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The Supreme Court on Monday seemed headed toward telling police they must explicitly advise criminal suspects that their lawyer can be present during any interrogation. The arguments in front of the justices were the latest over how explicit the Miranda warning rights have to be, as justices debated whether the warnings police gave Kevin Dwayne Powell made clear to him that he could have a lawyer present while being interrogated by police.
Powell was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm after telling police he bought the weapon “off the street” for $150 for his protection. Before his confession, Powell signed a Miranda statement that included the statements “You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.”
The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction on grounds the Tampa police didn’t adequately convey to Powell that he was allowed to have a lawyer with him during questioning.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell this person, that unlike a grand jury, you have a right to have the lawyer with you during interrogation?” Breyer said. “I mean, it isn’t as if that was said in passing in Miranda. They wrote eight paragraphs about it. And I just wonder, where does it say in this warning, you have the right to have the lawyer with you during the interrogation?”
Different courts have came down on different sides on what exactly should be said, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
“We’ve got a split of circuit courts and state courts on whether this reasonably conveys or not. Shouldn’t that be enough of an ambiguity for us to conclude it can’t reasonably convey, if there’s this many courts holding that it doesn’t?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
“You are saying, ‘Oh, if he had only known. Oh, if I knew that I could have an attorney present during the interview, well, that would have been a different kettle of fish and I would never have confessed,’” Scalia said. “I mean, doesn’t that seem to you quite fantastic?”
Miranda rights have been litigated since they first came into being in 1966.
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Tampa, Fla. (AP) — Jeffrey Kolowith’s kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer’s picture on a timeline through history.

“I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,” Kolowith said. “And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.”

In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, forth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year——charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery.

They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

“In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy,” teacher Laurie Crawford said.   SOURCE

ACORN first detected problems in Miami-Dade County in June 2008, according to a letter the group wrote to prosecutors. Investigators eventually determined that 11 canvassers, who were paid between $8 and $10 an hour, were turning in fake registration cards, mostly from the Homestead area.

“This is really about money. These are people who decided not to work,” said Ed Griffith, spokesman for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katharine Fernandez Rundle.

The 11 workers each face multiple counts of two felony charges: false swearing in connection with voting and submission of false voter registration information. Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison.

The suspects collectively turned in about 1,400 registration cards, of which 888 were later found to be faked. Some contained names of celebrities such as actor Paul Newman, while in other cases the same real voter’s name was used on multiple applications. There was no evidence anyone voted who should not have.

The FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement had made five arrests by midday and were looking for the remaining suspects. ACORN officials said the group regularly reports suspected fraud to authorities nationwide but the Miami prosecution marks one of the few times the complaints were taken seriously.

ACORN itself last year was the subject of fraudulent registration complaints in Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, among others.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g5ZxJgjHzO_C-1f0H0FHImQwjR2gD9AJTJ1G0

One of Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguards is to speak at a neo-Nazi rally this week.

Convicted Austrian neo-Nazi Herbert Schweiger, 85, who was a member of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte – Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard regiment – will speak at a rally held by Germany’s neo-Nazi party NPD in Berlin on 1 May.

Schweiger said in a recent interview with British newspaper Daily Mail: “Our time will come. We will soon again have a leader like Adolf Hitler.”

When asked who was to blame for the current financial crisis, Schweiger said: “The Jew from Wall Street,” adding that “Hitler had the right solutions.”

Berlin authorities have said they are monitoring the planned gathering at the NPD’s federal headquarters and police have said they are planning a massive operation ahead of expected demonstrations.

http://austriantimes.at/index.php?id=12864