Friday, October 29, 2010

Who Says, Nobody Cares?!! -Death of a Nation From the bottum up!


Some things are just meant to happen the way they do.
However,
the day to day horrors of society, tend to wear away at the heart of things.


Who say's nobody cares? When Chris Nevils said, he wanted to see a fair jury - he knew what he was talking about. Now it must be seen if the prosecutor, will appeal the verdict on the very grounds, that he laid.

Today, October 29th 2010; Scott Nugent was found not guilty in the death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes. What's strange though, in Shreveport another officer was laid to rest, killed on duty.

The tasing-death of Pikes occurred on Martin Luther King Day -weekend. And in this cruelest climate, Nugent's actions were vindicated on Halloween weekend. Both, incidents happened on a Friday. What will be, in the final analysis the understanding of what has, now become history. It is a familiar history.

A history, our children should not have to live in the twenty-first century. Well, we were already escalating our efforts to secure a brighter future for a tomorrow, which may never come. But we must "occupy until he comes." An awakening, will occur. All were so caught up in two senate candidates, slinging vulgar mud. The tea partiers, and the such like. Musing about a South Mississippi Democrat divulging he didn't vote for the POTUS, but for McCain.

We, who live in Dixie, call them dixiecrats. Whose so surprised. Maybe the non-know-it-alls of the varied "punditates". But we know! If we wake up one morning and can't recognize the state of affairs.

We Shouldn't be shocked surprised or
dismayed. We Should realize that time has caught
up with us. America -the south, all of America has got to come to grips with itself. Fast!

Well. Deliver us, from this task master. How is it so insisted upon, that we must accept, less than what is normal. Just because the powerful and the rich, exact prowess over the poor and impoverished; a reckoning day is coming. And who will be surprise, shocked or dismayed at its outcome.

Us people are destroyed, from a lack of Knowledge. And collusions with the very people, who destroy us. We, ain't gwine whistle dixie no mo'. Go 'head though "Whistle It" 'cause its yo' dixie too!

Former police officer found not guilty in Taser death trial in Winnfield

By Bret H. McCormick • bmccormick@thetowntalk.com • October 30, 2010


WINNFIELD -- Scott Nugent waited nearly three years for his manslaughter trial to begin.

Then, he waited about three weeks from the trial's start until closing arguments on Friday.

So, what were an additional three hours?

One of Nugent's attorneys, George

Higgins of Pineville, said the three-hour wait Friday afternoon while the jury deliberated was "gut-wrenching," but the jury returned with the two words Nugent wanted to hear: not guilty.

Nugent was a 21-year-old officer with the Winnfield Police Department on Jan. 17, 2008, when he arrested 21-year-old Barron "Scooter" Pikes (also known in Winnfield as Barron Collins Jr.). Pikes died in police custody, and Nugent was accused of causing the death by using excessive force -- specifically a Taser eight or nine times.

The incident between Nugent, who is white, and Pikes, who was black, caused racial tensions in the town of approximately 5,700 people, and those tensions were evident following Friday's verdict.

Several audible gasps were heard from friends and family members of Pikes' when the verdict was read, while Nugent began crying and shaking his head in relief.

Pikes' family members said the verdict would not be received well by members of Winnfield's black community.

"When it all boils down to it, the whole community is going to be outraged," said Nicole Collins, Pikes' cousin.

"The community is not going to be pleased by this verdict," Pikes' stepmother, Kayshon Collins, added.

Nugent and his team, however, were ecstatic at the news.

Nugent's family was released from the courtroom before anyone else and was unavailable for comment. However, Higgins couldn't hide his joy.

"We're thrilled that Scott was found not guilty," said Higgins, one of Nugent's three attorneys. "We're thrilled because we always thought Scott wasn't guilty."

Higgins said he also was happy for one of his fellow Pineville attorneys, Phillip Terrell, who also worked to defend Nugent.

"I know that this victory was especially meaningful for Phillip Terrell," Higgins said. "There is no bigger supporter of the police."

Terrell and Jerry Glas, a New Orleans attorney who specializes in Taser cases, both were unavailable for comment following the verdict.



*lesieur

Members of Barron “Scooter” Pikes’s family, including his stepmother Kayshon Collins (front center) and sister Lashanta Jackson (far right), exit the Winn Parish Courthouse Friday afternoon following the not guilty verdict in the manslaughter trial of former Winnfield cop Scott Nugent. Nugent was accused of using a Taser on Pikes on Jan. 17, 2008, and causing his death. (Bret H. McCormick)

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Louisiana:-Still Denying Justice!?? Oil Well Blowout called Apocalyptic & Apoplectic | And we still don't get it!

Louisiana is this your KINGDOM COME!!

The second moral virtue that comes from grace, as the fruit out of the tree, and ripens in the sunshine of confirmation is justice. Justice is a virtue that will give to everyone what belongs to him.

The court respects the rights of all before God

"Enlightened by prudence, justice supernatural foremost respects the rights of God. Indefeasible owner of everything, God has the right to any and everything, hence the cult inside and outside of man and society. Here, Justice is manifested by the virtue of religion, which includes worship, prayer, sacrifice, hope and the faithful fulfillment of precepts relating to the direct worship of the Creator ."

It respects the rights of the next

"It respects the rights of the neighbor, rich or poor, weak or strong, lower or higher.

  • To her the world must end the exploitation of man by man, the murder of children, slavery, despotism brutal, which weighed on all peoples before the redemption, and which still hangs over all foreign nations the benefits of the Gospel.
  • It teaches man to respect himself, his soul and his rights, his body and his family, his life, his death and to his grave.
  • She tells him, finally, to respect the creatures in the governing justly, that is to say according to their end, In a spirit of dependence, as a property of others with fear, as to account for the use he has made.

Imagine what would happen to the world under the dominion of supernatural justice!


Apoplectic & Apocalyptic
Coastal tent cities are about to rise to house the workers and contractors minimizing the damage, while barge-like floating hotels for a total of about 800 workers are being readied at three locations off Louisiana. Sand banks and barriers are being built. But the consensus around the Gulf Coast is turning more apoplectic and apocalyptic. This is, people are starting to say, a generational event -- tragic to this generation, potentially crippling to the next.

On Thursday June 3rd Louisiana's Legislature offered HCR 214 directed to Ken Salazar the Secretary of the Interior. Rep. Ernest Wooton took to the podium on the floor of the Louisiana House & assailed the Obama Administration. How dreadful.!. Wooton said two years ago he [President Obama] could do anything. There is a lot of hate fomenting in state legislatures. A very heated debate ensued in Senate Committee Judiciary C, on HB617-
Requiring at least twenty percent of recipients of cash [welfare] assistance to be drug tested prior to receiving benefits.

But Louisiana, still doesn't get it! Wooton even said the President should stay up in D.C.!! So, an oil man from Texas allowed the regulations on oil production to become lax. And now, a Hawaiian is saying, stop all drilling until we fix the regulating arm of gov't, stopping all drilling. While Pelicans are drenched in blood, I mean oil. Or, bloody looking oil. This is the link of Wooton going off. His comment's are behind Rep. Dove's explanation of the Resolution.

This is the kind of rhetoric that is fueling the "militia militancy" against Obama. An oil-producer, in a mad-rush for profit, split the earth, changed drill bits; disregarded a blowout preventer and charged straight ahead into the abyss.

?What is the correlation to this drilling & the recent earthquakes in the Caribbean & Central/South American Region?

Is any one realizing this is a green President. And this type of fiasco is this man's worse nightmare. Imagine that, toxic oil pollution in an endangered ecological wetland. And now, it's hurricane season. Yet still, who are they fooling. Haiti proved the WORLD let lone the USA are ill-prepared for catastrophe. It is especially so, one behind the other!! '09 Financial debacle. '10 Haiti Earthquake April 2010 Oilwell Blowout.

Come on People. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi & all total 13 states had filed suit against Healthcare. Somebody's sure 'nough gonna need it now!!




USF researchers find new underwater plume from gulf oil spill

By Craig Pittman and Katie Sanders, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Friday, May 28, 2010


The sight of an oil slick spreading across the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is bad enough. But now scientists from the University of South Florida have found signs that a 6-mile-wide plume of invisible oil is snaking beneath the surface, in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

The thickest concentration, they found, was more than 2 miles beneath the surface — a mile deeper than where the Deepwater Horizon well has been spewing oil for the past month — and about 20 miles northeast of the collapsed rig.

The plume of dissolved oil stretched 6 miles down, said David Hollander, a USF chemical oceanographer and lead investigator for the project. This is the second oil plume to be discovered by scientists, and it marks the first time such plumes have been detected after a spill, Hollander said. He compared them to streams of lava flowing out of an undersea volcano.

While the fudgelike goo coating Louisiana's marshes is getting lots of television coverage, the two undersea plumes show damage is also occurring where no one can see it: deep in the gulf, miles from land, where marine life has always been abundant and yet largely unobserved.

The USF research vessel Weatherbird II was dispatched Saturday to take samples in the DeSoto Canyon, a deep valley that cuts through the continental shelf south of the Florida Panhandle. In the canyon, an upwelling of nutrient-rich water means far more fish and other species swim there.

The scientists' big concern, Hollander said, is whether the oil they found is concentrated enough to be toxic to marine life. It could affect the whole food chain, he said.

The canyon area is a popular destination for local fishing boats, said Bob Spaeth, owner of Madeira Beach Seafood, the area's largest seafood house and home dock for many longline boats, because "it is pristine. It has great habitat.''

The fishermen are willing to make the day-and-a-half journey because they know they will catch bluefin tuna, swordfish, king mackerel and grouper, Spaeth said. If toxic levels of oil have contaminated the fish there, Spaeth said, "that's a disaster.''

The fish are not the only potential deep-sea victims of the spill. It could affect everything from the 10-foot-long giant tube worms rooted to the floor of the gulf to the sea turtles, sharks, whales and dolphins that spend their lives far from shore, say the experts.

"I would be worried about every marine species that swam through that plume," said John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, based in Tarpon Springs.

Currently federal officials have closed about 22 percent of the gulf to both commercial and recreational fishing. USF College of Marine Sciences Dean William Hogarth promised that if the area where the plume was found wasn't already covered by that ban, it will be by today.

A big question is where the plume will go next. It could continue spreading until it gets onto the continental shelf and is pushed close to shore. Another USF oceanographer, Robert Weisberg, warned congressional representatives this week that if subsurface oil gets lifted onto the shelf it could reach west Florida's wetlands and beaches, which he called "a very serious concern."

There is no ongoing government monitoring program for what's going on in the gulf, Weisberg said. The USF voyage cost $850,000 — funded by the state — and at this point there is no money for a follow-up trip.

The USF ship, scheduled to return today, went out after scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican told the New York Times of finding plumes of oil 3 miles wide and 10 miles long beneath the gulf's surface. That plume was spreading southwest of the rig.

Computer models run by Weisberg had predicted the location of the southwestern plume found by the Pelican, Hollander said. Weisberg's model also suggested there could be a similar plume headed northeast, he said, so that's where the USF ship went.

The scientists aboard the ship — some from USF, some from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg — discovered the plume on Tuesday. What's not known is the role that chemical dispersants play in the plume. BP has been spraying the dispersants both on the surface slick and directly on the gushing wellhead in the deep ocean, something never before attempted. The dispersants, being used in unprecedented quantities, are supposed to spread the oil so it will evaporate and degrade more quickly. That could be what has created the plumes, Hollander said.

The concern is that the dispersants are simply holding the oil below the surface, where it is harder to clean. So far, tests by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have found no signs that the dispersants are harmful to sea life, but the EPA has ordered BP to look for a less toxic version.

Once the Weatherbird II returns to port, scientists will conduct further tests to determine whether the plume is made of weathered oil droplets or oil linked to dispersants, Hollander said.

The one piece of good news: Tests conducted by the Weatherbird II between the loop current and the Florida coast showed clean water, no weathered oil on the surface and no sign of oil beneath the waves. But that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Rowan Gould, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has predicted the spill "will affect fish and wildlife resources … for years to come, if not decades."

Times staff writers Stephen Nohlgren and Alex Leary contributed to this report.


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New, giant sea oil plume seen in Gulf stretching toward Mobile Bay

By The Associated Press

May 27, 2010, 12:10PM

NEW ORLEANS -- Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Alabama.

The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume recorded since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

The thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet, and is more than 6 miles wide, said David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school.

While the researchers used Mobile Bay as a reference point, the area they are exploring is the DeSoto Canyon, which one researcher described as an "abyss" that falls off from the Florida shelf due south of the Florida-Alabama state line.

The canyon begins more than 100 miles off the Alabama coast with depths of more than 5,000 feet.

Hollander said the team detected the thickest amount of hydrocarbons, likely from the oil spewing from the blown out well, at about 1,300 feet in the same spot on two separate days this week.

The discovery was important, he said, because it confirmed that the substance found in the water was not naturally occurring and that the plume was at its highest concentration in deeper waters. The researchers will use further testing to determine whether the hydrocarbons they found are the result of dispersants or the emulsification of oil as it traveled away from the well.

The first such plume detected by scientists stretched from the well southwest toward the open sea, but this new undersea oil cloud is headed miles inland into shallower waters where many fish and other species reproduce.

The researchers say they are worried these undersea plumes may are the result of the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil a mile undersea at the site of the leak.

Hollander said the oil they detected has dissolved into the water, and is no longer visible, leading to fears from researchers that the toxicity from the oil and dispersants could pose a big danger to fish larvae and filter feeders such as sperm whales.

"There are two elements to it," Hollander said. "The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have a toxic effect on fish larvae, and we also may see a long-term response as it cascades up the food web."

(Associated Press Writers Jason Dearen and Matthew Brown authored this report, which was clarified by the Press-Register at 12:47 to better state the location of the undersea oil.)

More Oil 100 miles off Alabama Coast in 5000 ft CANYON

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Justice Denied:-Still in Louisiana

The indigent defense system is steadily falling apart & the Louisiana Legislature has still failed to launch, an initial action to revamp the judicial process in the state of Louisiana. In particular Louisiana's 4th Judicial District has indigent defense attorneys, who are typically lax in their representation of impoverished defendants.

Public Defender Office-La. 4th JDC is currently covering a case involving three defendants, one of which has federal charges. Already, two of the defendants are lanquishing in the system, because of maneuvering by the federal defendant.

In New Orleans public defenders are to the point of possibly not taking on any new cases.

Should this not be the final signal, of the impending doom of the collapsing judicial process in Louisiana.

North Carolina
has a commission in force that looks in to criminal convictions for possible mistakes even after all post-conviction remedies are exhausted! The Commission,
considers claims of innocence from convicts or anyone else with pertinent information. It has reviewed hundreds of claims by prisoners and brought only three to a hearing.

If the commission agrees that a claim has merit, it refers cases to a three-judge panel, which has happened only once except for a recent case, [Gregory Taylor] and the argument in the other case was rejected.

BR man charged in corruption case

Published: Mar 17, 2010

Robert L. Stevens is the 10th person charged in the continuing federal investigation of corruption in Baton Rouge city and state district courts.

Each of the prior nine defendants has pleaded guilty to one or more felony counts. To date, none has been scheduled for sentencing.

Stevens, 61, of Baton Rouge, was charged Tuesday with conspiracy in aid of racketeering. That charge was filed in a bill of information by Assistant U.S. Attorneys M. Patricia Jones and Corey R. Amundson after Stevens waived his right to have the case sent to a grand jury.

“We’re not aware of any job that Stevens has right now or what (type of work) he did in the past,” U.S. Attorney David R. Dugas said.

Stevens is accused of soliciting and obtaining “cash and other things of value from individuals with criminal and traffic matters pending” in Baton Rouge City Court, the bill of information states.

In return for those bribes, the bill of information alleges, defendants were promised their charges “would be dismissed, reduced, or otherwise ‘fixed.’ ”

Stevens participated in the conspiracy in 2008 and for at least the first nine months of 2009, prosecutors said in their charge.

In April and May 2009, Stevens is alleged to have had multiple telephone conversations with Flitcher Bell, who was at that time a senior city prosecutor.

Bell pleaded guilty in the case late last year after prosecutors announced the continuing investigation, dubbed Operation Illegal Motion.

Thus far, the investigation also has produced convictions against two former Baton Rouge police officers, the former chief investigator for the local public defender’s office, several people outside the court system, and several former state and city court employees.

The charge against Stevens carries a possible five-year prison term and fine of $250,000.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Louisiana's Disarrayed Justice continuum ad infinitum

Woman from Pointe Coupee Parish not guilty on first DWI

Woman from Pointe Coupee Parish not guilty on first DWI By Chris Nakamoto
Source: WBRZ WAFB

Officials postpone deadly crash grand jury trial

Feb 11, 2010

It took ten minutes for Judge Alex Wall to find 23-year-old Victoria Gosserand "not guilty" of first offense DWI in Baton Rouge.

In a separate case of DWI in Pointe Coupee Parish, Gosserand faces more serious charges. Investigators say she was three times over the legal limit when she caused a crash that killed 23-year-old Terri Parker and injured vehicle's driver.

Even though the first case doesn't involve Parker's family, they were in court to seek justice.

"If the courts would have taken care of the first DWI, she wouldn't have gotten the second DWI," Parker's mother, Debra Cushionberry said.

In court, the Baton Rouge police officer who pulled her over told a packed courtroom that after he arrested her, the smell of alcohol was so strong he had to crack a window in his police unit.

The executive director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving told News 2 she was concerned there wasn't enough evidence to convict Gosserand.

"We're not always winners," Donna Tate said. "The details of every case are different. In this case, there was not an opportunity to have a field sobriety test done because of the defendant's refusal and no blood alcohol test."

A grand jury in Pointe Coupee Parish will decide next week whether to formally charge Gosserand for the crash in New Roads.

Officials postpone deadly crash grand jury trial

Posted: Feb 11, 2010 6:12 PM CST Updated: Feb 12, 2010 5:36 PM CST

By David Spunt - bio | email

NEW ROADS, LA (WAFB) - A grand jury trial in New Roads scheduled for Friday was postponed after two judges have openly recused themselves from the case of a deadly crash involving a woman who failed a field sobriety test.

District Attorney Ricky Ward said Judge James Best and William DuPont have recused themselves. According to a source, DuPont said he has already been assigned a civil lawsuit in the matter. Best admitted he recused himself.

"It is much too personal to me to preside over this case, as my son was a classmate of both Victoria Gosserand and Kyle Riviere," Best said. "It would put me in an awkward position."

Ward said the case will be reassigned to either Judge Robin Free or Alvin Batiste. He expects the grand jury to hear evidence either next week or the following week.

Teri Parker's father says he is upset about the delay.

"I'm frustrated because my daughter has been taken from me and it's made me feel like nothing has been done about it," said John Parker.

Two days before Christmas, Teri Parker, 23, was killed as she drove home from work. Police have charged Tori Gosserand, 23, in the case. Records show Gosserand had a .30 blood alcohol level at the time of the accident. In Louisiana, the legal limit is .08. Kyle Riviere was riding with Teri Parker. He survived the crash. Story-wafb.com


Officers cleared in Monroe shooting

MICHELLE BATES, Editor


February 11, 2010
Officers cleared in Monroe shooting
MICHELLE BATES, Editor

The two officers involved in the shooting death of Bernard Monroe Sr. have been cleared.

Late Thursday afternoon, the Claiborne Parish Grand Jury handed down a no true bill, which means no criminal charges will be filed against former Homer Police Officers Tim Cox and Joseph Henry, in a case that turned the community of Homer upside down.

When the results were handed down, the only officer that might have faced criminal charges was Cox. According to the report filed with the Claiborne Parish Clerk of Court, Cox could have faced a charge of first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter or negligent homicide.

According to Assistant Attorney General John Sinquefield, the grand jury met two full days and worked overtime on the case. The 12 member jury heard 21 witnesses, including 12 civilians, meaning non law enforcement witnesses. They reviewed dozens of items of evidence and returned the no true bill, he said.

“I think they did a very thorough, very complete investigation involving the death of Mr. Monroe,” Sinquefield said. “They did a very good job in reviewing the evidence. All the witnesses, all the police personnel, and all the governmental officials in Homer cooperated 100 percent with us in our investigation, and on behalf of the attorney general’s office, we’d like to thank all these people.”

He extended his thanks to Second Judicial District Judge Jenifer Clason, Claiborne Parish Sheriff Ken Bailey, Homer Police Chief Russell Mills and all the police jury personnel for their full cooperation and accommodations during the grand jury proceedings – held at the Claiborne Parish Police Jury Complex in Homer.

“Judge Clason was very helpful and available, and took our report and showed us every courtesy of the court, and we’d like to thank her,” he said.

Rob Moore, of the Moore Law Firm in Arcadia, the attorney representing Henry, said his client is glad it’s over.

“We’re just relieved that it’s over,” Moore said. “Joey loves this town and wishes the best for Homer.”

Henry declined comment on the matter at this time, as did Homer Police Chief Russell Mills. Mills declined comment under the advisement of Town Attorney Jim Colvin, pending a civil suit.

Attorney Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, representing the Monroe family, said they are disappointed in the outcome of this incident.

“They are extremely disappointed that no indictment was returned,” he said, “and they intend to file a civil lawsuit in the near future with the opportunity for a jury to hear the factual determination in the death of Mr. Monroe – something that did not take place with the grand jury.”

Dees indicated that a suit will be filed within the next 10 days as of Friday, February 5.

Bernard Monroe Sr., 73, was shot and killed by Cox on Friday, February 20, 2009, at his home. He was transported to Homer Memorial Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. He later passed away at the hospital.

According to police, they were pursuing Monroe’s son, Shawn, on foot, and the chase ended at his residence where Monroe allegedly engaged the two officers with a loaded handgun. Witnesses at the scene say he did not have a gun, but rather a sports drink bottle.

The Rev. Willie Young, president of the Claiborne Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said the members of his organization were disappointed in the outcome.

“We’re disappointed, and we have to accept the results whether I like them or not,” he said. “You live in the real world and there’s two sides to every story.”

He said they prepared themselves for the outcome either way, and it was time to move forward.

“The grand jury has spoken and we move on from here,” Young said.

The tragedy has spurred unrest and many questions by members of the community from all sides. The U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the ACLU and the Louisiana State Police have investigated the case from several different aspects, including any possible civil rights violations as well as the investigation into the incident itself.

The Rev. Al Sharpton was in Homer last year saying that he would not rest until justice was done for Monroe. The NAACP also conducted its own investigation just weeks after the incident.



Ex-officer's attorneys: Taser not cause of death

Robert Morgan • rmorgan@thetowntalk.com • February 11, 2010


Defense attorneys for former Winnfield Police Officer Scott Nugent said they plan to contest claims that a Taser stun-gun caused the death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes in 2008.

Nugent had been set for trial on a manslaughter charge Feb. 9, but the date was postponed until June 14 by state Judge John Joyce.

Nugent is accused of causing Pike's death while he was in Winnfield police custody by shocking him nine times with a Taser.

Pineville attorneys George Higgins and Phillip Terrell said the defense will challenge the science the prosecution intends to introduce.

Despite a finding by Winn Parish Coroner Randolph Williams that Pikes died as a result of the Taser shocks, Higgins said, "We contend that a Taser cannot cause the death of a human being."

"The Taser is a non-lethal weapon. That's precisely why it's used," he said.

Terrell said a report from forensic pathologist Joel Carney of Lafayette declares that the cause of death is "inconclusive."

Carney, who examined the body the day after Pikes died, issued a report saying Pikes had sickle cell anemia and an enlarged heart, either or both of which could have contributed to his death, according to portions cited by Terrell.

The report does not cite the Taser incident as a cause of death, he said.

Taser darts only go under the skin and cannot impact internal organs, the attorneys said.

"As we've contended from the beginning, Scott Nugent did not cause the death of the deceased," Higgins said.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Disarray of Louisiana Justice


Legislative action needed.
Gosserand|Ricky Ward,Parker,La.AG|Kevin MacDonald-DA| MADD-Louisiana
|2thead-Victoria Jean Gosserand| D'Aguila-Rose Parker-Donna Tate| Family asks DA to recuse himself|Pointe Coupee Victims Assistance Will Justice Prevail in New Roads, La.

The disarray of justice in Louisiana, has now manifested itself in a physical form. Its affects have in effect placed the judicial process in further jeopardy. Not only has Jelpi Picou, formerly with the Capital Appeals Project; siphoned at least $100k from a state-funded program, the Legislature has still not convened any committee(s); joint or sub, to research or gain needed information on the current debacling circumstances.

To begin with, increasing the public's confidence in the system; which, in turn would aid in decreasing the 2009 spike in crime in some areas. Recent events of youth violence is approaching epidemic. Citizens in one NE La. Legislative district are preparing a citizen optioned covert operated response to end the spike.

All the while, in federal court a state legislator's brother began trial on Hobbs Act violations. Although, no one has been nominated yet, the US Atty for the same district has tendered his resignation,effective on MLK day. A US Supreme Court decision is holding back a trial of the same individual on other charges in which a DA is also involved.

Not to mention, the state AG has taken on a 2009 police killing in Claiborne parish, for which no dates have been set. A Jan 2009 taser-death "stun-drive" case is scheduled to begin February 9th 2010 in a rural parish. In July '09 a Colfax man was killed by police. And the Calcasieu parish public defender system is back in court for a repeat. But now with, the recent upheavels in the 19th JDC-PDO and the recent revelations of case fixings for pay, it should be evident the system needs a thorough going over.

Does any body really care.
The current United States Attorney General was involved in a wrongful conviction case at the time he was nominated by the POTUS. That case, subsequently settled with the exoneree receiving millions. But there are others, who are trapped in this jurisprudence gone awry. Beyond the personal objectives and agendas, there is still opportunity to begin the real work of evolving into a better position. There is no giving up in this fight. All the signs are there to let the sighted know, what must be done. As citizens. May the parties in position respond to this appeal.

In a 2008 resolution, the Louisiana Legislature's LLBC was requested to convene hearings on the justice apparatus in the state. The then chairman of the LLBC agreed. A house concurrent study resolution was authorized, and nothing has come to fruition. 2010 is here. Yet it is not too late, to do the right thing. Although, there is a new chairwoman, who will take this endeavor on?

Someone has to make a move! It has to happen, now. Are you the one?