Jackson Jambalaya

Now if only Hood would go after all the Democrats that Johnny Horhn (D-Ridgeland) is trying to protect.

I guess uniform Rule of circuit and County court 3.02 doesn't apply to an attorney general. You know, the part about thanking or congratulating a jury for its verdict?

oh nevermind . . .

I heard Jamie McBride was very effective.

8:19 Hood is only going after those who can be of political gain. You really need to educate yourself before Tuesday. If you learned a fraction of what this guy is capable of and does behind the scene you would encourage everyone you know plus some to vote him out. I can not go into details some would know who I am so PLEASE just REALLY look into Hood.

@8:51 good post Jamie have a nice weekend

Whatever the political reasons are, I knew Cameron personally and worked with him for about a year. He opened up about a lot of stuff to me. I do not think he is a predator, he just had a severe addiction. He was bullied in school and was veey depressed. I am not making excuses for him, but I genuinely hope he can get back on track after his release.

Now that the sentencing is over some of us can speak out.
First, the entire jury had no doubt this defendant-Cameron- was/is not a pedophile, molester or any threat to anyone.
Second, the evidence we were shown does show that many of the pictures were deleted as soon as they were downloaded or before they even finished downloading. It also showed he was interested in downloading many many music videos and movies.
Third, there were only 42 pictures and some of the 42 pictures were labeled "these are adult age". There were a few that were very difficult to look at.
Fourth, there was only about a 3 week time span (Jan. 30 to Feb 22 if I remember correctly)that any pictures appeared on his computer.
Fifth, There was no evidence of any molesting or touching or pedophilia that Mr. McBride kept referring to in his closing. It made many of us feel that he was being completely disingenuous. Frankly with all he was adding with no evidence he lost creditability.
Sixth, those of us with kids learned to teach our kids not to ever talk to the police or authorities. Defense got an investigator to admit they use "deceptive techniques" a nice way to say they (police/authorities) can lie and say anything they want to get a person to say whatever. Teach our/your children if not under arrest leave DO NOT TALK. That is an important message I never would have thought I needed to teach my kids.
Finally, we wanted to hear a professional speak of the defendants character. We learned after that was not allowed and that there was a counselor that the AG,DA and the judge did not allow to speak. And that the AG, DA and judge would not allow the defendant to speak his defense. We wondered why the defendant was on the stand and the DA objected. The jury was taken from the room and we never heard any more from the defendant. Knowing this now we would not have voted guilty and if we had any idea of the sentence it would have been a hung jury.
By the letter of the law we were given and the instructions he was guilty of having a picture on the computer no matter how it got there or how long it was there. We did not believe him to be anything other than a teenager who got caught up. A 12 year sentence is insane and is not justified in this case.

Then you should not have convicted him. Jury nullification comes to mind.

travelstead is a perverted deviant that should never be released. anyone interested in such filth cannot be rehabilitated.

the person above claiming to be a juror should be drawn and quartered as well.

7:10, I haven't practiced in this guy's room, but is he going to allow a nullification/Salazar instruction?

12:20 has now let the truth be known... Cameron Travelstead did not receive a fair trial in Jeff Weills courtroom...and Jim hood should be ashamed thar his investigators have taught our children that police are liars and discouraged any dialogue between our youth and law enforcement... Strong work JIim... Nice message to send... And at least the jury recognized that Janie McBride was disingenuous with no credibility.... This case need reversal and a new trial in a courtroom where this young man can get a fair trial.

NEVER speak to Police.
Demand an attorney IMMEDIATELY.

Any of you people unfamiliar with who Judge Weill is go to the Clarion Ledger page search Weill and it will pull up many articles chronicling his misbehavior, incompetence and I believe his mental incompetence and instability. This judge is a prime example that the electorate do not research some of the people they vote for. He is in my church, saw him at the store, my friends cousins brother knows him, etc. etc. etc. none of these are reasons to vote for someone.
Research research research !!!!!! While I am at it Hood is as corrupt as the day is long. The law and justice should be his top priority instead of sweetheart deals.
Being "tough on crime" sounds great does it not. When that is applied with no regard to the true or individual or equality --just randomly applied when it fits a purpose to be gained/political that is not how our system was intended.

8:00 I forgot to add Follow the money as always. The democrat attorney general association in New York City yes New York City has donated several hundred thousand dollars to Hood along with many other lobbyist and special interest groups. Much of this money comes from out of state. WHY???

Mississippi attorney general awards large legal contracts to contributors

In 2014, Brent Hazzard, the principal of Hazzard Law LLC, gave Hood $10,000. That same year, Hazzard Law LLC received more than $4.7 million for legal work in litigation against the chemical company BASF in an alleged price-fixing scheme.

On Sept. 18, 2014, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC gave Hood $1,000 and also gave Democrat Attorneys General Association (DAGA)$15,000 in 2014 and $25,000 in 2012. In March, it received more than $5.4 million in contingency fees from litigation against Standard & Poor’s on behalf of Mississippi.

The firm received more than $858,000 from litigation for alleged mortgage-backed securities fraud by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch before their acquisition by Bank of America.

In 2011 and 2013, the law firm Zimmerman Reed PLLP contributed a total of $20,000 to DAGA.

In 2012, Zimmerman Reed PLLP received more than $405,000 in contingency fees from its legal work against Hitachi for alleged price fixing on liquid-crystal display panels. In 2014, it received more than $1.1 million for legal work against LG, also accused of alleged price-fixing on LCD panels. This year, it received more than $465,000 for legal work against Chi Mei Optoelectronics Inc. and $1.3 million in a lawsuit against AU Optronics for alleged price-fixing on LCD screens. The companies settled with 24 states in 2012.

Research Research Research Follow the money!!!!!!!!!!

This guy is corrupt !!!!!!!!!!

8:00 you don't know Jeff Weill. This is why I hate this Mickey Mouse Blog. Lightweight pieces of shit like you can trash a good man trying and succeeding in making this armpit of justice better. Name one GD THING YOU DO REGARDING THIS CITY. Use code so we can't figure out who your sorry ass is. They control freak will never post this.

This does not excuse Weill going overboard, but I understand the Defendant's appointed counsel refused a deal for 2 year or so sentence. More experienced counsel would have taken the deal. Tragic really.

I've known Jeff Weill since we were children together in the same neighborhood. He is an honest, good person.

I don't know Weill. Never met him. But I too knew honest, good children in the neighborhood where I grew up. I doubt that meant they would make effective judges though.

This is why I hate this Mickey Mouse Blog.

If you hate this Mickey Mouse Blog why are you still here reading and commenting on this Mickey Mouse Blog?

Take the lead and "name one GD THING YOU DO REGARDING THIS CITY". Go ahead, tell us what you do.

12:43.... There was a 2 year offer that got yanked when Jim Hood's office got involved... Defense counsel all but begged for the two year deal right up until the time the jury came back... What happened in between involved the Supreme Court, Randy Harris, Alison Kelly, Michele purvis Harris and a lot of other lawyers....go to the Supreme Court Clerk and read the pleadings... Judge Weill probably needed to recuse when the defense counsel filed a motion asking him to step down

12:53 There was a 2 year plea offered. That was at the same time Weill pulled all the cases from the Public Defenders due to his irrational hatred of them. During that time Travelstead had no one representing him and the plea got lost in all the game playing.
There was also a 5 year deal just a few weeks before the trial for this person some (8:03)of you think is a monster. The AG & DA obviously did not think that. Many agree Weill would not have accepted that deal anyway. Because of all of Weill's mess is why that deal was lost.
9:30 I do not need to know Weill on a personal level to see he is ill equipped to be a judge. You need to find one person in or around that courthouse that believe Weill is fit to be on the bench. The problem dealing with a judge is to many have to walk on eggshells.

Read what the Supreme Court has said in its rulings and the descending remarks AGAINST Weill. They strongly suggested he recuse himself off this and other cases.

Also check into the percent of cases Weill has overturned.

9:30 Your language tells me & and all of us how intellectual you are. Yes because Weill is there I now feel comfortable walking around any where in Jackson at any time. I am very thought on real crime and equally, IF NOT MORE, though on INJUSTICE.
The bigger picture here is you, me, anyone can literally abduct a child or a friends kid or family member and RAPE (even murder) them and get less time and chances are good no time incarcerated than looking at a picture. That should have all of us up in arms.
Is that the good job you are referring?
What I do think I know about Weill is he would not appreciate your language at all not even in his defense. That begs the question how well do you really know Weill? You discredited yourself.

9:30 ; 4:16 I am a good, honest, hard-working, dedicated person.

Pretty sure you would not want me to be your pilot or surgeon.

correction

I am very tough on real crime and equally, IF NOT MORE, tough on INJUSTICE.

1. The Supreme Court told him and the public defenders to get along.

2. For arguument's sake, I will accept the worst of what you say about Weill. He is still not the threat to public safety that Kidd, Priester, and Gowan are. We don't read about killers being set free or low bonds given to thugs who go out and commit even worse crimes in cases involving Judge Weill.

12:57 No that is not all the court told Weill. You need to read the options. Are you seriously putting this case in with those cases?
Also, it seems to be an all or nothing attitude here. Everyone who goes before weill or trials in general is guilty period. Throw everyone in jail regardless that will make the streets safer.
Are we at the point in our society that will tolerate total injustice
in hopes our streets become safer? It does not or should not be an either -- or situation.

I did read the options and in case you forgot, I posted the opinion on this site. You are the one who said he should recuse himself due to his dispute with the public defenders. I said the Supreme Court told him they need to get along. Actually what they said was the complaints to the bar and commission by both sides would be handled by those organizations and not the Supreme Court until it was time to do so. They told him he could not bar Ms. Kelly or other PD's from the courtroom unless he followed certain procedures. Procedures that he ignored. I simplified it to the point of saying the Court told them to get along and follow the normal channels for making complaints against each other.

In the next few days will post some of the remarks from the descending opinions' which encouraged weill to remove himself from these cases. I am sure the reason the court did not order him to
was because it would open a Pandora's box. Then all weill's cases with the defenders office would be subject to review.

travelstead is a perverted deviant that should never be released. anyone interested in such filth cannot be rehabilitated.
October 31, 2015 at 8:03 AM

Apparently facts for you are irrelevant. Let me try this with as small of words as possible. Travelstead started looking at ADULT pornography out of teen curiosity . This is totally legal.

He then typed in looking for 16 year old girls (he is 19 years old). In this he saw these markers (labels). He typed in those markers looking for 16--some of these pictures were labeled "these are legal adults". 16 is considered to be child porn. I did not have any idea that age fell under that.
The investigator, himself, admitted he did not know what those markers meant until he attended a workshop. When some very disturbing pictures started coming through he deleted them. This was a 3 week time span when these pictures started showing up.

From this time till weeks later when his computer was sized there were no more pictures on the computer or had been downloaded. He had already corrected the problem long before he even know the authorities had those markers show up. Travelstead has been out 6 years with nothing else showing up on his computer. Does that sound like a "perverted deviant"? Rehabilitated?

Also, most important one guy from the AG office said he know Travelstead was not a pedophile or like those guys.

Yet because it is an election time they went after him. What does that say about the AG's character? Tells me everything. A man of character would be able to say I will continue to seek out child pornographers with every arsenal at our disposal. The circumstances in this particular case does not reach/warrant that level.

The AG if he had a conscious could still do the just thing instead of the politically expedient.

The fact that some misuse their authority positions should scare you to death. It is not you THIS time. Is there a limit to what they are capable of doing? or doing it to?

Now 8:03 let us lay out and discuss your mistakes.

10:31 The public defender should have advised the guy to take the 2 year deal when offered because of the risks. Once the deal was off the table, the prosecutors had no choice but to do their job and hope that the Judge would be reasonable in sentencing. The prosecutors had no control over the Judge. Unfortunately Weill went for the max. Hope there is a way the sentence can be reduced on appeal. Certainly the guy had ineffective assistance of counsel when it came to looking at his options.

10:31 you need to read 11:08 The deal got lost in all the Weill shenanigans. Weill in his infinite wisdom pulled all the cases from the PD office. Weeks passed before another attorney, Harris, was reach by then the AG pulled that deal. Weill would have still had to agree to it. Weill turns down the majority of the pleas the PD brings to him. His distain for the PD is clear and visible in that courtroom. It is completely irrelevant what the defendant has or has not done. For Weill top priority was to beat Kelly, Spore and the whole PD office. There was no justice anywhere in that courtroom just plain and simple vengeance, power grabbing and control by Weill.
During this trial I would venture a guess that 97% of what the PD objected to or asked for was overruled.
Go to the Clarion Ledger then search Weill and a whole page of articles will come up. You can read about this.

10:31 The judge gave exactly what the AG and DA asked for. They are the ones who asked for 20 years and Weill gave it to them.

the prosecutors had no choice but to do their job and hope that the Judge would be reasonable in sentencing. The prosecutors had no control over the Judge.

Are you kidding???? this must be a joke???
The prosecutors had no choice??? They do have a job I agree; however, when they knew this case was NOT the same as most of the real child porn. watchers they could have backed down and come to a reasonable appropriate sentence. Instead they doubled down.
McBride stood right there in that courtroom and preceded to blatantly lie. NEVER NEVER NEVER did Travelstead say he masturbated to CHILD porn--that did not stop McBride. He went on to say Travelstead is a cross dresser--absolutely no proof or evidence of that look at his side. He read a list of names he said were child porn videos downloaded--not true 1 ONE video was downloaded and erased. Weill let him introduce evidence 4 days into trail that had NO identifying marks on them. NO time or anything that if you download something gets attached to the pic, file or whatever. Where did these pics come from ?? and why were they allowed in 4 days?? Why did AG-DA ask for and get to play only the part of the audio recording on Travelstead they wanted?? The PD wanted the whole thing played. I could go on and on.
The bottom line is this AG and DA went out of their way to lie manipulate and they had a judge that put his stamp of approval on almost everything they did. If you have the truth and evidence on your side WHY the need to lie and make things up??
NO WAY can you be seriously making excuses for what they did in this case. Again this is exactly what the AG and DA asked for.
If you are in a position and think this sentence is wrong for this young man than you have a human duty to do the right thing and speak up.

4:00 I know you could have written pages. You forgot a very BIG prosecutor/judge action.
The defendant was not allowed to testify. 4 questions in Kelly gets interrupted by McBride--relevance. The jury is taken out for the defendant to continue for about 20 or so minutes. The AG,DA and Judge decide all that the defendant is saying is not relevant. Not relevant for him to tell his side of what, how he made this mistake.
Then Weill had the absolute gall to say the defendant could have taken the stand for 6 hours if he so wanted. And said what? The AG, DA and judge should have provided the defend. with an outline of what they would allow him to say. Then the judge allowed McBride to reference what the defend. did not say. He took the stand but you did not hear him say...,He did not tell you... and on McBride went.
The jury had no idea the defend. was kept from telling his side.
Then the judge forbid Kelly or Spore from saying anything about what the defend. wanted to say.
Poor mistreated prosecutors.

Then you should not have convicted him. Jury nullification comes to mind.
October 31, 2015 at 7:10 AM
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I researched your commit. If only I knew then what I know now (several others also) the outcome would be different. If I find myself in the situation again I will Google and be more informed.

If you can not depend on the people in the system to present ALL the information then it should be jurors obligation to become informed. Justice should be the goal of all sides.

I am horrified, disillusioned and in complete disbelief in what I saw here. If this is an example of our judicial system at work: we are all in serious trouble. To so callously throw a young life away is inexcusable. This is not what I believed our justice to be. By all accounts this seems to be a nice young man who got caught up in a terrible situation it deeply concerns me what prison do to him. We ask jurors to serve yet then feed them bits and pieces of the evidence then ignore their opinion.

The Attorney General office name is on all the press releases which tells me the posts reading this was all about politics and the election rings true.

If this young mans sentence stands I will have to live with my part and anger with how this trail was conducted. Hopefully these "authorities" have some conscious left and are ashamed at what they have done here to this young life. We would not have done this. They made all of us part of this travesty.

Jury nullification occurs in a trial when a jury acquits a defendant, even though the members of the jury may believe that the defendant did the illegal act, yet they don't believe he or she should be punished for it. This may occur when members of the jury disagree with the law the defendant has been charged with breaking, or believe that the law should not be applied in that particular case.

Judges rarely inform juries of their nullification power.

Some maintain that it is an important safeguard of last resort against wrongful imprisonment and government tyranny.

A jury verdict that is contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it.

In the past, it was feared that a single judge or panel of government officials may be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, even when that practice had drifted from its origins. In most modern Western legal systems, however, judges often instruct juries to serve only as "finders of facts", whose role it is to determine the veracity of the evidence presented, the weight accorded to the evidence, to apply that evidence to the law, and to reach a verdict; but not to question the law or decide what it says.

I know Cameron personally and this still gets to me. It is truly a tragedy that Jim Hood would play this political game to ruin this guy's life. John Langworthy had sex with underaged boys and didn't spend a day in jail. Double standard much?

I also know Cam personally. I can’t forget his case even all these years later.