Category Archives: Fifth Amendment

The public learned on March 10, 2015 that Hillary Clinton had more than 60,000 emails on her private email system, and that she had turned over "about half" of them to the State Department and destroyed the rest, which she said were "personal" and "not in any way related" to her work as Secretary of State.

The public learned later the lengths to which Clinton went to make sure the "personal" emails were completely and permanently deleted. Her team used a commercial-strength program called BleachBit to erase all traces of the emails, and they used hammers to physically destroy mobile devices that might have had the emails on them. The person who did the actual deleting later cited legal privileges and the Fifth Amendment to avoid talking to the FBI and Congress.

Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, told Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Benghazi Committee, that investigators could forget about finding any of those emails, whether on a device or a server or anywhere. Sorry, Trey, he said; they're all gone.

It was, as the New York Times' Mark Landler said in August 2016, the "original sin" of the Clinton email affair that Clinton herself, and no independent body, unilaterally decided which emails she would hand over to the State Department and which she would delete.

Still, there were people who did not believe that Clinton's deleted emails, all 30,000-plus of them, were truly gone. What is ever truly gone on the Internet? And what if Clinton were not telling the truth? What if she deleted emails covering more than just personal matters? In that event, recovering the emails would have rocked the 2016 presidential campaign.

So, if there were an enormous trove of information potentially harmful to a presidential candidate just sitting out there what opposing campaign wouldn't want to find it?

There have been recent reports that last summer a Republican named Peter W. Smith made some sort of effort to find the missing Clinton emails, apparently getting in touch with hackers, some of whom may have been Russian. But nothing came of it, and no evidence has emerged that Smith was connected to the Trump campaign. (The 81-year-old Smith later committed suicide, apparently distraught over failing health.)

In a phone conversation Friday, Corey Lewandowski, the Trump campaign manager who was fired on June 20, 2016, said he never heard of or communicated with Smith, and wasn't aware of any effort to find the missing Clinton emails. "I never solicited, or asked anybody to solicit or find a way to get these potential emails," Lewandowski said. "And to the best of my knowledge, nobody [in the campaign] did either."

Still, Lewandowski added that, "In the world of cybersecurity, it's fairly well known that when you delete emails, they're not gone."

Another former top Trump aide said that was a common view in the campaign. "The feeling was that they [the emails] must exist somewhere," the former aide said, "because once something is digital, it's never truly gone."

"Trump believes that," the aide added.

Still, the aide also said he had never heard of Peter W. Smith, and didn't know of any effort to find the emails. "There was never a thought of who might have them," the aide said. "Nobody at the campaign was trying to find them."

Both Lewandowski and the other former aide stressed the greatest political value of the missing emails, as far as Trump was concerned, was that they gave Trump a way to "poke" and "troll" his Democratic opponent. The Clinton team was BleachBitting and swinging hammers to smash devices and she says everything was on the up and up, that she has nothing to hide? Candidate Trump could riff on that all day. It was as if Clinton were trying her best to look guilty, to Trump's political benefit.

But at least one high-ranking Trump team member apparently did believe the missing Clinton emails still existed. In August 2016, Gen. Michael Flynn, then the Trump campaign's top national security adviser, discussed the emails with a conservative radio host named John B. Wells. "The big question is, does somebody have more emails?" Flynn began:

Does somebody have the 30,000? The likelihood of that ... the likelihood somebody has all of those emails, at a nation-state level, meaning Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or even other countries, or some other large hacktivist group, like the WikiLeaks group that we know exists the likelihood is very high, and I'm talking like better than 95 percent. I would actually bet a paycheck on it, that somebody has it.

Flynn, of course, was a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, so he should know something about that. Flynn also had Trump's ear on national security and other matters. And he was saying the emails are out there, somewhere.

Which leads to a question. Would it have been appropriate for the Trump campaign to try to find the emails? After all, the emails were under congressional subpoena, under FBI investigation, of intense public interest, and a potentially explosive issue in the presidential campaign. What opposing campaign wouldn't want to know what was in them?

Look at a few possible scenarios. What if a member of the Clinton team defected and offered them to the Trump campaign? Would it have been appropriate for Trump to accept?

Or: What if a rogue hacker "a 400-pound person sitting in bed," as Trump once said got the emails and offered them to the campaign? Would accepting under those circumstances have been appropriate?

What if an intelligence operative from a friendly country got them and offered them? And what about an unfriendly country?

Would there be a scale, from standard oppo research on one end to treason on the other, depending on how the emails were acquired?

I posed those hypotheticals at least I think they are hypotheticals to three veteran Republican operatives: Tim Miller, who served as spokesman for Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign; David Carney, a New Hampshire-based strategist who's been involved in dozens of campaigns; and Barry Bennett, who ran Ben Carson's 2016 campaign and also served briefly as an adviser to the Trump effort.

Miller, a vocal critic of the president, stressed via email the question comes in the context of Russia's hacking of DNC and John Podesta emails. "So I would say that it would be unacceptable in opposition research to do that hack Podesta/DNC in any situation," Miller said.

"Where Hillary's deleted emails from her time as Secretary of State are concerned, many of those may have actually been public records," Miller continued. "So if they were acquired through a whistleblower or a lucky break scraping Internet archives, that would of course be fair game. That said, under no circumstance would enlisting a hostile government's help be acceptable for a myriad of reasons: legal, ethical, practical (how can you govern when you are in debt to a hostile government)."

For his part, Carney, writing via email, offered ways a campaign might have handled such a situation, had it arisen. "If the emails did show up, most serious campaigns would not touch them directly legalities and all. But friends of the campaign would strongly encourage the turncoat to dump them to reporters. Easier not to have fingerprints on questionable documents."

"Foreign governments would always use high-level U.S. third parties, not any direct campaign contacts, and most likely they would end up in the media," Carney continued. "So YES campaigns would seek the emails, but not directly if they were not legally available or the sources were questionable."

Bennett began by noting that the Trump campaign would have had "no ability to find [the missing Clinton emails] all by themselves. There was no tech operation until late summer, and even then it was basic."

"If someone I didn't know reached out and said, 'I have them,' I would have immediately called the committee and said this person says he has them," Bennett continued, via email. "I wouldn't want to touch them. But I would very much want them out there in the public.

"It is still hard for me to believe that copies of them aren't out there somewhere," Bennett added, going on to provide advice for a campaign facing a scandal-plagued opponent.

"Even during the Carson campaign I didn't meet with anyone I didn't know," Bennett said. "How do you know you're not being set up? I had people come to me and say they had dirt on [Ted] Cruz. I passed."

"Information can only be as trusted as the source that gives it to you. You can get easily burned with bad info or even looking like you want dirt. This is why everyone outsources research. No one in their right mind would want to touch documents under subpoena. No lawyer would ever let you."

"All of this being said, of course you want them to go public," Bennett concluded. "If the Russians had them, the last thing they would do is call a goofy record promoter in England and set up a meeting with a lawyer that can't even get a visa. Instead, DHL them from Asia to the New York Times."

Bennett alluded to the odd circumstances of Donald Trump Jr.'s June 9, 2016, meeting with Russians offering some sort of dirt on Hillary Clinton (not, as far as we know, the missing Clinton emails). In the days since the meeting was first reported, several political operatives of both parties have claimed they would never have taken part in such a meeting. While that might indeed be true, some would certainly have tried to find a hands-off way to get damaging material about their opponent into public view.

In the 2016 campaign, everyone knew Clinton had a huge secret those 30,000-plus "personal" emails and that she had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep that secret. Many people, and not just partisan warriors, suspected she had something to hide. And now, it should not be a surprise if there were some shenanigans as political operatives tried to learn the real Clinton email story.

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Byron York: What campaign wouldn't seek motherlode of Clinton emails? - Washington Examiner

This summer we mark the 20th anniversary of a major investigation by Congress of attempts by a hostile foreign power to influence an American presidential election.

Im glad the news media is pursuing the TrumpRussia scandal, but lets not forget the differences between how they are covering Russia compared with how they reported a similar story this one involving Communist China that developed during Bill Clintons 1996 reelection campaign. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that evidence gathered in federal surveillance intercepts has indicated that the Chinese government planned to increase Chinas influence in the U.S. political process in 1996.

Many people still believe that a major cover-up of that scandal worked in part because the media expressed skepticism and devoted only a fraction of resources they are spending on the TrumpRussia story. Network reporters expressed outright skepticism of the story, with many openly criticizing the late senator Fred Thompson, the chair of the Senate investigating committee, for wasting time and money. On June 17, 1997, Katie Couric, then the Today co-anchor, asked the Washington Posts Bob Woodward about the story: Are members of the media, do you think, Bob, too scandal-obsessed, looking for something at every corner?

According to an analysis by the Media Research Center, the news coverage of the congressional hearings on the China scandal in the summer of 1997 were dwarfed by reports on the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace and the death of Princess Diana.

The Chinese fundraising scandal involving DNC finance vice chairman John Huang first came to light in the final weeks of the 1996 presidential campaign. A former Commerce Department official, Huang was a top fundraiser who scooped up suspect foreign cash for Team Clinton.

A 1998 Senate Government Affairs Committee report on the scandal found strong circumstantial evidence that a great deal of foreign money had illegally entered the country in an attempt to influence the 1996 election. The DNC was forced to give back more than $2.8 million in illegal or improper donations from foreign nationals.

The most suspect funds were brought in by Johnny Chung, a bagman for the Asian billionaire Riady family. Chung confessed that at least $35,000 of his donations to the Clinton campaign and the DNC had come from a Chinese aerospace executive a lieutenant colonel in the Chinese military. Chung said the executive had helped him meet three times with General Ji Shengde, the head of Chinese military intelligence. According to Chungs testimony, General Shengde had told him: We really like your president. We hope he will be reelected. I will give you $300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to...your president and the Democratic party.

The sprawling fundraising scandal ultimately led to 22 guilty pleas on various violations of election laws. Among the Clinton fundraisers and friends who pleaded guilty were John Huang, Charlie Trie, James Riady, and Michael Brown, son of the late Clinton Commerce secretary Ron Brown. But many questions went unanswered, even after the revelations that Clinton had personally authorized offering donors Oval Office meetings and use of the Lincoln bedroom. A total of 120 participants in the fundraising scandal either fled the country, asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, or otherwise avoided questioning. The stonewalling worked and probably encouraged Hillary Clinton in her own cover-up of her private e-mail server and her ties with the Clinton Foundation.

Indeed, much of the media basically gave the Clintons a pass on evidence that special-interest donors to the Clinton Foundation frequently managed to score favors from the State Department. Journalist Peter Schweitzer revealed in his book Clinton Cash that State had helped move along an infamous deal that granted the Russians control of more than 20 percent of the uranium production here in the United States. The company involved in acquiring the American uranium was a very large donor to you guessed it the Clinton Foundation.

None of this history should dissuade the media from questioning the White Houses often shifting and blatantly inaccurate accounts of what happened and who was involved and when. Either the presidents team is infected with a self-destructive gene or they really do have something to hide.

But a little humility and honesty on the part of the media would be appropriate. Much of the breathless and constant coverage of the Russia scandal is motivated by the medias hatred of Donald Trump, which is of course reciprocated.

When it came to the Clintons, the media tended to downplay or even trivialize many of their scandals. But, to be fair, a little bit of self-awareness is beginning to show up in the Russia coverage. Last Thursday, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC noted that when it came to opening the door to lowering the standards of conduct by a modern president, Bill Clinton led the way with his lying and scandalous behavior. She was referring, of course, to the Lewinsky scandal, but her comments are equally appropriate to the many other Clinton scandals that didnt receive wall-to-wall coverage.

READ MORE: With Trump, the Benefit of the Doubt Is Gone 16 Things You Have to Believe to Buy the Witch Hunt Russia Narrative Anti-Trump Overreach Could Backfire

John Fund is NROs national-affairs correspondent.

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Not All Foreign-Influence Scandals Are Created Equal - National Review

The City of Marion is objecting to Chad Seybolds motion to plead protection against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment in a civil lawsuit alleging fraud against Michael An and his companies.

The city filed a brief Friday afternoon in Grant County Superior Court I detailing its opposition, which largely argues that Seybolds request does not meet the legal requirements for the Fifth to be used correctly in this lawsuit.

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Chad Seybold's bid for Fifth fought - Chronicle-Tribune

Belleville News-Democrat

Judge Duebbert spends five minutes before grand jury Belleville News-Democrat Fultz and Duebbert declined to say whether Duebbert took the Fifth Amendment. The Major Case Squad had asked for obstruction of justice charges against Duebbert after Fields was charged with Silas' murder. State's Attorney Brendan Kelly asked for a ... and more »

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Judge Duebbert spends five minutes before grand jury - Belleville News-Democrat

The Internet of Things is a marvel.Cars, medical devices, homes, refrigeratorsall of them now come with silicon chips and data collection, analysis and sharing capabilities. For the most part the enhancements in efficiency, connectivity and cost-reduction make the use of IoT a no-brainer.But lurking in the background are a host of unaddressed issues of cybersecurity, civil liberties, transparency, accountability, and privacy.Today's story of the Tell-Tale Heart lies at the intersection of technology, privacy and criminal law.

According to CNet, Ross Compton's house caught on fire.Notwithstanding his protestations, the authorities came to believe that the fire might have been caused by arson and that Compton had set the fire to collect on the insurancce. So far, a fairly standard case and, presumably (the story does not say) the investigation proceded on normal lines (e.g. looking for accelerants as evidence of arson). Then it took a turn.

You see, Compton has a heart pacemakerone that records data about heart rythms and the like. Compton had told the police that he was awakened from sleep by the start of the fireand an enterprising prosecutor in Butler County Ohio got to thinking that the data from Compton's pacemaker might rebut that claim.They obtained a warrant for the data from Compton's pacemaker. (It is not clear from the various storiessee, here, here, and hereexactly how the evidence was collected, that is whether it was from Compton himself or from his doctor and whether the process served was actually a warrant based on probable cause or a grand jury subpoena.)Using that data, the prosecutor then proffered the testimony from a cardiologist that the information he had reviewed was not consistent with Compton's story. The news of the day is that Compton's motion to supress has been denied and that his trial is scheduled for later this year.

To begin with, it seems to me that the judge's ruling is likely canoncially correct under existing law.Assuming that a warrant was issued based on probable cause, the Fourth Amendment objections seem to lose force.And it has long been the law that a defendant does not have a Fifth Amendment privilege against providing physical evidence that might implicate him in a crime.The Amendment is limited, under Supreme Court doctrine, to compelled testimony. The seminal case on these points, involving blood alcohol, is Schmerber v. California.

This seems, however, to be another instance in which technological development is outstripping the law. Consider the implications of a rule in which the IoT is generally a source of evidence for criminal investigations (or civil suits):

This is a big deal

If data in medical tech can

IoT may stand for: Internet of TremendousEvidenceGoldmine https://t.co/7M8pKnhoNs

Josh Corman (@joshcorman) July 13, 2017

I am not sure what the right answer is here. After all, one can readily imagine any number of circumstances in which evidecne relevant to a crime (or a terrorist incident) might reside in an IoT device.And, at least in the traditional view, if a warrant was actually issued (again, I am not clear from the stories) then Compton's rights got the gold-standard in protection against government abuse. Yet at the same time, this transition feels like a privacy invasion of a different sort than being required to give up fingerprints or even blood. What I do know for sure is that the transition is happening in an unexamined way ... and it strikes me as clear that more thoughtful consideration would benefit everyone.

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The Tell-Tale Heart - Lawfare (blog)

An Eagan family is suing U.S. officials for civil rights violations after what they describe as an abusive detention in early 2015 at the Canada border.

Abdisalam Wilwal, who was allegedly held for more than 10 hours with his wife and four children at the Portal, N.D., station of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was detained because of his placement on a terrorist watch list used by agencies of the federal government. A lawsuit filed Thursday in district court on the Wilwal familys behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union and private litigation firm Robin Kaplan LLP states Wilwal does not know why he is on such a list and does not believe there is cause.

Wilwal and his wife, Sagal Abdigani, are originally from Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. in 2000. They were both U.S. citizens when they were crossing the border to re-enter the country from Canada, where they said they had been visiting Abdiganis sister in Saskatchewan.

The complaint filed by the ACLU and Robin Kaplan asserts the detention at the border violated the Wilwal familys protection under the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as constitutional rights namely their Fourth Amendment right to be be free from unreasonable search and seizure as well as due process rights contained in the Fifth Amendment. The lawsuit names as defendants a host of high-ranking U.S. officials, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security head John Kelly and FBI chief Andrew McCabe.

The complaint seeks a declaration from the court that the defendants violated the Wilwal familys rights. It also seeks an injunction preventing the defendants from arresting, seizing, searching, or interrogating (Wilwal) because of his placement on a terrorism-related watch list, as well as subjecting Wilwals family to similar treatment due to their association with him.

The lawsuit also asks the court to require the defendants to provide Wilwal with the rationale leading to his placement on a watch list and allow him an opportunity to contest that listing and be removed from it. Finally, the injunction asks the court to require the defendants to destroy information illegally gathered on the family.

Hugh Handeyside, an ACLU attorney listed on the complaint, described the watch list system in a press release as a due process disaster that accuses people while providing them with no legal recourse to deny claims of terrorist activity.

Wilwal also spoke against the system in the release.

I came to this country seeking safety and freedom, and Im proud to be an American, he said. But our own government just shouldnt be treating my family and me or anyone else this way. Its wrong.

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Somali-American family from Eagan sues over detention upon return from Canada - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

by: Zach Crenshaw Updated: Jul 13, 2017 - 10:13 PM

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A new report says the Shelby County District Attorneys Office violates the constitution more than any other office in Tennessee.

The Harvard Law study highlighted misconduct and overturned convictions over the past six years.

>>Read the full report for yourself here

Its critical of Amy Weirich andher entire office which the new report says has repeatedly violated their constitutional and ethical duties.

Weirich called the report inaccurate.

In March, Weirich held a press conference to announce she had taken a private reprimand from the states Board of Professional Responsibility.

Weirich characterized the reprimand as a mistake.

A report by the Fair Punishment Project though, characterized it as part of a larger pattern of misconduct.

The report, by a Harvard Law group, found Weirichs office was number one in 'misconduct' and 'reversal' out of Tennessees 95 counties.Per capita, Shelby County was also in the top ten for both.

"Well, there's nothing new in the report," saidJosh Spickler, Executive Director ofthe Memphis advocacy group Just City.

"I think the report, for the first time,really allows us to compare our jurisdiction in Shelby County with others in the state and see just how poorly we are doing," said Spickler

The report looked at the Shelby County cases of misconduct and overturned convictions from 2011 to the present day.

In 2015, it mentions the Noura Jackson case where Weirich was reprimanded for withholding key evidence from the defense and asking questions of Jackson after she took the fifth amendment.

In 2004, Weirich called two defendants greed and evil multiple times. She was admonished by a higher court.

Also in 2004, a defense attorney said they found an envelope initialed by Weirich with, Do not show defense written on it.

Weirich sent FOX13 the following statement:

This is a grossly inaccurate and incomplete account of these cases as seen through the eyes of a defense advocacy group. I became a prosecutor to hold the guilty accountable and to protect the innocent in every case, and that is what I have tried to do throughout my career. I will never apologize for trying to seek justice for victims of crime.

"This report is not about those cases," said Spickler. "This report is about a pattern of statistics really, about how often cases are overturned, how often misconduct is found, and how often ethics violations occur in the prosecutors office."

Weirich, known for not backing down in the courtroom, is not flinching.

Spickler, however, hopes the report helps hold the office accountable which he said starts at the top.

"It would be great to see something from this office that indicates that there is a pattern that is problematic and we are doing something to make sure it doesn't happen in the future."

The Harvard Law group that put the study together told us their research only reflected the rulings of judges.

The director also told us their board includes a former U.S. prosecutor and state district attorney.

2017 Cox Media Group.

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'Takings' Meant Something Different at First Wall Street Journal (subscription) Regulatory takings weren't part of the original meaning of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause of the Constitution. Quoting a footnote from the Supreme Court's 1992 Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council opinion: early constitutional theorists did ... and more »

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday upheld Wisconsin's so-called right-to-work law, which bars mandatory union membership and prohibits unions and employers from requiring non-members to pay dues.

The plaintiffs did not provide "any compelling reason" for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to revisit an earlier ruling upholding a right-to-work law in a similar case in Indiana, Judge Joel Flaum wrote.

Flaum was joined by Judge Michael Kanne and Judge Frank Easterbrook in the unanimous decision.

Two local affiliates of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) had argued that Wisconsin's law violates U.S. labor laws and a portion of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by preventing unions from collecting payment for services they are legally required to provide to non-members.

In September, U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller, citing a 2014 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld Indiana's similar right-to-work law, dismissed the lawsuit. The plaintiffs appealed to the 7th Circuit Court.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel welcomed Wednesday's ruling, saying in a statement, "The decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirms what we have argued since this law was enacted in 2015, that right-to-work is constitutional.

"The Constitution does not protect a union's right to take money from non-union members and I'm proud to have defended the rule of law in Wisconsin."

The IUOE expected the ruling, said union attorney Scott Kronland, but maintains the decision was incorrect.

"It is fundamentally unfair for the unions to be required to provide services for free and the unions expect that their position will eventually be vindicated," he said in a statement.

The union is still considering its next step, Kronland said.

Wednesday's decision comes as an increasing number of U.S. states, particularly those with Republican-controlled legislatures, are enacting right-to-work laws.

In February, Missouri became the 28th state to pass right-to-work legislation, according to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, who emerged as a leading union antagonist during a 2011 fight over legislation to roll back public employee collective bargaining rights, had championed the state's right-to-work law.

When it was enacted in 2015 it drew thousands of protesters to Madison, the state capitol.

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US appeals court upholds Wisconsin 'right-to-work' law - Reuters

IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL?

A man who pleaded guilty to state charges (and served his time) in connection with aSeptember 2011 robbery of a McDonalds fast food restaurant will likely be forced to plead guilty to the same crime in federal court this week.

Otherwise, he could wind up spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Wait isnt it unconstitutional to charge someone a second time for the same crime?

Yes, it is. In addition to its famous prohibition against compelling an individual to testify against themselves, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution holds that no one shall for the same offence be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.

In other words once an individual has been either convicted or acquitted of a charge thats it. At least from a criminal standpoint.

In the case ofTimothy DaShaun Taylor, though, this protection apparently doesnt apply.

Why not? Because federal prosecutors believe the 26-year-old has not been forthcoming about his alleged knowledge of a famous 2009 kidnapping case one that remains at the heart of an ongoing unsolved mystery.

OnApril 25, 2009, 17-year-oldBrittanee Drexelof Rochester, New York vanished without a trace en route to meet friends at the Blue Water resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Drexel who was on spring break at the time she disappeared hasnt been seen nor heard from since.

(Click to view)

(Via: YouTube)

Last August,Taquan Brown an inmate currently serving a 25-year sentence in a state prison told federal authoritiesDrexel was dead. In fact, the former confidential informant claims to have witnessed her death (or at least heard the gunshots that allegedly killed her).

According to Brown, Drexel was forcibly abducted by a group of black men in Myrtle Beach, S.C. that fateful April night eight years ago. These men allegedly beat her up, sexually assaulted her and transportedher to a stash house (or trap house) near McClellanville a small fishing village located on Highway 17 roughly halfway betweenMyrtle Beach and Charleston, S.C.

There, the story goes, Drexel was allegedly chained to a wall while the men who abducted her took money from other black males eager to f*ck the white girl aprocess known asbunnying.

At some point, according to Brown, Drexel somehow managed to free herself from her chains but was pistol-whipped, shot and killed before she could escape fromthe house. Drexels body was then allegedly taken to an alligator pit in the Santee region of the state where it was said to have been disposed of on May 2, 2009.

Brown accused Taylor and his father Timothy S. Taylor of participating in the bunnying of Drexel and possibly being involved in her murder. However according to attorneys for the younger Taylor, no evidence has been offered to support Browns claims.

Furthermore, after conducting searches at nearly forty possible alligator pit locations in and around Santee nothing has been uncovered.

In order to squeeze information out of Mr. Taylor, the feds sought and received permission from Washington, D.C. to indict him in federal court for the same charges hed already pleaded guilty to and served his sentence on in state court, the younger Taylors attorney, Mark Peper, told us.

Over the last year, we have proved that Mr. Taylor was in his third period class at Lincoln High School at the time he was alleged to have been with Drexel, and the Feds have realized that the inmates story has little to no merit, Peper added.

Case closed, right?

No

Federal prosecutors are still threatening to take Taylor to trial on the armed robbery charge. If convicted of this crime (which, again, he already pleaded guilty to at the state level), he could face life in prison.

Apparently, double jeopardy means nothing in the federal system, Peper told us. That said, we have no choice but to accept a plea offer wherein Mr. Taylor will be pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery for a negotiated sentence of between ten to twenty years in prison; for a crime that hes already done his time on.

(Click to view)

(Via: Charleston County)

Taylors hearing before U.S. district court judge David C. Norton is scheduled for this week. Assuming he enters a guilty plea on the robbery charge (again), sentencing will be scheduled for later this summer.

Is this fair? Obviously there are multiple sides to every story, but based on everything weve seen up to this point in the case the answer is no.

According to Taylors attorneys, hes being punished for what he doesnt know.

This website has previously addressed such jurisdictional nebulousness as it relates to the high-profile mass murder case of Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who gunned down seven black parishioners at the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. church two years ago in the Holy City Massacre.

Roof confessed to his crime and confessed to his motive in committing it. And the evidence against him was incontrovertible. Accordingly, we believethe death sentence handed down in his case was entirely appropriate. Still, we believe the federal government usurped the states authority in his case filing a host of charges against Roof that needlessly duplicated the state charges previously filed against him (which, incidentally, moved forward despite the conclusion of the federal case against him).

This strikes us as wrong to say nothing of wasteful.

Unlike the open and shut Roof case, we have no idea what really happened to Brittanee Drexel. It could be her demise transpired precisely as the governments confidential informant has claimed. Or perhaps it happened in some other way. Or perhaps Drexel is still alive.

Again we dont know.

What we do know is that Taylors case appears to be yet another example of duplicative charges compromising the constitutional rights of an American citizen something we thought was addressed by the Fifth Amendment.

If the federal government has evidence to support the allegations made against Taylor by its confidential informant, then it should charge him in connection with Drexels 2009 kidnapping and murder. Absent that, we believe the federal government should drop its robbery charge against him seeing as he has already pleaded guilty and served his punishment at the state level.

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