Criminal Law Blog & News

The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with several other local law enforcement agencies, has arrested at least twenty different individuals for utilizing various Internet social meeting sites to allegedly attempt communication with a person believed to be a minor regarding sexual activity.   No actual children were involved - only adult law enforcement officers posing as minors.  The Gainesville television station WCJB reports that one of those arrested was an elementary school teacher.  This blog will not report the names of those arrested as all are presumed innocent.

On this day, January 30, in the year 1956, the home of Reverend Martin Luther King was bombed in Montgomery, Alabama.  To this day no person has ever been prosecuted for this violent criminal act.

In a rare unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled on January 23, 2012, in U.S. v Antoine Jones,  that attaching a GPS device to a suspect’s vehicle is a search under the Fourth Amendment.   In one of the first major cases to test constitutional privacy rights in the digital age, the court ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before attaching a GPS tracker to a vehicle in a criminal investigation.

On this day, January 28, in the year 1981, Plasmatics band member Wendy O. Williams was arrested on an obscenity charge for allegedly simulating a sexual act with a sledge hammer.  During her physical arrest, Williams was injured and was also charged with battery on a law enforcement officer.

On this day, January 17, in the year 1989, at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, Patrick Purdy shot and killed five schoolchildren, and wounded 29 other children and one teacher, before committing suicide.  This event became known as the Cleveland School massacre.

At least one Florida Appellate Court has ruled that it is lawful to stop a vehicle because the driver was seen drinking a beverage in a paper bag.

On this day, January 12, in the year 1991, civil rights activist Al Sharpton was stabbed while leading a protest.  The attacker, Michael Riccardi, would later be convicted and sentenced to prison.

On this day, January 11, in the year 1794, Robert Forsyth became the first U.S. Marshal killed in the line of duty.

On this day, January 10, in the year 1994, Lorena Bobbitt's jury trial for cutting her husband’s penis off began.  She would ultimately be found not guilty by reason of insanity. 

On this date, January 9, in the year 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvania law that subjected abortion providers to criminal sanctions if they failed to attempt to preserve the life of a fetus when there is "sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable" or when the fetus “is viable.”

On this day, January 6, in the year 1909, a young Afro-American, Arthur Davis, was lynched in Florence, South Carolina, for injuring a mule owned by a prominent white family.

On this day, January 5, in the year 1968, a federal grand jury indicted child psychologist Dr. Benjamin Spock and four others for conspiring to aid draft dodgers.  Spock was tried and convicted, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal.

On this date, January 4, in the year 1923, a white vigilante mob began a two day rampage, resulting in the burning and dislocation of the small Afro-American community of Rosewood Florida.

On this day, January 3, in the year 1967, Carl Dean Wilson, of the band the “Beach Boys,” refused to be drafted for military service, leading to his indictment and criminal prosecution for draft evasion.

On this date, January 2, in the year 1932, two brothers, Harry and Jennings Young, killed six law enforcement officers who were trying to arrest them just outside Brookline, Missouri.  Known as the “Young Brothers Massacre,” it was the worst single gun battle killing of U.S. police officers in the 20th century.

On this day, December 30, in the year 1994, John Salvi, III, carried out fatal attacks at two Planned Parenthood reproductive health clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts.  During the attacks he shot and killed two receptionists and wounded five other individuals.

On December 29, 1975, a bomb, with the blasting capacity of 25 sticks of dynamite, exploded in the main terminal at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 and injuring 74 others.  The explosive device had been placed in a coin operated locker near a luggage pickup carousel.

On this day, December 28, in the year 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons shot and killed two people and wounded three others in the course of a shooting rampage in the town of Russellville, Arkansas.  After police apprehended Simmons, they searched his home in nearby Dover, Arkansas, and discovered the bodies of 14 members of Simmons' family, all of whom had been murdered.

A recent N.Y. Times editiorial exposes how prosecutors are charging a retired chemistry professor with jury tampering as a result of him handing out pamphlets providing information on the historical doctrine of jury nullification.

On this day, December 27, in the year 1900, prohibitionist Carrie Nation entered the bar at the  Hotel Carey in Wichita, Kansas, and began destroying the interior.  The hotel bar gained nation-wide recognition after the militant prohibitionist waged her attack.