“Law and crime” on The Daily Caller

Over the past month and a half on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, has debuted what in her mind was a critical look at two separate cultures: poverty in Mississippi and a supposed backwards view of government and welfare dependency in New York City stemming from racial components. (more)

An Oklahoma City man who wore diapers as part of a con was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison. (more)

A federal agency has agreed to pay out on a preposterous discrimination claim. The settlement will cost taxpayers “only” $62 million, but it displays, once again, the Obama administration’s partiality to bogus legal theories and its willingness to use taxpayer money to pander to left-wing advocacy organizations. This pre-election payoff deserves serious scrutiny. (more)

WESTMINSTER, Calif. (AP) — Prosecutors say an argument over houseguests led a Southern California woman to cut off her estranged husband’s penis and put it down a garbage disposal. (more)

Environmental activists, supported by a cadre of impassioned academic lawyers, have been looking to the common law of nuisance as a way to appeal directly to the courts and circumvent the administrative and legislative processes of government. On June 20th, a unanimous United States Supreme Court dealt a blow to their theory. In American Electric Power v. Connecticut, the Court ruled that the Clean Air Act preempts a claim that carbon emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants constitute a nuisance under federal common law. Although the law professors who came up with the idea that traditional nuisance law can be applied to climate change are doing their best to find silver linings in the Court’s opinion, the decision is a blow to environmentalist efforts to turn courts into environmental regulators. (more)

A murder mystery dating back to 1879 has been finally resolved after a skull unearthed in BBC legend David Attenborough’s garden was formally recognised as that of a woman murdered by her maid 132 years ago. (more)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The proprietors of a San Francisco restaurant said Wednesday they have surveillance footage of a sockless thief who snatched a valuable Picasso drawing off an art gallery wall. (more)

The collapse of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s case against French banker and politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn has focused attention on Vance’s competence. (more)

I was skeptical of the attempted rape charge against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn when I heard that a Frenchman had been involved in an assault without surrendering. But the media have been more gullible. Most have taken the New York Police Department’s word that Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape a chambermaid at his New York City hotel and have come out looking stupid because of it. (more)

Eliot Spitzer is the gift that keeps on giving — when it comes to crime. (more)

Imagine that after pouring your heart and soul into creating a thriving business, a government bureaucrat tells you to shut it down. The bureaucrat informs you that the only way to save your business is to go to a state-approved school that teaches nothing about your business, take a state exam that tests nothing about your business and pay for it all out of pocket, with curriculum and fees exceeding $10,000. The bureaucrat tells you that failure to comply could result in heavy fines and up to six months in jail. Does that sound like nothing more than a bad dream? (more)

The schoolyard has always been prime turf for bullies. But these days it’s not just students who are victims. School administrators and the taxpayers who foot the bill for municipal legal costs are prime targets as well. (more)

WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia police officer was charged Tuesday with scamming an elderly woman she was assigned to help, authorities said. (more)

New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer wants “Law and Order” to be filmed in his home state again. (more)

It was en elaborate heist that nearly paid off, big time. An ATM repairman swapped out fake bills for real cash, police said, getting away with $200,000. (more)

An unidentified drunk man died last week of an accidental stab wound after he dove into his hotel bed and landed on an upright knife placed there, according to The Houston Chronicle.  (more)

An Oregon woman says she feels “disrespected” after police pulled her off an Amtrak designated quiet car, according to KOMO News in Seattle. (more)

On April 19, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought by 12 states seeking damages from major utilities. The states’ novel theory is that the companies’ carbon dioxide emissions constitute a “public nuisance” by contributing to global warming. The skeptical questions, posed by both liberal and conservative justices, suggest that the states will lose, possibly in a unanimous decision. (more)

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Single mothers, former drug addicts and other struggling young women who came to wealthy businessman Henry Allen Fitzsimmons for a chance to climb out of their financial hole knew his help came with a catch. In exchange for an allowance, a place to live and promise of a college education, they agreed to be spanked if they broke his rules. (more)

I have written before about the dangers of our presumption-of-guilt culture, in which accusations and indictments are believed by people to be verdicts. I warned about this almost two years ago, when the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was indicted — and before his conviction was overturned due to corrupt and dishonest misconduct by federal prosecutors. (more)