Bob CollinsMaybe France is on to something. It’s just convicted a man under a new law criminalizing lewd and insulting comments to women, the reports. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Crime and Justice
Occasionally, justice prevails for the innocent, but the story of Valentino Dixon, whose conviction for murder was vacated today after he served 27 years, tells us that there are likely innocent people in prison because they can’t draw pretty golfscape scenes. Read more →
It can be easy for people to give up on North Minneapolis. Just ask a craft brewery owner, who has decided to move his business after another weekend of violence in the neighborhood. Read more →
The killing of a black man inside his own apartment by a cop who allegedly thought she was entering her own unit is pretty much why people of color kneel on the sideline of football games. Some police officers, they say, are far too quick to take the lives of African-Americans. Too many jurors, they add, are too quick to let them get away with it. Read more →
If ever there was a slam-dunk case in which the 4th Amendment was clearly violated, it was the mass arrest and handcuffing of a group of middle school girls in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2013. For some reason the school board has continued to defend it and the sheriff’s deputy. Today, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals smacked it down again, just as a lower court had. Read more →
It’s not hard at all to see why a district court judge in St. Louis County threw the book at Brian Barthman of Hermantown more than a year ago. His criminal sexual conduct was particularly disgusting on many levels. Read more →
In its latest sexual harassment and abuse scandal, CBS Corporation said it ‘takes these allegations very seriously.’ As with so many corporations, that’s a lie. Read more →
Let there be a special place in hell for the people who kill a dog. Read more →
When a Pennsylvania couple, accused of skimming the GoFundMe money donated to help out a homeless man, made clear through their lawyer today that they’ll take the Fifth next week, let’s just say it didn’t help the image of Kate McClure, 28, and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, 39. Read more →
Justin Taylor Dentz, 38, of Blaine, admitted in court that he solicited sex with someone on Backpage.com and agreed to pay $120 for time to the person who said she was 15.
She was a cop conducting an undercover prostitution sting in Maple Grove. Read more →
The killing of Molly Tibbetts, the Iowa college student who was abducted when she went out for a run, is a scary story, and not because of the liklihood we’ll be the victim of a similar crime.
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Nothing, not losing a license, not jail time, not even losing most of her kids to the state, is likely to keep Tasha Lynn Schleicher, 41, of New Hope, Minn., from driving drunk. Read more →
Here’s a tip learned the hard way: Get your name on your elderly parents’ bank accounts. Read more →
In their race to pass legislation, lawmakers often don’t have or don’t take enough time to fully think about what they’re passing. Then, it’s up to courts to clean up the mess. Read more →
Last September, the appeals court overturned the firearms and drug
convictions of suspected drug dealer Cortney John Edstrom, saying if a court ruled a drug sniffing dog outside an apartment isn’t an invasion of privacy, the Fourth Amendment would be of little use to apartment dwellers.
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