Will A Dead “Witness” Haunt Phil Spector At A Second Trial?

Dianne Ogden-Halder, once dated and worked for Phil Spector. Things went sour and decades later Ogden-Halder vilified Phil Spector in court claiming he twice pulled a gun on her and tried to rape her. There was no follow-up police action, prosecution or corroboration to the alleged events.

Ogden-Halder died in her sleep at her Park City, Utah home on December 29, 2007 at the age of 61.

Despite credibility issues, a lack of substantiating evidence and the passage of time Ogden-Halder was allowed to testify in the totally unrelated Phil Spector murder trial. That testimony was recorded by a court reporter and video was captured by Court TV. Since Ogden-Halder was cross-examined by Spector’s Defense counsel I believe the next jury will hear and perhaps see Ogden-Halder testify from the grave.

I can’t imagine a more prejudicial event than to feed a second jury the words of the now dead witness. Ogden-Halder will never be able to change her story or undergo additional cross-examination. Any jury would be overly sympathetic and even possibly consider the dead woman as some kind of saint. Our society seems to treat the dead with much more respect than the living.

In Spector’s first trial Judge Larry Fiddler allowed Ogden-Halder to testify. California’s voters recently approved changes to court rules allowing for ancient allegations of a similar nature into criminal trials. I call the changes, unfair, outrageous and nothing more than a helping hand for lazy prosecutors.

In minimal fairness, Ogden-Halder should not have been allowed to testify at the first trial but bringing her into a second trial is beyond ghoulish.

Phil Spector is due to be in court for a pre-trial hearing on March 28, 2008. I expect to see a boat load of new Motions to have been filed in this case by the defense. Among the expected motions is the one already filed seeking to have Judge Fiddler remove himself because of his continual biased behavior against Phil Spector.

Do We Really Have A Right To Keep And Bear Arms?

We are about to find out when the United States Supreme Court rules on D.C. vs. Heller before the court's summer recess in June 2008. That of course is the case involving the 32 year-old handgun ban in the District of Columbia.

I really can’t see the court deciding that we have partial or restricted right to keep and bear arms. I see an all or nothing answer. You really can’t regulate or tax a right like you can with drivers and their automobiles. Driving and owning vehicles is not a right but a privilege.

Take free speech. There are no word bans or prior restraint on the use of words. Things like threats, extortion, libel and slander are all actionable once words are misused and people are victimized. Simple common sense dictates that the keeping and bearing of arms is the same. The misuse of firearms is what is and should be regulated and made actionable through law not the possession or carrying of them.

If the court determines American have an individual gun-rights and not some collective right. Wait! A collective right is straight out of Karl Marx’s teachings! That collective right concept is un-America. No other rights in our Bill of rights is considered a collective right. If we have the right to keep and bear arms this is what would have to follow:

1. There could be no tax or fee for permits or registrations.
2. No person could be forced to take or pass a test in order to enjoy the right.
3. No waiting periods to obtain firearms could be enforced.
4. There could be no rationing programs like the one gun a month idea.
5. Any American other than felons or mental defectives could buy a firearm in any state.
6. The carrying of firearms outside of prisons could not be prevented.
7. Most or all of the 1934 National Firearms Act would be invalid.

Gun registration laws could still stand despite two Supreme Court opinions that made it clear that felons and others barred from owning firearms cannot be prosecuted for failure to register because registration in and of itself would force these people to incriminate themselves on the registration applications in violation of their Fifth Amendment rights. Gun registration bureaucracies have nothing to offer taxpayers except a huge tax burden for these programs that have no value.

Will our Supreme Court protect or destroy our Second Amendment? Whatever the court decides it will be final, but for amending the Constitution.

Historic Gun Rights Case Argument Is Set For March 18th

Our Supreme Court has scheduled arguments in the historic case D.C. v. Heller for March 18.

The current Bush Administration recently did a pathetic flip-flop by first supporting the Second Amendment then more recently withdrawing support. They’ve been granted additional time to argue their new position. This is a lot like when former President George H.W. Bush claimed to voters that he’d support no new gun laws then reneged when he soon administratively banned certain firearms from importation.

In any event the case for Heller and gun-rights supporters seems bullet-proof and destined to end gun bans in the handful of Bolshevik states that have continually violated their citizen’s rights to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court’s decision is due to land in June before the summer recess. Let's hope for the best.

Dorothy "The Hat" Tillman Booked For Trespassing

MONTGOMERY, Ala.--Former Chicago gun-slinging alderman Dorothy “The Hat” Tillman was arrested and charged Sunday with trespassing in her native Montgomery.

Tillman pushed her weight around at a hospital where her aunt was being treated. After she created a disturbance she was asked to leave. When she refused police hauled her off in chains. She was soon bailed out by a local reverend and now faces a court date of March 31, 2008.

Tiltman protested being placed in handcuffs and leg shackles by the cops but I bet she was a real fashion plate. Tillman's booking photo is not up to her standards...

The Perfect Shooting Suspect Police Mug Shot.

This is 29 year-old Erin Holmes. She was booked for aggravated Assault by Tempe, Arizona police for shooting her boyfriend a local tow truck driver. Her jail booking photo will be used by the media during the one to three years it will take to bring her to trial. Her booking photo does not look like a typical police muug shot of a criminal. Holmes jury' or public opinions won’t be swayed in any sort of negative way by seeing this pleasant picture.

As in nearly every shooting there is a reason, perhaps a good reason such as self-defense or the shooting was the result of an accident. Here a jury will probably decide since she’s been arrested. If Holmes was smart enough to say absolutely nothing to the police convicting her will be difficult.

As a defense investigator this is the kind of case I love to handle.

The message here is simple, always smile for every camera!

Here’s the story so far by Arizona’s News Channel, KTVK-TV.

It’s Time For A penny Revolt!

They get caught in you vacuum cleaner. Pennies suck! They are nothing but an everyday nuisance that needs to go! They are worth more per pound as raw copper then they are as legal tender.

Pennies may be legal tender but try unloading them to anyone including your own bank. Nobody wants them. Since the politicians won’t get rid of them, it’s time to melt them down. Businesses simply need to round off sales to the nearest nickel. In the long run it will save on labor costs.

A Dozen Easy Ways To Fix California’s Budget Crisis

These simple actions would immediately help any state or local government get their financial affairs out of the red. Why pay good money after bad with yet another tax increase?

1. Require every school child to provide proof of legal residency in order to attend any public school.
2. Develop high quality and accredited online schools in the most common languages to assist and encourage home schooling at every educational level. Every correctional institution needs to make these courses available to inmates.
3. Make school textbooks available in digital form for the online students.
4. Develop online English classes for immigrants in most common languages so they can function in American society.
5. Require every uninsured and non-paying hospital patients to prove legal residency for medical treatments other than lifesaving emergencies.
6. Put prison convicts to work picking crops eliminating the need for illegal aliens.
7. Confiscate and sell at a public auction every automobile operated by illegal aliens.
8. Extend all drivers’ licenses for 15 years reducing the need for hundreds of thousands of hours of MVD employee time.
9. Reduce fees for citizens that renew vehicle registrations or drivers online.
10. Eliminate the requirement for a front license plate on motor vehicles.
11. Require every vehicle on the roads be equipped with a GPS navigation device to reduce the numbers of vehicles driving endlessly while clogging traffic. The result will be fewer accidents, hospitalizations and lost lives saving taxpayers millions.
12. Require the courts establish virtual online courts where the parties involved in civil or criminal cases can deal with pre-trial matters over the Internet via webcams. The goal here is reducing the need for millions of miles of commuting by public paid lawyers and other government workers attending these hearings and such.

What Happens When There Are Too Many Guns?

What if 30, 000 or even 60,000 armed ordinary Americans traveled to an American city? Riots, bloodshed, skyrocketing crime may result you say? These events happen at least twice a year when the NRA Convention and the Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade Show holds their events in various larger cities. Criminal acts by the event attendees have never happened.

Perhaps there would be an increase in gun accidents or other mayhem? To the chagrin of the avowed pacifists, gun-haters and Left Wing political types incidents during these week long events just don’t happen.

On a smaller scale the same could be said about gun shows and America’s gun ranges. Whoever heard of a mugging, rape or murder involving and gathering of gun owners to buy, sell, trade or practice with their firearms? Those kinds of things seem to be reserved for Gun Fee Zones.

The NRA plans to bring at least 30,000 members to the 2008 Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Louisville Kentucky, May 16 - 20, 2008. Kentucky is a Right to Carry State and you can count a high percentage of the visitors to packing heat.

The carjackers, muggers and other violent criminals of Louisville should beware; there are consequences for criminal conduct. I suspect the miscreants will be on their best behavior.

Murders Turned Into Entertainment And Trial By News Harpies

Television broadcasters are in trouble. Every day more viewers vanish off the TV radar never to return. Television news as we knew it has changed from simple reporting of facts as they exist to parlor speculation or armchair investigator’s theories.

Fanning the flames of wild theories are the new journalists who are in reality former lawyers. They put gossip and witnesses forward as television evidence and the question of guilt or innocence is put forth before the boob tube viewers instead of juries. The result is a terminally tainted jury pool.

Juries are supposed to be made up from people that have not been influenced by various media outlets. Potential jurors are screened to exclude those who have been twisted by news reports. The problem is prospective jurors lie. Too many people enjoy changing lives as jurors with that unique power that they never have in their ordinary dull lives.

Phil Spector, Drew Peterson, Scott Peterson, and countless others are and were entitled to fair trials. The problems are these suspects are tried by the news harpies and their viewers long before the case goes to trial. Fairness goes right out the window as the verdicts of popular opinion are redundantly announced by the news authorities.

The fundamental fairness of our judicial system has been tampered with beyond repair by a new media our founding fathers could have never envisioned.

The vast majority of people residing in the United States of American have no clue about their Due Process rights, the Bill of Rights and the reasons why they are necessary to insure Liberty and Freedom. The sad truth is they don’t care either, that is until they find themselves or a loved one accused of a crime.

Lucky Homicide Detectives Escaped Death After Failing To Search A Prisoner

This is a notorious video that hit the Internet shortly after this December 19, 2003 incident was caught on tape by an interrogation room camera. The person who let this clip out will face serious professional and legal problems if he or she is found.

Ricardo Alfonso Cerna was suspected of shooting a policeman twice in the abdomen. He was subsequently arrested and brought into the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department for interrogation.

Every single cop involved with the arrest and transportation of Cerna failed to search him and by the grace of God he did not open fire on the unarmed detectives before he shot himself in the head with a .45 1911. This illegal alien became a good alien in an instant.

This is a real suicide by a gun, VIEWER DESCRETION IS ADVISED!

McCain’s Presidential Hopes May Be Doomed!

It seems that the New York Times has revealed our good Senator from Arizona was born in the Panama Canal Zone! Our Constitution requires that in order to become our President you must be born in the United States. It makes no difference that he was born to an American citizen and was automatically a citizen. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to allow this Left leaning, pretend Republican. It his age McCain will never live to see that happen. Perhaps it’s back to the drawing board for Republicans for a viable candidate.

The not quite so clear qualifications are listed here. There are certain requirements for his parents to have met.

Concept Weapon Made As A Glock Pistol Accessory

I somehow missed this booth at the 2008 Shot Show in Las Vegas. This is yet another reason for muggers, rapists and killers to behave themselves. Somehow Darwin’s Law always rules!

Dorothy Stratten’s Memorial Epitaph Needs To Go…

Click on tombstone picture to enlarge

This horrible epitapath is a famous quote from Ernest Hemingway's, "A Farewell to Arms".

Canadian actress and Playboy Magazine centerfold Dorothy Stratten was merely 20 years-old when she was murdered in Los Angeles by her estranged husband, Paul Snider, 29 with a .12 gauge shotgun.

Snider was portrayed as a control freak who wanted to own Stratton. People have a tendency to exaggerate the bad or evil characteristics of those who commit despicable acts like Snider.

Stratten was about to hit the Hollywood “A” list and did not miss an opportunity to cavort with a man who could place her there, Director Peter Bogdonavich. Stratten quickly took up with Bogdonavich shacking up with him at his Bel Air castle while still married to Snider.


Snider could not cope with the loss of his wife to Bogdonavich. Snider used a divorce settlement pretext to lure Stratton to their former apartment in Los Angeles where Snider killed her then later himself. Bogdonavich went on to marry Stratten’s little sister.

Stratten’s ashes are buried in Los Angeles’ most exclusive celebrity cemetery, Westwood Memorial Park in view of Marilyn Monroe’s crypt and the future resting place of Playboy founder, Hugh Heffner.

For nearly three decades Stratten’s Grave pictured here has had this God awful epitaph placed in obvious anger. That nasty tombstone should be replaced with something gentle that has the kind of style and grace that Stratten should be remembered for. Stratten was victimized twice.

Watch Johnny Carson interview Dorothy Stratten:

Mayor Daley, why don’t Chicago cops deserve to live?

Chicago Police are just not prepared for a serious shooting or any event involving criminals with heavier weapons.

The politicians in Los Angeles were horrified to learn their officers had to borrow suitable firearms from local gun stores before they could cope with the decade old, and infamous North Hollywood Shootout.

Since every gun shop was run out of Chicago their patrol officers are truly on their own unless and until the department delivers weapons to the first responders. This is no different than requiring Chicago cops to call 911 and wait for the real police.

Even the gun hating, Left Wing Los Angeles politicians conceded street cops need reasonable access to rifles and shotguns and made that happen. Virtually every patrol car in California has and M-16 and a .12 gauge shotgun in a vehicle mount.

The City of Chicago is killing their own cops by not providing more that a one per year, 30 round in-service firearm qualification for their officers. It’s obvious that police officers don’t deserve to live as far as Chicago’s Mayor and City Council is concerned.

From a website devoted to the North Hollywood Shootout story:

“An event that took place in February 28th 1997. A series of bank robberies culminated in quite possibly the most violent shootout in modern American police history. The lives of 36 patrons and 12 employees were endangered when two heavily armed men wearing body armor decided to rob the Bank of America in North Hollywood. Seen entering the bank by Los Angeles police officers, the two men intimidated employees and patrons by firing shots inside while not realizing that Los Angeles police officers were surrounding the building. As they left the bank, the robbers became aware of their predicament and began shooting at police and civilians.

Three civilians and nine officers were shot within the first five minutes of the shootout, and a total of 350 officers were called to the scene. As police bullets bounced off the suspects, it became evident that the two men were wearing body armor and had out-gunned the police with their armor piercing bullets and semiautomatic weapons. A total of seven civilians and eleven LAPD officers were injured. Despite the overwhelming odds, many heroic officers, while in grave danger, initiated officer and citizen rescues as the suspects continued to exchange shots with other officers. The suspects fired more than 1,100 rounds from their semiautomatic assault rifles. Eventually, one suspect committed suicide and members of the LAPD SWAT team shot and killed the other.”

Secret Service Shut Down Weapon Frisking At Barack Obama's Campaign Rally

Dallas--In a refreshing departure from treating American’s like criminals, the Secret Service ordered metal detectors shut down allowing visitors to enter the Dallas Convention Center without submitting to the unlawful indignity. The crowd was friendly and obviously Senator Obama was not the worse for wear.

Dallas police officials were shocked at the action calling the action a security lapse. Of course 44 years ago President John F. Kennedy was shot dead as he rode in an open limousine on a Dallas street.

The Secret Service struck a giant blow for freedom and Liberty. The pernicious practice of searching Americans everywhere they go anymore is contrary to our Bill of Rights.

No American should ever be searched to do business with his own government, travel or attend sporting and entertainment venues.

As a security expert I find little benefit for the frisking that does nothing but give some people a really false sense of security. The efforts of police and security officials are better used on the behavior profiling or their attendees and observation.

I would support any politician that would seek to return the Fourth Amendment to Americans. I guess we forgot about the Freedoms and Liberty that so many millions of Americans fought or died protecting in all of our wars.

Help Save The Tap Root Pub!

Chicago IL--In the great city I once knew there was a fun place to have dinner and socialize. It was the Tap Root Pub that was located at 1762 Larrabee on the Near North Side. I will never be able to tell you if the place was clean or not because it was so dark with only mood setting candlelight and the fireplace.

The food was wonderful and the hippie chicks that served it were entertaining. There were cats in the place that begged for food from your table but I would take the health hazard of cats anytime instead of the rats that plagued the more expensive places. My girlfriends always enjoyed a night out at at this place.

The owner was a man named Harley Budd. Budd was a genuine friend to and fan of Chicago cops. In 1965 the City condemned his property to make way for the Lincoln Park Urban Renewal Project. That did not slow Budd down a bit. He continued on with a well publicized battle with the city. Eventually Budd relocated his pub to nearby 636 West Willow. I was Harley's loyal customer from 1967 through 1972.

Budd’s liquor license was lifted by the city and his customers brought in their own. It was the in thing to do at the time. Everyone I know signed a petition to save our neighborhood place. Chicago was never the same after Budd finally closed shop.

Budd drove an older black Cadillac instead a license plate he has a “Save The Tap Root Pub” bumper sticker. I’d see him out driving while out on patrol and we’d exchange friendly waives. He'd come in to the 12th District Southwater Market area to pick up food for his pub. Nobody would ever write Budd a citation over his lack of plates or city sticker.

Budd died of Pneumonia at Grant Hospital in 1990 at age 61. Budd was a class guy and I miss him and his wonderful attitude. Harley Budd was a Good Will Ambassador for my home town.

The destruction of the Tap Root Pub did nothing good for Chicago. The picture above was taken when city officials and police stormed the Tap Root Pub and arrested Harly Budd. Harley can be seen behind the front gate being forced open. This was a sad day indeed.

New Chicago Police Superintendent Insults Rank And File Officers

The respectful custom began with a very large man, Orlando W. Wilson, Chicago’s first civilian police superintendant. Before Wilson the title for Chicago’s top cop was Chief like every other police department. Wilson was very different and so was his management. Wilson was a cop long before he became a criminologist and professor. Wilson knew about going to domestic violence calls and closing down rowdy bars at 2:00 AM. Wilson never attended the Chicago Police Academy or patrolled Chicago’s streets. Wilson had enough respect to never wear that uniform and star he did not earn. Wilson always wore a suit.

Former FBI Special Agent Jody Weiss never patrolled any street in America or attended the Chicago Police Academy. Weiss never heard the slightest discouraging word from the lips of an angry traffic violator or Slid Row vagrant, but he quickly dressed himself in a uniform he never earned. I suspect that will be one of many steps that will alienate him from real street cops.

Chicago’s Finest nicknamed their new boss, J-Fed. I suspect that cops in Chicago are in for a very turbulent period until J-Fed at least until he gets his walking papers from the next mayor.

J-Fed, that uniform just does not fit you...

Is This John McCain’s Waterloo?

The New York Times dropped a giant bomb on Arizona Senator John McCain's campaign to become our president.

McCain has tons of baggage from voting with the Democrats on the most divisive issues possible to his role with the Keating Five and the huge swindle involving Charles Keating.

McCain fooled thousands of ignorant voters who mistakenly believed that McCain’s military credentials made him a Conservative. McCain belongs in the Democratic Party.

McCain’s disgraceful role in the Incumbent Politician Protection Act also know as the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill that has destroyed the First Amendment won't be soon forgotten. That legislation is still the target of judicial rulings striking that law down.

Among the allegations are his closeness to an attractive 40 year-old lobbyist. This will never sit well with members of the Religious Right that dislike McCain anyway. Of course how can we forget McCain’s support for Mexico’s continued exportation of Crime,poverty and drugs through the Immigration Amnesty Bill.

The question is will this reshape the Republican ticket before the republican convention? Will a White Knight Conservative show up as a Third Party Candidate splitting the vote assuring the Democrats a Presidential victory in November?

Look for the Liberals to be McCain’s strongest supporters fighting these allegations.

Read the NY Times article HERE.

Amtrak joined The Third Reich TSA Metal Detector Generation

The TSA and Amtrak have taken a giant step backwards in what they are calling a new passenger safety measure. Our politicians fixed a problem that was not broken as they pile on loads of additional debt to our rail carriers. In the process they trashed American's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches.

They’re being even more unreasonable than the commercial air carriers if that’s possible. They are beginning luggage screening and passenger frisking as they bring automatic weapons and dogs to our tax supported railroad monopoly. Transportation of any firearms even un-loaded firearms locked in baggage is prohibited.

Only active police officers are allowed to transport firearms or ammunition on Amtrak trains. Retired cops or law-abiding passengers will be denied passage if they have any firearms.

Will we be safer? Just ask one dead man's family and the 100 passengers who were injured in that deliberate derailment of the Sunset Limited train in Arizona on October 9th, 1995. Someone tampered with train tracks causing the disaster. Terrorist and mass murderers need not enter our trains to kill large amount of passengers. The TSA need to put their security weenies on train track surveillance where they can deter a known problem instead of treating paying passengers like dangerous criminals.

Another Gun Free Zone is no answer to crime or terrorism.

Lane Bryant Victims Were Set Up For Vicious Killings like Sheep

Six Suburban Chicago women were victimized twice. Once by society and their own government and again by the ruthless killer who robbed, blindfolded, and then brutally slaughtered them. They were, Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor, Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Rhonda McFarland, 42, of Joliet, Sarah Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest, and Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort. In addition yet another woman was critically wounded who was able to provide police with her own personal horror story

Society demanded that these women lose their birthright along with their God given responsibility to protect themselves from harm. That was all accomplished through decades of handing responsibility for personal safety and security to government. During that period our society has brainwashed itself from any ideas of personal responsibility as they adapted to the 911 culture.

I guess most of us just don’t know or don’t want to believe that there is no 911 emergency call system anywhere as fast as even the slowest actions of muggers, rapists and killers. The police can only respond in time to remove the corpses and clean up the human blood and tissue.

Society has become an unwitting accomplice to terrorists, criminals and the insane as the laws worked to make sure the law-abiding are helpless, defenseless and hopeless. At the same time all types of predators have absolute unobstructed freedom to bring carnage onto the innocent.

We need more than the simple right to carry concealed weapons returned to law-abiding Americans. We need society to return the concept of self-preservation as, politically correct.