite Indian-born antagonist referred to as the “turd eater” – a character who literally eats human feces. In one section, a white woman is raped to death by brown-skinned refugees. In another, a nationalist character shoots and kills a pro-refugee leftist over his support of race mixing. The white nationalist Social Contract Press plucked the 1973 book from relative obscurity and distributed it in the United States.

Miller refers to President Calvin Coolidge multiple times in emails to Breitbart. Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The legislation was based on eugenics and severely limited immigration from certain parts of the world into the United States. White nationalists lionize Coolidge, in part for his remarks condemning race mixing.

“There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons,” Coolidge wrote in a 1921 magazine article, as quoted on American Renaissance. “Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. … Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”

In Mein Kampf, Hitler portrayed the U.S. law as a potential model for the Nazis in Germany. James Q. Whitman, the Ford Foundation professor of comparative and foreign law at Yale Law School, noted this detail in his book Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. 

“Absolutely, Hitler talks about the law in Mein Kampf,” Whitman told Hatewatch. “He suggests that the U.S. was the only country making the type of progress the Nazis were trying to establish.”

Miller brings up Coolidge on Aug. 4, 2015, in the context of halting all immigration to America. Garrett Murch, who also was an aide to Sessions, starts the conversation by emailing McHugh, Miller and three other Breitbart employees, including Hahn, to note something he heard on a right-wing talk radio show . . .

Another example of Miller mentioning Coolidge happens Sept. 13, 2015, when he criticizes Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham for appearing too sympathetic to refugees.