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Police Seize $107k From Couple Without Charging Them For A Crime

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The police stopped a couple carrying over $107,000 in cash and seized the “crime” money. However, it seems that it was legitimately theirs. The couple went to get it back, but that’s when their problems really started.

Adam and Jennifer Perry were stopped for speeding in Henry County, Illinois, where police seized more than $107,000 from the married Massachusetts couple, who they initially suspected of a crime. However, even years after the seizure, no charges were ever filed. Still, the couple’s money, which they claim was earned legally, has not been returned because of the civil forfeiture law…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

 

After pulling them over for the routine traffic stop, the Illinois police searched the couple’s Toyota Tundra with the help of a K-9 unit and found a suitcase containing $102,000 in cash, according to the Dispatch-Argus. Another $5,520 was found in Jennifer’s wallet. Although no drugs were found, the police suspected the Perrys of criminal activity, so they seized their cash as well as their vehicle.

Of course, the Perrys — who were on their way to a doctor’s appointment in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Adam was going to see a hearing specialist — insisted that they didn’t do anything wrong. They explained that the money was from insurance settlements, vehicle sales, personal income, disability benefits, and other legal means.

After hours of questioning but no evidence of a crime, the police eventually let the Perrys go. However, they used civil forfeiture law to keep every dollar in the truck, as well as the vehicle itself, and even Mrs. Perry’s wedding rings, without law enforcement having to press even a single charge, under only the assumption that the money and vehicle were tied to illegal activity.

Years later, the Perrys were still left fighting to get their property back after a federal judge demanded that the couple prove how they got the money. However, Adam Perry argued that not only has he and his wife already provided an explanation, but they shouldn’t have to prove their innocence. Instead, it should be the police and prosecutors who need to prove guilt. Unfortunately, that’s not how civil forfeiture works.

“This is not Nazi Germany where you can treat people like this,” Mr. Perry wrote in a letter to the federal judge. “You should be treating me innocent until proven guilty and not denying me my right to counsel,” Adam added. “I even begged and said please just give me my truck back and you can keep the money and I’ll walk away from it. Still denied,” he continued. “You don’t understand the emotional, physical and financial terrorism you have caused.”

The judge didn’t agree. Four years of fighting later, the federal judge granted a government request to keep the cash found in the Ashburnham, Massachusetts, couple’s vehicle during the traffic stop. According to Mass Live, “Judge Sara Darrow, of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, said the couple failed to answer questions about where the funds came from,” as she granted the request to permanently reward the funds to the government. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

The federal civil forfeiture program — also called the civil asset forfeiture, civil judicial forfeiture, or occasionally civil seizure — is the controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of being involved in crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing.

“While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime. To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity,” Wikipedia explains.

It has been a very hotly debated issue, across many administrations, with the law and its oversight often changing. In 2015, the “adoptive forfeiture,” which occurs “when a state or local law enforcement agency seizes property pursuant to state law and requests that a federal agency take the seized asset and forfeit it under federal law,” was ended due to abuse. As Wikipedia further explains, “Although states proceeded to curtail the powers of police to seize assets, actions by the Justice Department in July 2017 have sought to reinstate police seizure powers to raise funding for federal agencies and local law enforcement.”

Explaining the pros and cons to the program, Wiki continues, “Proponents see civil forfeiture as a powerful tool to thwart criminal organizations involved in the illegal drug trade, with $12 billion annual profits, since it allows authorities to seize cash and other assets, from narcotics trafficking.

They also argue that it is an efficient method since it allows law enforcement agencies to use these seized proceeds to further battle illegal activity, that is, directly converting value obtained from illegal items for law enforcement purposes by harming criminals economically while helping law enforcement financially.”

Of course, “Critics argue that innocent owners can become entangled in the process to the extent that their right to property is violated, with few legal protections and due process rules to protect them in situations where they are presumed guilty instead of being presumed innocent,” as Wiki explains. “Further, critics argue that the incentives lead to corruption and law enforcement misbehavior. There is [a] consensus that abuses have happened but disagreement about their extent as well as whether the overall benefits to society are worth the cost of the instances of abuse.”

Although the benefits of the program can be debated and the guilt or innocence of the Perrys is unknown, it would certainly seem that the Perrys did become entangled in the controversial process and that their rights were violated as guilt was assumed and they were left with the burden of proving their innocence.

 

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Guy Fawkes’ punishment was one of the most severe in English history – here’s what happens when a body is hung, drawn and quartered

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Fawkes and his co-conspirators were sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering. Crispijn van de Passe the Elder/ Wikimedia Commons

After their infamous plot to destroy parliament was foiled, Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators received one of the most severe judicial sentences in English history: hanging, drawing and quartering. According to the Treason Act 1351 , this punishment involved…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

 

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  • Michelle SpearProfessor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of at the King’s pleasure.

This process aimed not only to inflict excruciating pain on the condemned, but to serve as a deterrent – demonstrating the fate of those who betrayed the Crown. While Fawkes reportedly jumped from the gallows – which meant he avoided the full extent of his punishment – his co-conspirators apparently weren’t so lucky.

By dissecting each stage of this medieval punishment from an anatomical perspective, we can understand the profound agony each of them endured.

Torture for confession

Before his public execution on January 31 1606, Fawkes was tortured to force a confession about his involvement in the “gunpowder plot”.

The Tower of London records confirm that King James I personally authorised “the gentler tortures first”. Accounts reveal that Fawkes was stretched on the rack – a device designed to slowly pull the limbs in opposite directions. This stretching inflicted severe trauma on the shoulders, elbows and hips, as well as the spine.

The forces exerted by the rack probably exceeded those required for joint or hip dislocation under normal conditions.

Substantive differences between Fawkes’ signatures on confessions between November 8 and shortly before his execution may indicate the amount of nerve and soft tissue damage sustained. It also illustrates how remarkable his final leap from the gallows was.

An engraving depicting a person being tortured on the rack.
The rack slowly pulled a prisoner’s limbs in opposite directions. Wellcome Collection/ Wikimedia Commons , CC BY-SA

Stage 1: hanging (partial strangulation)

After surviving the torture of the rack, Fawkes and his gang faced the next stage of their punishment: hanging. But this form of hanging only partially strangled the condemned – preserving their consciousness and prolonging their suffering.

Partial strangulation exerts extreme pressure on several critical neck structures. The hyoid bone , a small u-shaped structure above the larynx, is prone to bruising or fracture under compression .

Simultaneously, pressure on the carotid arteries restricts blood flow to the brain, while compression of the jugular veins causes pooling of blood in the head – probably resulting in visible haemorrhages in the eyes and face.

Because the larynx and trachea (both essential for airflow) are partially obstructed, this makes breathing laboured. Strain on the cervical spine and surrounding muscles in the neck can lead to tearing, muscle spasms or dislocation of the vertebra – causing severe pain. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

Fawkes brought his agony to a premature end by leaping from the gallows. Accounts from the time tell us:

His body being weak with the torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder – yet with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck by the fall.

This probably caused him to suffer a bilateral fracture of his second cervical vertebra, assisted by his own bodyweight – an injury known as the “hangman’s fracture” .

Stage 2: Drawing (disembowelment)

After enduring partial hanging, the victim would then be “drawn” – a process which involved disembowelling them while still alive. This act mainly targeted the organs of the abdominal cavity – including the intestines, liver and kidney, as well as major blood vessels such as the abdominal aorta.

The physiological response to disembowelment would have been immediate and severe. The abdominal cavity possesses a high concentration of pain receptors – particularly around the membranous lining of the abdomen . When punctured, these pain receptors would have sent intense pain signals to the brain, overwhelming the body’s capacity for pain management . Shock would soon follow due to the rapid drop in blood pressure caused by massive amounts of blood loss.

Stage 3: quartering (dismemberment)

Quartering was also supposed to be performed while the victim was still alive. Though no accounts exist detailing at what phase victims typically lost consciousness during execution, it’s highly unlikely many survived the shock of being drawn.

So, at this stage, publicity superseded punishment given the victim’s likely earlier demise. Limbs that were removed from criminals were preserved by boiling them with spices. These were then toured around the country to act as a deterrent for others.

Though accounts suggest Fawkes’s body parts were sent to “the four corners of the United Kingdom”, there is no specific record of what was sent where. However, his head was displayed in London .

Traitor’s punishment

The punishment of hanging, drawing and quartering was designed to be as anatomically devastating as it was psychologically terrifying. Each stage of the process exploited the vulnerabilities of the human body to create maximum pain and suffering, while also serving as a grim reminder of the consequences of treason.

This punishment also gives us an insight into how medieval justice systems used the body as a canvas for social and political messaging. Fawkes’s fate, though unimaginable today, exemplifies the extremes to which the state could, and would, go to maintain control, power and authority over its subjects.

The sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was officially removed from English law as part of the Forfeiture Act of 1870 .

 

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OPINION: 4 Children Who Were Sentenced to life imprisonment At A Young Age And what They Did

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There are many unusual things happening across the world. Children are charming and lovely, yet others are really dangerous and have been involved in a variety of illegal activities in society.

In this post, we’ll look at four children who were condemned to life in jail Please keep in mind that some of these children are now adults…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

 

1. Joshua Phillips:

Joshua Phillips stabbed his neighbor’s eight-year-old daughter and put the girl’s body under his bed at home. After eight days, his mother discovered the body.

Joshua Phillips was fourteen years old when he committed this act, according to reports, and he was sentenced to life in jail.

Take a look at how Joshua Phillips is now.

2. Eric Smith:

Eric Smith, according to sources, was condemned to life in jail many years ago. Eric Smith was just 13 years old when he hit a 4-year-old boy with a rock and killed him.

Following multiple conversations with Eric, he stated that he was bullied by several senior kids at his school and that he killed the youngster because he was irritated and upset. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

3. Lionel Tate:

Lionel Tate was one of the youngest people to get a life sentence.

According to sources, when he was 13 years old, Lionel Tate killed his neighbor’s six-year-old daughter.

Lionel Tate claimed he was boxing with the young girl.

4. Brian Lee Draper:

Brian Lee Draper was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for murdering a classmate, according to reports.

The murder was committed by Brian Lee Draper and his friend Torey Adamcik, who was sixteen years old at the time.

Parents should always endeavor to teach their children how to be good children, as well as pray for them.

 

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Lady Caught Feeding Neighbor’s Baby With Faeces & Urine Speaks From Prison, Gives This Ugly Reason

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A woman named Stella Namwanje was arrested in Uganda for allegedly committing an atrocious act against her neighbor’s baby. Reports indicate that she was caught on video defecating and urinating on the infant before feeding him the waste. This shocking behavior has drawn widespread condemnation and raised serious concerns about the child’s welfare…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

 

The incident took place in the Binyonyi A area of the Nyendo-Mukungwe division. Local authorities acted swiftly after the disturbing footage circulated on social media, prompting community outrage. The police have since taken Namwanje into custody to investigate the circumstances surrounding her actions and ensure the safety of the child.

The case has sparked discussions about the need for stronger measures to protect vulnerable individuals, especially children, from abuse. It highlights the alarming reality of child torture and the psychological issues that may drive such behavior. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

As the investigation unfolds, the community is rallying to support the affected family and prevent similar incidents in the future. The legal proceedings against Namwanje will likely focus on the extent of her actions and the necessary repercussions for such a heinous crime.

 

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