Free Talk Live

Evidently we as a society are better off with a millionaire in prison for not paying his taxes. Absolutely insanity.

Friday, a federal appeals court upheld the lower court decision that actor Wesley Snipes' three-year prison sentence for tax evasion. The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Snipes' 2008 sentence for three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns for several years.

A teenage Sudanese mother accused of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning...Intisar Sharif Abdallah, who is believed to be under 18 and has a four-month-old baby, was tried without a lawyer, found guilty and sentenced to death. '...imposing this punishment on someone who may be a child is especially shocking,' said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Sudan is notorious for its brutal and archaic punishments.

Davis’ execution had been held up three times since 2007, and his case went through a long and complicated appeals process, but during the appeals process he was expected to prove his innocence, rather than merely cast reasonable doubt. Legal experts have argued that the major obstacle to granting Davis a new trial, and thus returning the standard of proof back to reasonable doubt, was the “Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act” which, among other things, bars death row inmates from later presenting evidence that could exonerate them after trial.

Under California’s three strikes, a person convicted of a felony who has two or more prior convictions for certain offenses must be sentenced to at least 25 years to life in state prison, even if the third offense is nonviolent. Critics have argued it is the harshest sentencing law in the United States. Life sentences have been handed down for stealing a pair of pants, shoplifting, forging a check and breaking into a soup kitchen.

Man gets life in prison after repenting for his crime. A Kansas man turned himself in to authorities saying he knowingly committed oral sex on a 4 month old baby. The predator laws in Kansas are some of the strictest in the nation and mandate a life sentence. While the crime is deplorable, should the sentence be lessened because the man admitted his crime to a priest and turned himself in willingly to police?

Maye was arrested in 2001, the day after Christmas, for killing Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones during a botched drug raid on Maye's home. Maye, now 30, was convicted in 2004 of capital murder, or the intentional killing of a police officer. He was sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court’s decision lets stand a January ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the cross display violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As the Ninth Circuit explained, “The use of such a distinctively Christian symbol to honor all veterans sends a strong message of endorsement and exclusion. It suggests that the government is so connected to a particular religion that it treats that religion’s symbolism as its own, as universal.

LOS ANGELES -- A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform in a 2009 encounter that set off days of rioting in the city.

The jury deliberated more than six hours over two days to convict Johannes Mehserle in the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot to death as he lay face-down.

Man with Down syndrome suffocated to death in police custody

A Maryland court has ruled that police are responsible for the death of a mentally disabled man. The homicide occurred after the man refused to leave a movie theater, prompting police to pin him down on the ground until he suffocated to death.