Chez Chesler

1. State Treasurer Tim Cahill

 

The Boston Herald reported on September 7 that Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill's daughter was busted at Logan Airport for trying to bring peaches home from Italy.  He had to pay a $300 fine for forgetting something was in a bag, and that seems a lot less than folks who forget there is a gun in their bags face.  (Here's a recent story about Kansas City Chiefs star Bill Maas who made that mistake, and facecs a $500 fine and 6 months in jail, plus a $10,000 TSA fine.)  A gun could be useful on a plane -- the heros of flight 93 had to make due with a serving cart.  But fruit from the Mediterranean?  There is a very real risk that it could harbor insect pests.  (That page from the USDA's APHIS site lists peaches first among the fruits that Medflies can attack.)  I don't leave the country very often, but I certainly know there's a restriction on agricultural products.

In any case what concerned me was Cahill's statement about the Customs agents: "It didn't appear to me that they knew who I was nor cared."  (He said he told the agents he was a government official but never identified himself as the treasurer -- and apparently he never asked "Do you know who I am?" -- maybe because that had just failed for Larry Craig in another airport.)

Why should Customs agents have cared?  Why does Cahill think state officials should be treated any differently than other people?

2. Law Enforcement

In early July (I'm way backed on stuff I want to blog about), Glen Johnson wrote a piece for the AP, "Vehicle stickers raise questions about police favoritism".   He describes a "thin blue line" sticker.  He quotes Kenneth Waters, "For what purpose does the spouse display the 'thin blue line' decal on their automobile? Why immunity from the law of course."

Johnson says the state police don't treat drivers who display the stickers any differently, but spokesman Eric Benson uses weasel words when he says "The State police does not officially recognize" them (emphasis added).

Over on Police World "La. Officer", also quoted by Johnson, in a thread from early 2004, tries to have it both ways. He writes "everyone that I stop has the same chance of getting a ticket or not" but he had just written "If I stop someone with one of these stickers, and they are not leo or direct family of leo, they are almost certain to get written for whatever I can write them for." He also wrote "I do know of officers stopping non leo with the thin blue line stickers and politely telling the suspects that if the sticker is gone by the time they get back to the unit to get the ticket book, then they will probably leave with only a verbal warning if there is no warrants out for them." -- which means that he is violating his own oath of office for allowing his brothers in blue to violate, under color of law, these drivers' constitutionally protected right to free expression.

Tpartrg310 on Police World explains that he puts the logo on his car "to identify [himself] as law enforcement officers. And that more than likely we were 'good guys' and probaly armed." I'm a good guy, and I might be armed -- I think I'm going to do my part for law enforcement and get one of those stickers.

Labels: Cahill, police, privilege, unequal_treatment

Answers.com cites West's Encyclopedia of American Law on Outlawry:

A declaration under Old English law by which a person found in contempt on a civil or criminal process was considered an outlaw—that is, someone who is beyond the protection or assistance of the law.

During the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, a person who committed certain crimes lost whatever protection he or she had under the law, forfeited whatever property he or she owned, and could be killed by anyone. If the crime committed was treason or a felony, a declaration of outlawry was tantamount to a conviction and attainder. Outlawry for a misdemeanor did not, however, amount to a conviction for the offense. The Norman Conquest led to significant changes in the law governing outlawry, eventually leading to its abolition.

It seems that New Hampshire has revived this status. An AP wire story seen in this morning's Boston Herald describes video of the police stop on May 11 during which Bruce McKay attacked Liko Kenney, who then shot and killed McKay before being killed himself by a passerby.

According to the story, "Prosecutors say McKay was justified in using nondeadly force on Kenney, 24, partly because of a violent confrontation between the two men four years earlier." 

We can't ask Victoria Snelgrove how nondeadly police pepper spray is, because she was killed by Boston Police using similar so-called non-lethal force.  And in any case deadly force is justified against an attacker using incapacitating force (cite?) because there is no reason to think that the attacker will stop once the victim is incapacitated, and if the victim doesn't defend himself while he has the capacity he will lose the opportunity to defend himself.

But what does that statement by the prosecutor mean?  McKay and Kenney had had a confrontation four years earlier.  This certainly justified McKay being cautious and calling for backup.  Why is that sufficient provocation to justify McKay attacking Kenney?

Moments after Kenney shot McKay, former Marine Gregory Floyd killed Kenney using McKay's gun.  Quoting further from the story, "The attorney general also said Floyd was justified in shooting Kenney."  McKay was already dead.  I haven't seen any evidence that Kenney was threatening Floyd or anyone else.  So what justified Floyd's executing Kenney?

Has New Hampshire revived outlawry, and had it declared Kenney to be an outlaw?

Update: The Concord Monitor story gives more details: Floyd claims to have killed nineteen people before Kenney, and Floyd threatened to murder passenger Caleb Macaulay unless Macaulay complied with his orders to either "stop crying" (per Macauley, note that Macauley had also just been pepper-sprayed by McKay before seeing his friend killed) or "to get out of the car and get on his knees" (per Floyd.) Macauley also noted that Floyd ordered him to pick up McKay's gun, which Macauley had the sense to realize would have given Floyd an excuse to murder him as well. The story notes that Kenney was apprehensive about the encounter with McKay and requested that another officer handle the stop instead.

Labels: murder, outlawry, police