Jackson Jambalaya

When the judge say "Do what?" that is not a good thing for someone.

There are several legitimate reasons to run background checks, including criminal, but this is not one of them. Several people should be fired. And if an attorney is in that pipeline, he should be disbarred.

This crap is even more bogus than the PO PO running drivers license checks to see who the pretty girl in the Mustang is.

It's not illegal to run an NCIC check, but it IS illegal to intimidate a witness. Malcolm Jones did a piss-poor job of explaining exactly how that supposedly happened. How exactly did the prospective witness learn the cops had run an NCIC on him? And if all he had was a speeding ticket, why on earth was that so intimidating? Doesn't add up. Sounds to me like Jones wasn't all that sure his witness was going to be very good, and decided to blame it on the other side. The guy was under subpoena and could have been compelled to testify anyway.

“It was in anticipation of a crime about to be committed,” said Lawrence of what he foresaw to be Smith’s potential perjury on the stand."

Wasn't there a recent movie about psychic cops who could predict who was about to commit a crime?

Where's the dumbass from yesterday who kept denying anything about witness intimidation on the other post?

Yeah, how you like me now.

Not illegal to run NCIC? Yes it is, for the wrong purpose.

Waterboy and the Democratic Thrust!

Improper use of NCIC is a felony. And they can take it away from your entire department if they catch you.

Somebody needs to cite the statute or regulation making it a felony to use NCIC "for the wrong purpose."

NCIC is run by the federal government. Various law enforcement agencies have licenses issued for the privilege of using NCIC for specified purposes which are limited to legitimate investigative and prosecutorial functions. It cannot be used for an individual's purposes UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Each use must be by a licensed operator who must list the purpose of the inquiry on a specific individual. They need to check that use log. The explanation of this attorney is pure horse manure, high quality manure to be sure. HPD should lose their NCIC privileges over this. The attorney should face some action on his law license. This isn't exactly "illegal" as in a violation of criminal law, but it is clear abuse of the NCIC privilege and the attorney is a liar.

Prospective employers across the nation pay to get results of local, state and federal criminal background checks. However, the agency that eventually punches the button to request the results are required to abide by standards of use and uses such as the once cited in this thread violate use agreements. A head or two should roll. Criminal background checks for purposes of employment are illegal in some jurisdictions.

Mississippi, not too many years ago (maybe five) had a notorious gentleman in the State House who attempted to make criminal background checks for purposes of pre employment consideration, illegal. It didn't get off the ground. His name is Eric Fleming, never saw a union suggestion he didn't embrace. Not only did he hold the annual record for filing stupid bills, he also remained on the union-dole for a decade or more.

a private employer doesn't legally get access to NCIC for criminal background checks. they can do it with other databases such as Tracker that are commercially availabale, or they use the equivalent of private detectives and firms to do background checks. this is what the mayor should have done.

Comrade Barackinov also wants to do away with criminal background checks for purposes of pre-employment consideration.

He'll soon tell business owners exactly who to hire.

8:01, "not illegal to run a NCIC check"? Tell that to the individual (formerly a city attorney, by the way) that is currently residing in a federal lockup for having used NCIC for non-allowable purposes. Interestingly, it was in an elections case. Mr. Lawrence should be concerned about more than just being disbarred - he should be worried about where he might be spending the night over the next few years.

Okay, so let's go down the road that the city attorney's actions, and possibly those withing the PD as well, were either illegal or violated NCIC policy.

If illegal, who can press charges?

If a violation of policy, who can report this to the FBI and/or who at the FBI investigates?

Happy to see this trial show what many on the coast already know. Brandon Jones is a slimeball.

A friend of mine runs a Federal Training Center, not FLETC but on one of their campuses. He had an employee misuse NCIC. HE FIRED HIM, then spent 3 days fasting and in prayer they wouldn't take his privileges away.

Interesting that everyone seems to think that improper use of NCIC is a crime, but no one can identify a statute or regulation in support. "Loss of privilege" is not a criminal penalty - so get over the fact that a prospective witness was checked on NCIC. I'm willing to bet cops to it all the time in criminal cases to help D.A.'s impeach alibi witnesses.

And back to my original question - what evidence is there that anyone tried to intimidate the prospective witness? Somebody checked his background and came up with zilch - so what??? The losing attorney is trying to make something out of nothing here.

Losing attorney?

You mean Precious and the Waterboy? Because they clearly lost.

1:49,

To borrow a phrase from the good judge:

"DO WHAT?"

Lie harder. You're not convincing any of us yet.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ncic

Not since the high grade lynching of Sam Bowers by the Forrest County Assistant DA Helfrich and Judge Dickie "Pigmeat" McKenzie, has there been such a display of judicial misconduct, witness intimidation and jury/evidence tampering. Judge Coleman's legacy, for what its worth, will always be tainted by the events of the last three weeks, especially demanding that jurors voting in secret reveal their secret vote in open court. That is unconscionable! In the 1998 Sam Bowers trial, judge McKenzie allowed Helfrich to place a slide projector and screen in front of the jurors--this was before trial deliberations began-- showing a 20 minute slide cascade of tampered(colorized) photos of the autopsied body of smoke enhalation victim Vernon Dahmer. At the end of the trial as the jury went in for deliberations, Mike Moore lay prostrate on the floor and peered into the jury room, making eye-conatct with the jurors. A bevy of lawyers, media reporters and FIB agents observed this event and did nothing. Afterwards, Judge McKenzie invited all to a booze and barbecue "Hospitality Party" at his home. Some say his "Pigmeat" sorbiquet has more to do with his courtroom decorum(Pigmeat Markham-style) than his barbecue culinary skills. Helfrich deposed McKenzie as judge in the next election.

4:48 - Thanks for the link to the FBI / NCIC page. As I said, no crime in running an NCIC background check under the circumstances here. Those saying otherwise are wishful-thinkers, nothing more. Also, zero evidence that the prospective witness was intimidated in any way.

The gig is up. Every close Donkey election going forward will be challenged.

It really is a shame that Precious and the Waterboy took such a momentus loss.

Precious and Brandon screwed the pooch.

Note to Pug: You're dead wrong on the juror polling comment, where you eviscerate Judge Coleman for doing what Judges do every day, that is, poll the jury in open court about how each voted. It is an absolute right that every party has to request that the jury be polled publicly.

The reason is that in criminal trials, the jury must be unanimous for guilt or innocence, and the winner must get 9 votes in a civil case. (Hence, why there was a mistrial in the Dupree/Ware trial; neither got 9 votes.) The announced loser always wants to make sure that the jury was in fact unanimous in a criminal trial, and the announced loser in a civil case wants to make sure that the winner did in fact get 9 votes. Mayor Dupree's lawyer was obviously smart to poll the jury; it would have arguably been malpractice not to have done so.

Tighten up, Pug!!

8:39, and all your other bs comments, obviously you are either Waterboy or Waterboy's waterboy.

1) tell your story to the US Atty that this is not a crime - I'm sure they would be glad to know your legal theory;

2) since you obviously have not had a conversation with the witness - bet you don't even know his name - don't know how you can tell that he wasn't intimidated.

It is a crime to use NCIC database for non-approved purposes. And checking up on witnesses in upcoming trials doesn't fit in the approved purposes. As your buddy, Kenneth I Stokes says, you can say it and say it and say it until you turn black, but it won't change the fact that the use of the NCIC is controlled by federal statute and using it outside its purposes can land you in the pokey.

Once you get past the NCIC violation, witness tampering is a state crime. Guess Mr. Lawrence and Pookie's brother (Chief of Police under Dr. Dupree) need you as their attorney so that you can try to sell your snake oil to a jury.

Good luck!

8:39,

The Hattiesburg City disagrees with everything you said.

Have a great day!

Unauthorized use of NCIC is not a crime itself. It may be part of a scheme to commit other crimes, such as extortion. The referenced city attorney, if he or she exists, is serving time for some other crime.

Snooping into a person's private affairs isn't intimidation? Then who the whole uproar over the Snowden revelations?

I must step aside:I have never heard of a case--and I grew up glued to the TV set, watching Perry Mason every saturday night at 7:00 p.m. on CBS-- where an individual juror was required to state in open court how he or she voted, but apparently this is the case. I can understand the polling of the jurors as a group, but to single out how an individual juror voted could possibly put that juror in jeopardy, branding a holdout juror with court's version of the Scarlet Letter. This puts a dent in jury nullification process, doesn't it. If ever called to jury duty, I will refuse based upon the threat of possible physical harm if polling results in my individual vote is read out in open court.

Thanks for the correction.

http://www.lawyers.com/~/link.aspx?_id=18129AD8-BC0E-4604-9DE5-A74DE854FD4B&_z=z

Since the sanctity and secrecy of Judge Colemans's courtroom was violated by the demand, but legal, polling of INDIVIDUAL jurors on how they voted, does this open the way for investigative journalists to interview jury foreman Klem, the "silent seven" and the four Dupree jurors on the deliberative process that led to the first 9-3 vote? Johnny Dupree may not be Johnny Gotti, but....I stand by the fact this was a tainted jury!Will Ware's "star juror" that later changed her vote be doomed te wear the "W" scarlet letter?


In a high-profile case involving the murder of a federal judge, the federal appellate court in New Orleans (5th Cir.) upheld an order that prohibited repeated requests for interviews, as well as questioning one juror about how others voted. (U.S. v. Harrelson). The court reasoned that “[f]reedom of debate might be stifled and independence of thought checked if jurors were made to feel that their arguments and ballots were to be freely published to the world.” The same court later upheld a rule prohibiting reporters from asking about “the discussions about the case occurring among jurors within the sanctity of the jury room” but allowed questions about a juror’s own “general reactions” to the proceedings. (U.S. v. Cleveland)......

general reactions seems to be operative clause

Pug, your welcome. I have no idea about what journalists can and can't do, though I was once in a case where the Judge, who did poll the jury at the other side's request, ordered that nobody could talk to a juror about the case for a certain period of time. Nobody challenged whether or not the Judge had the legal right to do that; I suspect, but don't know, that he did.

Judges can poll the jury on the "jury's" verdict; but cannot question how an individual juror voted (except, of course, in criminal trials where a unanimous vote is required, thus confirming the "jury's" verdict is equivalent to how each "juror" voted). The Dupree side didn't request the jury be polled - Judge Coleman did that on his own.


MS Rules of Civil Procedure allow the Judge to poll the jury as to the verdict (Rule 3.10). But that doesn't allow for the invasion of the secrecy of the jury room where each juror wrote his vote on a slip of paper and they were tallied in front of the jury. At that time, the vote was 9-3. If Judge Coleman's questioning of how each individual juror voted is acceptable, why not have all jury deliberations in open court or with the press present? Even worse, the jury notified Judge Coleman that one juror was afraid of retaliation and would stick by his Ware vote if the jury could do it with only the Judge. Coleman didn't allow for the individual polling to be done in chambers.

After seeing all the intimidation that the Fairly/Dupree machine was putting on witnesses, inmates, city staff, etc. - Coleman should have recognized the jury intimidation as well.

But - Hattiesburg thug politics continues.

8:39, sorry, but you do not have the privelege of sitting there and deciding whether or not intimidation occurred or whether there is evidence that it may have. Each of your posts is, at best, half baked and, at worst, poorly warmed over.

2:47 p.m. is incorrect. In every civil jury case I 've tried over the years, I know that in most, if not all, cases, each juror announced in open court, when polled publicly, whether he/ she agreed with the verdict of the jury or not. Now that is not the case when a mistrial is declared, which I've had a few of in criminal cases I've defended but never in a civil case. In none of those mistrial cases did I find out how each juror voted, though I did find out how many total votes my client got for acquittal.

So, Judge Coleman did commit judicial error in demanding that each voter reveal his/her vote in open court? Being a "Special Judge," he had to have known that it was improper...bordering on judicial misconduct and putting the "scart" Star Juror in jeopardy. Just watch a few episodes of The First 48 Hours on the Investigative Discovery channel to see just how real the threats and acts of reprisal and witness intimidation are in the hood, leaving law enforcement in most cases reliant on video surveillance cameras to make a case. I empathize for the Star Juror that Judge Coleman has revealed/exposed to folks that would possibly do her/him harm. You can bet the Dukes/Dupree/Fairley team has got the Star Juror in the crosshairs. It's getting nasty between Dupree and the City Council, too.

I'm surprised that the legal Beagle jackals of the Mississippi Constitutional Law forum over at Tom Freelands' Blog are are not drooling over another chance to "drag Mississippi through the mud" for this "fraud upon the court" that occurred in Judge Coleman's Forrest County courtroom?

Read Rule 3:10. As I see it, polling each juror is to confirm the collective vote of the deliberative body, not to break down the vote tally in order to affirm the identities of the dissenters and of those that voted in the affirmative?


http://courts.ms.gov/rules/msrulesofcourt/urccc.pdf

Judge Coleman gives context to that old addage, "God sits on the bench." And it probably explains Enoch Sanders' "take off" on Judge Coleman at 8:30 into the Sanders Speaks rant..

Pug, no on any misconduct by Judge Coleman. He apparently was told by the jury foreman that the vote was 9-3 in favor of Ware, which, if true, would have meant that Mr. Ware won. Judge Coleman did the right thing by polling the jury because it turned out that the foreman's statement was false, the vote was really 8-4. If the jury had not been polled, Mr. Ware would have won even though he didn't get 9 votes.

These are the facts. All of the histrionics about somebody being put in jeopardy from people "in the hood"(Pug, you can come up with better code words for racial epithets than that!) blah blah are pure speculation.

But I'm just an ole jackal, what do I know.

Maybe I watched too many "48 Hours" a was reared in a 90% black population county?

No problem with polling the JURY to determine the collective VERDICT. As I recall, jury foreman Klem attempted to insure anonymity and secrecy by asking each juror to put his/her vote on a piece a paper and place it a box/can, at which time he removed the pieces of paper, put them on the table for the tally for ALL jurors to witness. He concluded, with the consent of all jurors I must assume, that the collective VERDICT was 9-3. Klem did submit in writing to the judge that one juror wanted to change their vote after the 9-3 VERDICT decision was announced in open court. That note was documented by a camera mounted over the sleeping judge's bench. Yes, jurors can change their vote. Maybe you can answer the question as to whether the individual "pieces of paper" juror votes, and the note to the judge submitted by Klem, are a matter of court record? The point of behind closed door deliberations is to insure that individual jurors are not intimidated by the press jackals--WDAM's Mark Johnson name comes to mind-- or parties to the suit. Sleeping judge Coleman's decision to ask EACH juror HOW they voted violated the secrecy and sancity of the jury room, exposing the Star Juror, if she/he is ultimately identified, to public ridicule and possible physical injury. The Scarlet Letter thing.
Let's see the press jackals go after the jurors to find the truth of what really happened in that jury room, ASAP!

Maybe Cleveland, Ohio's trench coat, stick-mic star investigative reporter Carl Monday , will root out the truth of what really happend in sleeping Judge Coleman's courtroom? I think that Carl Monday might have been Mark Johnson's mentor.