Opinion: it absolutely should succeed.

Here’s its legal basis:

In the petition, Joseph argued that Gov. Tim Walz broke the law in reassigning authority of the case to Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, making Ellison’s involvement illegitimate. The petition also claimed “there was no medical evidence to support the bogus theory of ‘asphyxia’ advanced by the state,” and that the Hennepin County District Court should have convened a grand jury before charging Chauvin. …

Chauvin first filed a petition to overturn his conviction in 2023, stating that he would not have pled guilty if his attorney told him that a pathologist offered to testify that Chauvin didn’t cause Floyd’s death. The courts denied his petition. Chauvin and Joseph returned in 2025 requesting another review of his case, arguing his rights were violated by faulty testimony and jury instructions. The courts dismissed that petition, as well.

There also have been several appeals; none have been granted. The bases for the appeals rested mainly on the following:

… that Chauvin wasn’t given a fair trial due to intensive pretrial media coverage over riots and civil unrest around the globe that followed Floyd’s killing; that the jury should have been sequestered during the trial; and that the trial should have been held outside of Hennepin County due to bias in the jury pool.

Once a person is sentenced, the bar is set very high for revisiting the issues and granting such requests. I believe that in the Chauvin case the requirements have been met, but it doesn’t surprise me that Chauvin has had no success in these efforts. I’ve written an enormous number of posts on George Floyd’s death and the Chauvin trial, so I won’t recap the details except to say that I’m with Elon Musk here:

“The facts show that [Chauvin] was not the cause of death, nor did he at any time intend for a death to occur,” Musk’s social media post read. “Whatever else he may be, he is not a murderer. That is the truth.”

The post There’s a bid to vacate Chauvin’s state conviction appeared first on The New Neo.

I am fairly certain she won’t be “getting off,” whatever the verdict. If she is found to have had diminished capacity due to psychosis, her stay in a mental hospital will be very long, IMHO. She brutally murdered her three young children. That is the reality, and they’re not just letting her out in a month. My guess is that she would be staying for many many years and perhaps even for life.

For example, Andrea Yates – who killed her 5 children in Texas in 2001, twenty-five years ago – and was found found guilty but ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity (see this for the twistings and turnings of her legal situation), is still institutionalized in a mental hospital. Massachusetts is different than Texas of course, but here’s how it works in Massachusetts:

Massachusetts law says the court can order her hospitalized for up to 40 days for “observation and examination,” and prosecutors or hospital officials can then petition for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility.

If a judge determines Clancy is mentally ill and releasing her “would create a likelihood of serious harm,” she could be committed to a facility, the law states. The initial commitment is generally valid for six months and can be renewed in one-year periods.

“She’ll never be released unless there’s a finding by a judge that she doesn’t represent a danger to herself or others,” Rossman said.

She might never get out. Also, she’s probably still a suicide risk, although as a paraplegic she might have trouble accomplishing it.

If I had to guess, I’d predict the jury will be hung. But that’s 100% a guess.

The post Whatever the verdict, Lindsay Clancy is extremely unlikely to be getting out quickly appeared first on The New Neo.

Now, though, with the advent of dashcams, it’s easier to prove it and even to find the perps:

A crew of bozos targeted unsuspecting drivers in a series of staged crashes on busy Big Apple highways — scoring more than $80,000 in insurance payouts before a viral video brought the fraud ring down.

Jaime Huiracocha, 53, and Victor Murillo, 34, will respectively serve at least one year and two years in prison after pleading guilty to insurance fraud charges, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Thursday.

Katz credited the TikTok clip — of a Honda Civic brazenly backing into another vehicle on the Belt Parkway after a near-miss collision — shown to her by her 15-year-old son with jumpstarting the investigation that uncovered three crashes staged by Huiracocha and Murillo.

The guy on the right has a charming set of tattoos:

A commenter there points out that retrofitting a car with a dashcam isn’t all that expensive.

Here’s some more information:

Do Dash Cams Work in Older Vehicles?
In most cases, the answer is yes.

Modern dash cameras are designed to work independently of the vehicle’s factory electronics. They require only a few basic things to function properly:

a 12-volt power source
windshield mounting space
cable routing through the interior
Because nearly all vehicles include these components, dash cameras are compatible with the majority of cars manufactured since the early 2000s.

In fact, older vehicles sometimes make installation easier because their electrical systems are less complex than those found in newer vehicles.

You can get a decent dashcam for under two hundred dollars, apparently. And installing it typically costs another $100 to $250 (depending on the type; see this, for example). Whether you might want one depends on where you live and usually drive.

The post Maybe it’s time to get a dashcam appeared first on The New Neo.

A military judge ruled Wednesday that the man accused of being the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks will stand trial starting in June 2028.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be prosecuted alongside others suspected of conspiring in the attacks: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. …

The trial date was announced after a split federal appeals court last summer threw out a potential agreement that would have allowed Mohammed to plead guilty in exchange for sparing him the risk of execution. …

The road to prosecute Mohammed and other conspirators has dragged on for years, with the Obama-era military commissions system being tested for the first time — at times leading to lengthy challenges to its rules.

Defense lawyers have also argued that the holdup comes from what they say are the government’s efforts to hide details of torture used against detainees at secret CIA prisons before they were transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

We’ve heard plenty about that, actually.

Mohammed should have been tried in military court long ago. It’s not at all certain he will be tried in 2028, either. He is now 61 years old, so he could end up living out his years on Guantanamo.

Also:

Past trial dates have come and gone several times, and Schrama is the fifth judge to oversee the case.

Victims’ families have been outraged that they’ve yet to see justice done, with some relatives telling The Post Wednesday they hope the latest trial date will stand.

“We have been asking for a trial date for 20 years. Hopefully, this time it is for real,” said retired NYPD officer Jim Smith, whose wife Moira Smith died responding to the attacks.

“It’s all going to depend on the judge. We’ve been through so many, some good, but mostly officers who wanted nothing to do with this case,” Smith said. “Someone has to man up and take charge.”

Agreed.

But in Canada at the CBC, don’t call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a terrorist. Word has come down:

“This week, I received a memo — presumably confidential — addressed to CBC News staff. It is authored by one Basem Boshra, who is the “Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News.” In Boshra’s memo, reporters are editors are told this:

“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”

Boshra states that all in bold letters, italicized, as if to emphasize the point. To make clear it is a directive, not a suggestion.

I can’t find much more about Basem Boshra, but the name is considered of Arab or North African Muslim descent. Oh, Canada!

The post Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: the wheels of justice grind slow appeared first on The New Neo.

In a 6-3 ruling, the high court granted a request for emergency relief sought by the Trump administration late last month in a case involving 23 Democratic-led states. The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to lift a lower court’s injunction that stopped agencies from carrying out parts of Mr. Trump’s directive, which involves the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Postal Service, in those states and the District of Columbia.

The high court said in its unsigned decision that the states filed their lawsuit too soon.

“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned decision. “On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it.”

The move from the high court clears the way for the Department of Homeland Security to move forward with a proposal to create lists of residents in each state who are eligible to vote.

But it’s getting awfully close to election time. For Democrats, that’s a feature and not a bug.

More here.

The post SCOTUS ruling on mail-in voting appeared first on The New Neo.

This post isn’t going to be an in-depth definitive analysis of the details. But it is my overall impression and summary after digesting quite a bit of the evidence. I expect that many of you may differ from my conclusions.

Clancy’s defense rests on a claim that she had post-partum psychosis, exacerbated by a cocktail of drugs she was given over time by a series of health practitioners. Her previous behavior as a mother seems to have been exemplary (this was her third child, and she had been a labor and delivery nurse). She kept a diary that documented her decline after the birth of her third child. She claims that voices directed her to kill her children, and the actual act was committed when she had sent her husband out for various errands.

Post-partum mental problems are very real and poorly understood although there are many theories. For most women who have them they amount to a short period of “the baby blues,” and even that can be quite serious for the person experiencing the problem although it is quite common. There are also a smaller number of women who experience a more profound post-partum depression. Then there is a much smaller but real number who experience post-partum psychosis, a break with reality. The second group (post-partum depression) is somewhat at risk, like any depressed person would be, for suicide. The third group (psychosis) is somewhat at risk for suicide and even homicide, often directed at the children. Fortunately, this type of aggression is rare.

The questions in this trial are basically twofold: (1) Was Clancy suffering from post-partum psychosis? (2) Does it matter in terms of her criminal responsibility? I think that the answer to the first question is “yes.” I’m not sure about the answer to the second, but it depends on one’s general attitude towards psychosis and criminal responsibility, which varies from those who think it never matters and that all people should be held equally responsible to those who think it absolves a person of all responsibility. I’ve written and thought about these questions for a long long time and I cannot answer them except to say I don’t fall into either of the extremes of opinion. In this case, I simply don’t know and am glad I’m not on the jury.

When I look at commentary online about the case, there’s an incredible range of opinion. There are, for example, people (usually women) who blame Clancy’s husband. I think that’s preposterous and to be condemned. There are those who completely absolve Clancy herself, which I don’t think is correct although I do believe that – as I said – she was truly depressed and then went into a psychotic state in part because of a bad reaction to the many drugs she was given in rapid succession. I think that her health practitioners did not do right by her. I think her suicide attempt was real and that her resultant paraplegic state is evidence of that. I believe that those who say she is a cold-blooded monster who deeply desired to murder her children and that her psychosis was a feigned excuse are also wrong; the evidence is very strong that this was not the case, and her planning was not inconsistent with a very real post-partum psychosis. And I think it’s a very sad and awful case, almost unbearable in its pathos.

Here’s a discussion of the drug aspect:

I don’t know what the verdict will be. But if Clancy is found not guilty by reason of insanity, it doesn’t mean she goes free. It means she is confined to a mental hospital, probably for many years. That does not satisfy those who consider her guilty, of course. Different states have very different laws for this sort of thing – some, for example, have a possible verdict of guilty with mitigating factors; they confine the killer to a mental hospital, but then when the perp is released there is also a prison term (not necessarily for murder, but a substantial sentence) to be served. As far as I can tell, Massachusetts is not one of those states and she probably would not be going to prison at all if found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The post The Lindsay Clancy case appeared first on The New Neo.

Anthony was found guilty. But many people wanted to paint him as just having defended himself. It was always obvious this was not the case.

But now more has come out, and it paints an even worse picture of Anthony. Why is this emerging now? Anthony’s lawyers are seeking a new trial, plus the case is being used politically in the Senate race in Texas. Here’s Jonathan Turley on the matter:

The [original] criminal case was not a difficult one for the prosecution with overwhelming witness and video evidence of the stabbing. Anthony’s motion for a new trial is extremely weak, in my view, because it focuses on his decision not to testify (despite a record showing he made that decision knowingly and freely). At the same time, the case is now becoming a political issue with Democratic senatorial nominee James Talarico declaring that the case “prove[s] this system is not working for black Texans.”

More [my emphasis]:

New messages have surfaced showing that Anthony was threatening his former girlfriend and expressing violent ideations just hours before killing Metcalf.

Text messages allegedly include a picture of the knife he used in Metcalf’s killing. Anthony’s girlfriend, Valeria, went to the school on the morning of April 2, 2025, before he stabbed Metcalf. She reportedly told school officials that Anthony was stalking her after she broke up with him.

The evidence shows Anthony told her, “I’m low key on the verge” and “When I stab somebody I’m gonna lick their blood off the blade,” prosecutors alleged.

It seems that Anthony was planning something of the sort, and reveling in it. Literal bloodthirstiness. It also seem that this would have been admissible in the trial as evidence for mens rea (intent). Why was it left out? It seems this was the reason:

New information also raises questions about the victim, who was accused of spray-painting racist messages and engaging in threatening conduct. The jury never heard this information about both individuals due to a “gentleman’s agreement” between the prosecution and the defense.

Turley doesn’t dwell on that, but I will. It also seems to me that the alleged racist past of Metcalf would not have been admissible because Anthony had no reason to be aware of it and also it did not involve anything that happened between them the day of the killing. None of the many many witnesses have alleged anything of the sort from Metcalf that day, and that’s all that matters. However, the prosecution probably felt (and correctly so) that making sure that evidence about Metcalf never reached the public was important because it could prejudice the jury, and the prosecution was willing to exclude Anthony’s bloodthirstiness in exchange, considering that they had plenty of evidence to convict him without it.

As for Talarico:

In [Talarico’s] appearance on the New York radio show The Breakfast Club, he discussed how he nodded along as a town hall attendee who called Anthony’s conviction a “tragedy.”

He added: “I’m not an expert on this particular case, but I know that there were no black members of the jury, and to me, that’s, that’s the only evidence you need to, to really prove this system is not working for black Texans.” …

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees trial by an impartial jury, not a particular racial makeup. The Equal Protection Clause also protects after discrimination in jury selection.

Under Batson v. Kentucky, the defense can challenge the use of peremptory challenges by the prosecution on the issue of race. However, the issue is not simply the result of the challenges but the motivation behind such challenges.

In the case of James Kirkland Batson … the Supreme Court and held that, while a defendant is not entitled to have jurors who meet certain racial criteria, the state is not permitted to use its peremptory challenges to automatically exclude potential members of the jury because of their race.

In the Anthony case, challenges to black prospective jurors [were] … because they were educators and the crime occurred on school grounds. The ultimate jury was not “all-White” as commonly claimed. It included Asian, Indian, and Hispanic members.

More on Anthony’s state of mind:

In a 75-page filing, prosecutors also note that Karmelo Anthony had earlier been accused of taking his girlfriend’s phone and, in October 2024, drafted a “to-do” list instructing her how to handle quote “weirdos,” which included the line “say sum slick like my bf kill people.”

Text exchanges further reveal that he admitted on at least two occasions to punching girls in the face.

Prosecutors located 2021 messages between Karmelo Anthony and another student discussing robbing someone for $300.

Other texts show Karmelo Anthony recounting a fight and punching someone “so hard he had to stop fighting.”

In 2023, prosecutors say Karmelo Anthony told a friend he planned to vandalize a house in Austin, Texas, writing, “I just feel like it, I gotta grudge.”

In 2021, Karmelo Anthony informed a friend he had been suspended for three days after fighting, adding, “they said next time I do sum I get recommended for expulsion,” court papers show. …

Prosecutors add that Karmelo Anthony repeatedly threatened to murder his girlfriend in texts, including lines such as “how many bullets u want coming out of ur chest” and “I’m going to get you (expletive).”

More at the link.

It seems as though all of this was left out of the trial, due to the agreement. But Anthony’s lawyers want a new trial, and the prosecution seems ready for it. Of course, a great deal depends on the judge and what he or she would allow in. Conveniently, the judge from the old trial has been replaced:

His new attorneys argued Wednesday that a retrial was warranted in part because state District Judge John Roach, who presided over Anthony’s murder trial in June, enforced overly strict courtroom rules and gave an interview after the murder trial ended. …

A new judge will be assigned for Thursday’s hearing on the retrial request.

The defense argued Roach compromised his impartiality by speaking publicly about the case after the verdict. In one interview, Roach agreed with the assessment that the jury “got it right.”

Anthony’s attorneys also challenged Roach’s decisions to limit cameras and public access during the trial.

It seems they are not alleging actual bias on the part of the original judge, just the appearance of bias. Their only defense, really, is to play the race card. And play it they will.

The post Oh, you mean <i>that</i> Karmelo Anthony appeared first on The New Neo.

More:

The Conservatives said any asylum seekers breaking UK law should be deported and Reform said the publication showed the government “knows that they are a menace”.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the government had “a very clear principle that if you break UK law, you will be removed from the country”.

He said the number of removals of illegal immigrants from the UK “are significantly up” and that he was working to ensure that foreign national offenders are removed from the prison system.

He added: “It follows that if we’re taking this approach, it’s made explicitly clear what the UK law is and what the societal norms of the UK are and that’s why this approach is being taken.”

A section on gender explains that women in the UK have equal rights to men, and do not need the permission from a husband, father, brother or any other man to do things like work, study, travel, or make decisions. …

And a section headed Respect in Public outlines how it is not acceptable to whistle or make kissing noises at people on the street, nor “make sexual comments to someone, even if you think it is a compliment

On the one hand, it actually is a step up, although a baby step. Did the British never impress these facts on newcomers before? At any rate, they’re doing it now. At the very least, that indicates that the authorities are setting up some sort of behavioral expectations.

But on the other hand, that is unlikely to make much of a dent in cultural customs and beliefs that run deep.

And furthermore: why has the British government been so eager to take in so many people with cultures that clash so violently (literally) with British life? That’s somewhat of a rhetorical question, because we know many answers. One for the left is that the left ultimately gains voters. Another (motivating both left and right) is for cheap labor. For some who support the policy, the reason is virtue-signaling. Still another reason is suicidal empathy. One more is a sense of being unable to do much to prevent it. And again, for the left, there are those who have wanted the peace of England’s previous high-trust society to be destroyed.

The post The British finally decide that maybe newcomers need some instructions on quaint British customs appeared first on The New Neo.

Mangione faced those charges in connection with the December 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said in court Friday. “I knew what I was doing.”

Thompson’s family was in the courtroom sitting in the front row watching as Mangione entered his plea. Mangione voiced no remorse and repeatedly referenced his concerns with the U.S. health care system.

So he pleads guilty but admits nothing but the facts already known; there really wasn’t a scintilla of doubt that he stalked Thompson and murdered him in cold blood, shooting him in the back. He’s only sorry he’s been caught; he still is grandstanding to his leftist admirers.

Here’s the strategic part:

Mangione still faces murder charges in a state trial set to begin next month, but his guilty plea in federal court is expected to have significant impacts on the state trial. New York state’s strict double jeopardy law could potentially upend those proceedings. That law says that a defendant can’t be tried twice for the same thing.

Mangione’s defense team cited that law in a motion filed Friday, shortly after his federal guilty plea, urging state court Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss state charges against him, including a count of 2nd degree murder. If successful, that legal maneuver could spare Mangione a longer prison term.

Personally, I think even if he faces the state trial the jury will be hung, because some Mangione supporter or supporters will lie in order to get on the jury and hang it. In federal court that was far less likely, and that’s part of why he copped a plea.

State prosecutors aren’t giving up:

State prosecutors have argued their case is distinct, and that double jeopardy should not apply. In a statement to NPR, a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said they would fight efforts by Mangione’s defense team to derail the state’s prosecution.

With guilty pleas, the sentencing is usually somewhat lighter than it would otherwise have been. The death penalty had already been ruled out for Mangione. Will he now get less than life? It’s certain possible, and sets a terrible precedent. If there was ever a cold-blooded and political assassination, it was this one.

Mangione cites his back pain as a motive:

“After years of enduring severe pain from a broken back and navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system, I learned that UnitedHealthcare would be holding its annual investor conference in New York City,” he said.

What a poor excuse. I have some experience with this; in my early forties I had a severe back injury and was in very significant chronic pain for at least twelve years. I spent a lot of money despite having health insurance, and most of the interventions did not work (unlike what happened to Mangione, whose back was fixed a couple of years after his injury by a fusion surgery). I was a participant in several chronic pain groups and listened to some very sad stories, and some angry people who were having major problems with the health care system. But never was anyone contemplating murdering some random health insurance executive. And by the way, Mangione’s insurance problems, whatever they might have been, did not involve Thompson’s company United Healthcare:

Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week, was not a customer of the private health insurer, but police say he had identified the company as one of the largest corporations in America in his “manifesto” writings.

Neither Mangione nor his mother were insured by UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest private health insurer, a UnitedHealth Group spokesperson told CNN.

“We have no indication that he was ever a client of United Healthcare, but he does make mention that it is the fifth largest corporation in America, which would make it the largest healthcare organization in America. So that’s possibly why he targeted that company,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said in an interview with NBC New York.

When Mangione first surfaced. I wrote a post comparing him to Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov. I still consider the analogy a good one, except that Raskolnikov ultimately showed remorse and understanding. I don’t think Mangione is even close to that redemptive arc.

The post Mangione pleads guilty appeared first on The New Neo.

But we didn’t know these details about Heidi Beirich, who was the CFO of the SPLC and was recently arrested for fraud [my emphasis]:

A former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been arrested in California on charges that she oversaw secret payments to informants inside of White supremacist groups, one of whom she was allegedly living with and had a romantic relationship with at the time. …

Beirich allegedly “oversaw payments of donors’ money” to people inside of these hate groups, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. She also allegedly shared a bank account with one of those sources, which included funds from the SPLC’s payments. …

Despite her role in overseeing the payments — some of which were directed to an Imperial Wizard in the KKK — Beirich allegedly had a romantic relationship with one source who infiltrated a White Supremacy group and stole documents for the SPLC, according to the indictment.

That person, prosecutors say, was paid over $1 million by the SPLC since 2007 – $140,000 of which was put into a bank account that Beirich and the person shared. Beirich allegedly used that money to pay for their personal living expenses.

The documents that person allegedly stole were used as part of an article that the SPLC later published. Beirich then allegedly paid a second informant $6,000 to take the fall for the stolen documents.

“Dr. Beirich is innocent, and this case is without merit,” her attorney, Michael J. Proctor said in a statement. “We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated …

The SPLC itself is above politics, of course, dedicated only to truth, justice, and the American way.

The post So the SPLC was in bed with neo-Nazi informants – literally appeared first on The New Neo.