EPD Rolls Out New Golf Cart

Evansville Police Department are revealing its newest cruiser; a golf-cart fully decked out with all the bells and whistles. EPD Officials say an area business donated the tricked out cart to the department. EPD has only had it for a couple days…

COA Affirms 65-year Sentence For Man Who Killed Officer

Olivia Covington for www.theindianalawyer.com

The Dearborn Circuit Court did not err in imposing a 65-year sentence on a man convicted of felony murder after he shot and killed a deputy sheriff in the line of duty, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Tuesday.

In Tommy R. Pruitt v. State of Indiana, 15A05-1606-CR-1235, Morgan County Deputy Sheriff Daniel Starnes noticed Tommy Pruitt driving erratically, so he initiated a traffic stop and obtained Pruitt’s information. Starnes then learned about a recent robbery that suggested Pruitt might have been in possession of stolen weapons, and when Starnes approached Pruitt’s car the second time, Pruitt opened fire.

Starnes was shot five times and eventually died. Pruitt was charged and convicted of murder, attempted murder, possession of a handgun without a license, resisting law enforcement and four counts of receiving stolen property. After the jury recommended the death penalty, the Dearborn Circuit Court imposed a death penalty sentence for murder and sentenced Pruitt to an aggregate of 115 years for the remaining charges.

After moving through the state courts, Pruitt was granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus in the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the death penalty after finding Pruitt had demonstrated that he was intellectually disabled and, thus, constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty. The state was ordered to either initiate a new penalty-phase proceeding or release Pruitt, so the case was remanded to the trial court for resentencing on the murder conviction in April 2016.

Pruitt asked the trial court to consider and take judicial notice of the entire record, including the post-conviction proceedings, to find intellectual disability and mental illness as mitigating circumstances. The trial court reviewed the existing records from 2003 to 2016, and also considered the nature of Starnes’ murder, Pruitt’s criminal history and his post-sentence behavior as aggravating factors.

After giving “due consideration and weight” to Pruitt’s mental health, the Dearborn Superior Court resentenced Pruitt to the maximum enhanced term of 65 years for murder, with credit for time served, and ordered that sentence to be served consecutively with the 115-year sentence imposed for his previous convictions.

On appeal, Pruitt first argued because he committed his crime in June 2001, his enhanced sentence violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004) because “his Sixth Amendment right to have the facts supporting the enhancement of his sentence tried to a jury was violated.”

But Judge James Kirsch, writing for a unanimous panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals, said Tuesday Pruitt had forfeited his Blakely argument because he did not raise such an argument during his resentencing hearings. Further, the trial court would have imposed the same 65-year-sentence had it considered only the aggravators that comply with Blakely, Kirsch said, so the court did not err in its sentencing.

The appellate panel also rejected Pruitt’s argument that his sentence for murder was inappropriate, finding the trial court “properly determined that Pruitt deliberately elected to shoot Deputy Starnes … and was fully award of the wrongfulness of his conduct.”

IS STEPHEN HAWKING WATCHING CABLE NEWS

By Rick Jensen

The House is holding inconsequential hearings on why Donald Trump hired, and then fired, General Mike Flynn as National Security Director.

Amid it all, we’ve learned that President Obama vaguely warned Trump about Flynn.

“‘Given the importance of the job, the President thought there were better people for it, and that Flynn wasn’t up for the job,’ a former senior Obama administration official told CNN.

So that was the big warning:Obama didn’t think highly of Flynn.

Your grain of salt includes the fact that Obama thought highly of Tim Geitner, the disgraced Treasury Secretary who kind of forgot to pay his taxes for a few years. He also liked Susan Rice, who lied to the U.N., the American people and the world, communist “Energy Czar” Van Jones and many others.

Fortunately, Trump decided within a couple of weeks that Flynn was on the take from foreign countries without full disclosure and fired him.

The star witnesses against Flynn include former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, whom Trump fired for refusing to enforce the President’s travel ban.

Yates called it illegal, even though it had not been adjudicated.That makes her a bona fide hero to Democrats.

The way Trump fired her makes her even more of a hero, perhaps a Hollywood movie hero at some point.

Trump’s press release excoriated Yates: “The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”

“Betrayed.”Weak on borders.”Weak on illegal immigration.”

Those words are a badge of honor for a liberal Democrat.

So, she had to know she would be asked to resign once she decided to tell the boss she refused to do her job.

It’s not too hard to guess what Democrats really want from these hearings is for someone to say Trump knew all along that Flynn was conspiring with the Russians to leverage the election in his favor with the phished Hillary campaign emails.

Sure, that would give Democrats more arguments to declare Trump’s presidency “illegitimate,” but they’re already doing that.

Stunningly, two more star witnesses are Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former NSA Director General Michael Hayden, both of questionable integrity.

Clapper testified “President Putin directed an influence campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the American people in our presidential election process.He did so to demean Secretary Clinton and he sought to advantage Mr. Trump.”,

This testimony could be devastating except for the source.Clapper has already lied to Congress under oath about NSA eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

The Republicans were too cowardly to prosecute.

He also lied about Trump’s “wiretap” claim.

“There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” Mr. Clapper once said.

Reporters learned that the F.B.I. did obtain a court-approved wiretap on campaign advisor Carter Page, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent.

Hayden also lied to Congress under oath about the NSA eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

No matter what these hearings reveal, it will matter little when the witnesses are as corrupt as any defendant may be.

As truthful as Yates may be about her warning a Trump associate, Clapper and Hayden poison the well.

Then Trump fires FBI Director James Comey as the hearings heat up and to their own detriment Democrats’ televised passion against firing Comey is just as passionate as their original mania for him to be fired.

All of the players seem to be nuts.

Richard Branson now promises Stephen Hawking a ride on his private spaceship as Hawking dreams of humans populating other planets while this one spins into eventual oblivion.

Does he really think these human frailties won’t follow?

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© Copyright 2017 Rick Jense