Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Blog
Attorney J. Bradley Smith answering the question: “A past conviction is keeping me from finding work what can I do?”
A South Carolina woman with passionate tastes in music allegedly stabbed her roommate multiple times after the 64-year-old man refused to stop playing the Eagles on repeat. According to police in North Charleston, a domestic altercation between 54-year-old Vernett Bader and her roommate began after a long night of drinking between the two and the roommate’s brother.
According to authorities, Bader was at her home late Monday night when her roommate and his brother were in the living room, drinking and watching a loop of classic rock songs by the Eagles on the television. Bader apparently grew weary of hearing “Hotel California” blasted over and over again and told the two men to turn off the music.
Police say Bader’s request prompted the roommate to tell her to shut up, an ill-timed remark that sent Bader into the kitchen to grab a steak knife. Her roommate was thankfully alert and was able to wrestle the first weapon away from Bader. However, Bader was undeterred and simply went back into the kitchen and this time returned with a 14-inch serrated bread knife. This time police say Bader stabbed her roommate multiple times.
Though police reports indicate that Bader admits to stabbing her roommate with the bread knife, she claims the attack was actually in self-defense. Bader says her roommate was choking her at the time she stabbed him. Police at the scene of the domestic dispute said they saw no marks on Bader’s neck or any other signs consistent with strangulation.
Prior to passage of the law, students were only allowed to have an attorney informally advise them. Lawyers were generally barred from presenting evidence during the hearings, cross-examining witnesses or in any way representing the student during the disciplinary actions.
Experts say that detectives have begun cracking cases thanks to the technology that links mug shots with pictures pulled off of various social networking websites. Beyond just social networking sites, the facial recognition unit also combs pictures collected from a vast network of surveillance cameras.
The Stand Your Ground law in Florida became a critical component of the recent trial of George Zimmerman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February of 2012. Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder in the death of the teen, but argued that he acted in self-defense and should be exempt from prosecution under the state’s Stand Your Ground law. Since his acquittal, many have wondered whether similar arguments could be made if the incident had happened in North Carolina rather than Florida. Though the two states’ laws are not identical, they are very close and the result may have turned out much the same.
The state Supreme Court issued a ruling on the matter this week and found that such lab tests can stand on their own if cited by an expert witness offering an independent opinion. Other have argued that this conclusion is incorrect and that a lab test should face the same amount of scrutiny that a person would face and that means the analyst who conducted the test should be required to testify at trial.
Federal prosecutors say the leader of the fake prescription ring, Joshua Balkind, is already in prison serving a 20-year term. The other two participants were sentenced to 70 months in prison this Wednesday. Officials say the scheme worked by having Balkind make fake prescriptions using software on his home computer. He would then give the fake oxycodone prescriptions to drug addicts like Rhodes and DeYoung and essentially split the take, giving the addicts several pills and taking the rest to sell on the streets at a steep markup.
The case, Peugh v. United States, concerned a man who committed bank fraud back in the late 1990s. It took a long time for his case to be tried and for a sentence to be handed down, more than 11 years in fact. By 2010, a new round of sentencing guidelines had been issued which contained a suggested sentencing range of between 70 and 87 months for Peugh’s crime. The issue was that at the time the crimes were perpetrated, the sentencing range was dramatically more lenient, only 30 to 37 months. The judge who heard the case ultimately chose a 70-month sentence, something that many believed was clearly influenced by the new guidelines.
The arrests were the result of a four-year undercover investigation into illegal hunting practices known as Operation Something Bruin. Officers with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Forest Service worked together using social media to infiltrate poaching circles and record legal violations. The investigators created fake social media profiles and found out about illegal organized hunts on federal land.
The case involves a horrible 1992 Texas double murder case where the suspect voluntarily answered police questions for nearly an hour. However, as the police asked more incriminating questions about shotgun shells found at the scene, the suspect stopped talking. Prosecutors later used Salinas’ silence against him and portrayed it as evidence of his guilt. The strategy worked like a charm for prosecutors and Salinas was found guilty.