Tuesday, November 26, 2019

A Man Without Civil Rights

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The man in the mustard-colored prison jumpsuit apologized in court to the judge for not being able to show remorse for his crimes. But the most notorious pedophile in America had a good reason for not playing along with the well-worn script in his case -- "because it's something that I didn't do," the inmate told the judge.

Jerry Sandusky, still protesting his innocence, was back in court last week to be re-sentenced after the latest official screwup in this ongoing travesty of a case. An appeals court had ruled that the trial judge hadn't properly applied mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines when he put Sandusky away the first time back in 2012 for 30 to 60 years.

But in the grand tradition of the Pennsylvania judiciary, circling the wagons, a new judge, the Honorable Maureen Skerda, gave Sandusky the exact same sentence that he got the first time around -- 30 to 60 years in jail. The message from the Pennsylvania judiciary was unmistakable -- we may have screwed up the details, but when it comes to Jerry Sandusky and the rest of the defendants in the so-called Penn State sex scandal, the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply, and neither does the Bill of Rights. Lock 'em up and throw away the key.

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Saturday, November 23, 2019

New Cop-Hosted Podcast Probes Crime, Corruption & Media Bias


"What if everything you thought you knew about the criminal justice system in high-profile criminal cases wasn't true?

"What if the mainstream media was too corrupt and compromised to tell you about it?

"Join a veteran Buffalo city detective, a veteran Canadian Pacific police captain and a veteran NCIS special agent -- along with special guests -- as they dissect the criminal justice system in high profile criminal cases from their perspectives in an unedited podcast focusing on crime, corruption and media bias.

"It's Search Warrant, a new podcast coming right at you."

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Monday, November 18, 2019

Detective: D.A. Tampered With Witness In Officer Involved Shooting

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Derrick "Jake" Jacobs was one of the detectives assigned to investigate the 2017 fatal police shooting of dirt biker David Jones.

The victim was black; Ryan Pownall, the officer who pulled the trigger, was white. Jacobs, who is black, says that race played no part in his investigation, which exonerated the officer; neither did any supposed loyalty to his fellow cops.

"If it's a bad shooting, there's nothing you can do about it," said Jacobs, a veteran detective of 20 years who formerly worked homicide before he was assigned to the Philly P.D.'s Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Unit. "The facts are the facts," the detective said, and "you can't get around them."

But Jacobs' findings put him on a collision course with the D.A.'s office, led by Progressive Larry Krasner, who was intent on indicting Officer Pownall for murder. When Detective Jacobs got in the way, the detective claims in a new lawsuit, the D.A.'s office threatened to arrest Jacobs, initiated a grand jury investigation against him, and then tried to intimidate the detective into remaining silent until Pownall's trial, scheduled for January, was over.

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Friday, November 8, 2019

Philly Police Probe Alleged Cheating On Training At D.A.'s Office

'By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The Philadelphia Police Department has launched an internal investigation into whether police officers and detectives in the D.A.'s office cheated during annual training exercises by participating in abbreviated sessions.

On June 3-6, approximately 30 officers and detectives under the direction of Lt. Kenyatta Lee attended daily sessions held at the Philadelphia D.A.'s office, as well as at a conference room located at 1339 Chestnut St., in Philadelphia Municipal Court. Lee was appointed interim Chief County Detective by D.A. Larry Krasner.

The classes, which lasted approximately one hour in length, were part of the required annual training and re-certification of police officers done under the auspices of the Municipal Police Officers' Education & Training Commission.

In contrast to what was going on at the D.A.'s office, however, at the Philadelphia Police Academy, the daily MPO training and certification courses lasted eight hours. One example of the short cuts the Philadelphia police are investigating: at the police academy, according to the schedule, for "CPR & First Aid," the officers "Need Mask." But at the abbreviated CPR classes held at the D.A.'s office, no CPR masks were required.

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Why's The Inky Covering For Larry Krasner?

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

New crusading District Attorney Larry Krasner hires the largest and most diverse incoming class ever of 60 brand new prosecutors. But then we find out that 18 of those new ADAs can't go to court or write a brief because they just flunked the bar exam.

Is that a news story?

I certainly thought so. And so did the more than 8,000 readers who hit the blog in the last 48 hours to catch up with the latest chapter of the big criminal justice revolution in Philadelphia, starring Progressive Larry Krasner.

Another person who thought the ADAs flunking out was a story was Julie Shaw, a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She had the story, but then her editor told her it wasn't news.

This isn't an isolated incident. In recent months, several other stories that attempted to take a critical look at Krasner wound up being spiked by the Inquirer. So it's time to ask why our relentlessly progressive Democratic paper-of-record is covering for our relentlessly progressive Democratic D.A.

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Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Eighteen New Krasner ADAs Flunk Bar Exam

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

When he first hired 60 new assistant district attorneys back in September, D.A. Larry Krasner hailed them as an "incredibly bright group of new prosecutors" who constituted "the largest and most diverse class of ADAs ever hired by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office."

Krasner said the new prosecutors that he had personally recruited were "fully committed to seeking justice for the people of Philadelphia." But besides being seekers of justice, Krasner also extolled the diversity of his new recruits.

"In order to effect real and lasting reform of our system of criminal justice, we must make sure they are inclusive and representative of the communities they serve," Krasner said. The new class of prosecutors, Krasner bragged, were "51 percent diverse." Many were from top law schools across the country as well as historically black colleges and universities. In addition, "more than half are women and 2 percent identify as non-binary," Krasner said, apparently meaning that some of the new ADAs weren't exclusively masculine or feminine. Another milestone for progressives.

The only problem was that in order to become full-fledged prosecutors, this incredibly diverse group of new ADAs had to pass the bar exam. And while 42 passed, 18 of the 60 new ADAs have apparently failed that test.

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