U. S. Issues Travel Warning To Banana Republic Of #Nigeria! Ignore It At Your Peril!!

US: Nigerian Islamic Uprising Could Spread

An alarming U.S. travel advisory warns Nigeria's Islamic uprising could expand out of the north and counsels against travel to 16 of the West African nation's 36 states, saying Americans have suffered violent crimes from kidnappings and rape to home invasions.

The advisory says nine foreign nationals including Americans died last year in kidnappings in southwest Nigeria, three of them killed by their captors during military-led rescue raids.

The advisory posted at the U.S. State Department website and dated Jan. 8 tells citizens to expect little help from law enforcers known for harassing and shaking down foreigners and Nigerians at checkpoints.

It says U.S. missionaries in northern Nigeria have received "night letters" — covertly distributed specific written threats to their safety.

Pointing to possible targets of extremists, it says U.S. citizens should be particularly vigilant around government security facilities; churches, mosques, and other places of worship; locations where large crowds gather such as hotels, clubs, beer parlors, restaurants, markets and shopping malls; and all other areas frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers.

Thousands of people have been killed in a 4-year-old uprising by the Boko Haram terrorist network based in northeast Nigeria, many more Muslims than Christians, which continues despite an 8-month-long state of emergency that deployed thousands of troops to three states covering one-sixth of the country.

"Late 2013 saw an increase in Boko Haram attacks and clashes with Nigerian government security forces in northern Nigeria," the travel advisory says. "Boko Haram is known to descend on whole towns, robbing banks and businesses, attacking police and military installations, and setting fire to private homes."

It warns "U.S. citizens should be aware that extremists could expand their operations beyond northern Nigeria to other areas of the country." Boko Haram already operates in neighboring Chad, from which it kidnapped a French priest who was released earlier this month, and militants from Chad, Niger and Cameroon have been reported fighting alongside Boko Haram in Nigeria, raising fears the rebellion could also spread beyond Nigeria's borders.

The United States advises against all but essential travel to all 13 northern and central-northern Nigerian states as well as central Plateau state, for years the site of deadly ethnic-religious clashes, and the oil-rich southwestern states of Delta and Bayelsa, on the Gulf of Guinea where piracy is on the rise and militancy by activists demanding a bigger share of oil riches from a government embroiled in numerous corruption scandals.

Kidnappings of foreigners and attacks against Nigerian police forces in the Niger Delta region and in Lagos State, home to the commercial capital Lagos city, continue to be a danger, it says. "Criminals or militants have abducted foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, from offshore and land-based oil facilities, residential compounds, and public roadways."

It adds that international companies and local authorities assert that the number of kidnapping incidents throughout Nigeria is underreported.

And home invasions "remain a serious threat," with armed robbers getting into even heavily guarded compounds.

"Violent crimes occur throughout the country," the advisory says. "U.S. citizen visitors and residents have experienced armed muggings, assaults, burglaries, armed robberies, carjackings, rapes, kidnappings, and extortion."

For more, go to: http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/alertswarnings.html

#GeorgeZimmerman Arrested For Pointing Gun In Girlfriend Samantha Shiebe's Face, Ordered By Judge To Turn Over Guns And Stay Away From Victim. Karma Is Working, But This Is #Floriduh! Watch Video.

Former Bowling Green City Commissioner, Brian "Slim" Nash Arrested For DUI.

BOWLING GREEN, KY A former Bowling Green city commissioner is arrested for DUI.

Bowling Green Police say Brian "Slim" Nash was pulled over for making an improper turn onto the 31W Bypass around 12:40 a.m. Sunday.

Officers say they saw Nash standing in the middle of Park Street with what appeared to be a beer bottle in his hand.

They say the four-term city commissioner then got into his car with two other people and made the improper turn.

Police say Nash had bloodshot eyes, was unsteady on his feet, and failed the field sobriety test.

Nash's attorney, Alan Simpson, says among the things wrong with the police report are:
Nash was not in the middle of the street. He was in the house.
There were three other people in the car, not two.
And the reason he was unsteady on his feet is, he has terrible knees.
Simpson also says Nash did not take a breathalyzer test or a blood test on his advice.

What Happened In Benghazi, Libya? Watch Video.

Do you want more? Go here.

News Story: NSA Gathers Data On Social Media Of U. S. Citizens. Welcome To The Land Of American GESTAPO!

N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON — Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

Document

Documents on N.S.A. Efforts to Diagram Social Networks of U.S. Citizens

Related

• Senators Push to Preserve N.S.A. Phone Surveillance (September 27, 2013)

(This slide from an N.S.A. 

PowerPoint presentation  

shows one of the ways the 

agency uses e-mail and phone 

data to analyze the relationships 

of foreign intelligence targets.)

The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.

N.S.A. officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort, including people involved in no wrongdoing. The documents do not describe what has resulted from the scrutiny, which links phone numbers and e-mails in a “contact chain” tied directly or indirectly to a person or organization overseas that is of foreign intelligence interest.

The new disclosures add to the growing body of knowledge in recent months about the N.S.A.’s access to and use of private information concerning Americans, prompting lawmakers in Washington to call for reining in the agency and President Obama to order an examination of its surveillance policies. Almost everything about the agency’s operations is hidden, and the decision to revise the limits concerning Americans was made in secret, without review by the nation’s intelligence court or any public debate. As far back as 2006, a Justice Department memo warned of the potential for the “misuse” of such information without adequate safeguards.

An agency spokeswoman, asked about the analyses of Americans’ data, said, “All data queries must include a foreign intelligence justification, period.”

“All of N.S.A.’s work has a foreign intelligence purpose,” the spokeswoman added. “Our activities are centered on counterterrorism, counterproliferation and cybersecurity.”

The legal underpinning of the policy change, she said, was a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that Americans could have no expectation of privacy about what numbers they had called. Based on that ruling, the Justice Department and the Pentagon decided that it was permissible to create contact chains using Americans’ “metadata,” which includes the timing, location and other details of calls and e-mails, but not their content. The agency is not required to seek warrants for the analyses from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

 N.S.A. officials declined to identify which phone and e-mail databases are used to create the social network diagrams, and the documents provided by Mr. Snowden do not specify them. The agency did say that the large database of Americans’ domestic phone call records, which was revealed by Mr. Snowden in June and caused bipartisan alarm in Washington, was excluded. (N.S.A. officials have previously acknowledged that the agency has done limited analysis in that database, collected under provisions of the Patriot Act, exclusively for people who might be linked to terrorism suspects.)

But the agency has multiple collection programs and databases, the former officials said, adding that the social networking analyses relied on both domestic and international metadata. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the information was classified.

The concerns in the United States since Mr. Snowden’s revelations have largely focused on the scope of the agency’s collection of the private data of Americans and the potential for abuse. But the new documents provide a rare window into what the N.S.A. actually does with the information it gathers.

A series of agency PowerPoint presentations and memos describe how the N.S.A. has been able to develop software and other tools — one document cited a new generation of programs that “revolutionize” data collection and analysis — to unlock as many secrets about individuals as possible.

The spy agency, led by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, an unabashed advocate for more weapons in the hunt for information about the nation’s adversaries, clearly views its collections of metadata as one of its most powerful resources. N.S.A. analysts can exploit that information to develop a portrait of an individual, one that is perhaps more complete and predictive of behavior than could be obtained by listening to phone conversations or reading e-mails, experts say.

Phone and e-mail logs, for example, allow analysts to identify people’s friends and associates, detect where they were at a certain time, acquire clues to religious or political affiliations, and pick up sensitive information like regular calls to a psychiatrist’s office, late-night messages to an extramarital partner or exchanges with a fellow plotter.

“Metadata can be very revealing,” said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University. “Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person’s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect.”

The N.S.A. had been pushing for more than a decade to obtain the rule change allowing the analysis of Americans’ phone and e-mail data. Intelligence officials had been frustrated that they had to stop when a contact chain hit a telephone number or e-mail address believed to be used by an American, even though it might yield valuable intelligence primarily concerning a foreigner who was overseas, according to documents previously disclosed by Mr. Snowden. N.S.A. officials also wanted to employ the agency’s advanced computer analysis tools to sift through its huge databases with much greater efficiency.

The agency had asked for the new power as early as 1999, the documents show, but had been initially rebuffed because it was not permitted under rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that were intended to protect the privacy of Americans.

A 2009 draft of an N.S.A. inspector general’s report suggests that contact chaining and analysis may have been done on Americans’ communications data under the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, which began after the Sept. 11 attacks to detect terrorist activities and skirted the existing laws governing electronic surveillance.

In 2006, months after the wiretapping program was disclosed by The New York Times, the N.S.A.’s acting general counsel wrote a letter to a senior Justice Department official, which was also leaked by Mr. Snowden, formally asking for permission to perform the analysis on American phone and e-mail data. A Justice Department memo to the attorney general noted that the “misuse” of such information “could raise serious concerns,” and said the N.S.A. promised to impose safeguards, including regular audits, on the metadata program. In 2008, the Bush administration gave its approval.

A new policy that year, detailed in “Defense Supplemental Procedures Governing Communications Metadata Analysis,” authorized by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, said that since the Supreme Court had ruled that metadata was not constitutionally protected, N.S.A. analysts could use such information “without regard to the nationality or location of the communicants,” according to an internal N.S.A. description of the policy.

After that decision, which was previously reported by The Guardian, the N.S.A. performed the social network graphing in a pilot project for 1 ½ years “to great benefit,” according to the 2011 memo. It was put in place in November 2010 in “Sigint Management Directive 424” (sigint refers to signals intelligence).

In the 2011 memo explaining the shift, N.S.A. analysts were told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification. That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists.

Analysts were warned to follow existing “minimization rules,” which prohibit the N.S.A. from sharing with other agencies names and other details of Americans whose communications are collected, unless they are necessary to understand foreign intelligence reports or there is evidence of a crime. The agency is required to obtain a warrant from the intelligence court to target a “U.S. person” — a citizen or legal resident — for actual eavesdropping.

The N.S.A. documents show that one of the main tools used for chaining phone numbers and e-mail addresses has the code name Mainway. It is a repository into which vast amounts of data flow daily from the agency’s fiber-optic cables, corporate partners and foreign computer networks that have been hacked.

The documents show that significant amounts of information from the United States go into Mainway. An internal N.S.A. bulletin, for example, noted that in 2011 Mainway was taking in 700 million phone records per day. In August 2011, it began receiving an additional 1.1 billion cellphone records daily from an unnamed American service provider under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which allows for the collection of the data of Americans if at least one end of the communication is believed to be foreign.

The overall volume of metadata collected by the N.S.A. is reflected in the agency’s secret 2013 budget request to Congress. The budget document, disclosed by Mr. Snowden, shows that the agency is pouring money and manpower into creating a metadata repository capable of taking in 20 billion “record events” daily and making them available to N.S.A. analysts within 60 minutes.

The spending includes support for the “Enterprise Knowledge System,” which has a $394 million multiyear budget and is designed to “rapidly discover and correlate complex relationships and patterns across diverse data sources on a massive scale,” according to a 2008 document. The data is automatically computed to speed queries and discover new targets for surveillance.

A top-secret document titled “Better Person Centric Analysis” describes how the agency looks for 94 “entity types,” including phone numbers, e-mail addresses and IP addresses. In addition, the N.S.A. correlates 164 “relationship types” to build social networks and what the agency calls “community of interest” profiles, using queries like “travelsWith, hasFather, sentForumMessage, employs.”

A 2009 PowerPoint presentation provided more examples of data sources available in the “enrichment” process, including location-based services like GPS and TomTom, online social networks, billing records and bank codes for transactions in the United States and overseas.

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, General Alexander was asked if the agency ever collected or planned to collect bulk records about Americans’ locations based on cellphone tower data. He replied that it was not doing so as part of the call log program authorized by the Patriot Act, but said a fuller response would be classified.

If the N.S.A. does not immediately use the phone and e-mail logging data of an American, it can be stored for later use, at least under certain circumstances, according to several documents.

One 2011 memo, for example, said that after a court ruling narrowed the scope of the agency’s collection, the data in question was “being buffered for possible ingest” later. A year earlier, an internal briefing paper from the N.S.A. Office of Legal Counsel showed that the agency was allowed to collect and retain raw traffic, which includes both metadata and content, about “U.S. persons” for up to five years online and for an additional 10 years offline for “historical searches.”

The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure Restricts Bowling Green Cardiologist Dr. Fred Gott From Prescribing Controlled Substances, As He “Departed From Or Failed To Conform To Acceptable And Prevailing Medical Practices And That [He] Demonstrated Gross Negligence, Gross Ignorance And/Or Gross Incompetence In His Practice Of Medicine”! OUCH!!

Doctor faces Rx restrictions

Board says Gott 'decided to enter into field of pain management' via practice

The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure issued an emergency order Thursday restricting Bowling Green cardiologist Dr. C. Fred Gott from prescribing controlled substances.

A board consultant reviewed Gott’s patient charts and found that he “departed from or failed to conform to acceptable and prevailing medical practices and that the licensee demonstrated gross negligence, gross ignorance and/or gross incompetence in his practice of medicine,” according to the Findings of Fact in the written order filed in Frankfort.

About 25 state, federal and local law enforcement officers executed a federal search warrant on Gott’s office in February. Gott was not present during the search and has not been charged with any crime. The federal search warrant is a sealed document. During the search, law enforcement officers carried out computer hard drives and boxes of papers.

“Our criminal investigation is proceeding, and we anticipate a conclusion in the near future,” Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force Director Tommy Loving said.

The search warrant was the result of a joint investigation by the drug task force, the Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control Division, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Drug Diversion Section and the Kentucky inspector general’s Drug Enforcement and Professional Practices Branch, according to a news release in February from the task force.

The joint investigation began after the Warren County Coroner’s Office reported that several of Gott’s patients had suffered overdose deaths attributed to prescription drugs, according to the Findings of Fact in the medical board’s order.

The medical board consultant who reviewed Gott’s patient files noted that “Gott is a licensed cardiologist ... who has now decided to enter into the field of pain management and to provide services as a pain management physician. I do not see any type of formal training or any training remotely associated with his ability to want to all of a sudden practice pain management.”

After review of the charts, the consultant also noted that Gott’s diagnoses “seem unsubstantiated” in many cases.

“There is a failure of using diagnostic testing such as MRI scans, and there is also a failure in obtaining appropriate consultations with regards to pain related topics or pain related disorders. His treatment plans consist of prescribing methadone, and very limited use of other meds,” the consultant wrote.

“It appears that when patients enter into this practice, the only scope of care given is opioid treatment. The only reason patients are there, is to obtain medications,” according to the consultant’s opinion in the Findings of Fact.

Gott graduated from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1978. He obtained his medical license Sept. 18, 1980, according to KBML online records.

Gott has privileges at TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, but is on the courtesy staff, which means he admits a limited number of patients to the facility, Greenview marketing director Alan Palmer said.

Gott had medical privileges in February at The Medical Center, but did not perform cardiac catheterization at that facility, said Doris Thomas, vice president of marketing and development for Commonwealth Health Corp., the parent company of The Medical Center, in an interview shortly after the search warrant was executed. A Medical Center spokeswoman was unable to obtain Gott’s current status at that facility by press time today.

Kentucky's GESTAPO Continues To Flaunt And Abuse Power. It Is Past Time To Rein It In.

 

Family services witness doesn't know who reclassified 4-month-old's death

Witness denies knowing who shielded baby's death from scrutiny

A nurse administrator sent by the Kentucky cabinet for Health and Family Services to testify about a last-minute change to reclassify a case involving the death of a 4-month-old said Wednesday she didn’t make the decision and doesn’t know who did.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd had ordered the cabinet to present the decision maker for a deposition after discovering last week that the case had been reclassified to say negligence was not a factor — three years after the infant, Rafe Calvert, died, and weeks before officials were to testify in an open records case.

By reclassifying the child’s death to say neglect by Rafe’s parents was not a factor, the file detailing the cabinet’s work on the case is no longer subject to the state Open Records Act.
Cabinet attorney Mona Womack said Wednesday that in sending nurse administrator Deborah Acker to testify on Wednesday, it was fulfilling Shepherd’s order.

But during her nearly two-hour deposition — before Womack and attorneys for The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, which are suing for more transparency of state files in cases of death or near death of abused or neglected children — Acker said she was not the person who decided on the reclassification.
Acker reviewed Rafe’s autopsy report at the request of a supervisor and advised the supervisor only that the cause of death was undetermined.
She noted that the medical examiner had listed the baby’s premature birth and missed doctors’ appointments as “complicating” factors, but said it was not her role to determine if the baby died because of neglect.

Jon Fleischaker, who represents The Courier-Journal, said during the proceeding that he believes the cabinet violated Shepherd’s order by failing to provide the proper person to answer for the change.
“It was a very unusual situation,” Fleischaker said afterward.

Rafe died in February 2010, six days after a Passport health worker called Child Protective Services to report suspicion that Rafe, who was born prematurely and had missed eight doctor’s appointments, was being neglected. On March 5, a CPS social worker followed up on that call, learning only then that Rafe had about a week earlier been found dead, laying face down on a pillow in a bassinet in his mother’s bedroom. It took another four days, until March 9, for a worker to visit Rafe’s home to determine whether the other child there was safe and to begin investigating Rafe’s death. In April 2010, the state Department of Community Based Services concluded that Rafe’s parents, whose names have been removed from files released on this case, neglected the newborn’s medical needs.

But last month, when attorneys for the cabinet were preparing to testify about why parts of Rafe’s file have been withheld from the public, cabinet officials requested Rafe’s autopsy report and then decided his death had nothing to do with medical neglect. Rafe’s file is one of about 140 cases related to child deaths and near-deaths as a result of abuse or neglect that the newspapers requested under the Kentucky Open Records Act. For more than three years, the cabinet and The Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald-Leader have been in a court, battling over the release of records. Last year, the cabinet, under a court order, began releasing files, but blacked out or removed information, including names of other children in families, names of most adults involved unless they were criminally charged, and previous investigations made by the cabinet that they determined were unrelated or weren’t substantiated. Shepherd has ordered the cabinet to turn over the files, but provided guidelines on what can be removed. Attorneys for the newspapers questioned cabinet officials on their reasons for removing information from 20 of those files in a hearing last week. It was during that hearing that Teresa James, commissioner of the cabinet’s Department for Community Based Services, said Rafe’s case was no longer being considered a death involving abuse or neglect. James explained last week that officials had failed to request a completed autopsy at the time of the investigation. Once they reviewed it in July, they determined that while Rafe’s parents had committed medical neglect, it did not contribute to Rafe’s death. After the hearing, Shepherd ordered the cabinet to provide the person who had made the reclassification decision to testify. Attorneys for both sides have 30 days to file briefs regarding the cabinet’s redactions, then 20 days to respond. Shepherd is then expected to rule on whether the cabinet has withheld information appropriately.

More Fallout From The Trial Of Barren County Sheriff: Glasgow Police Sargent Jessie Barton Placed On Administrative Leave Without Pay For Intentionally Lying To The Grand Jury.

Glasgow Police Sgt. Jessie Barton has been placed on Administrative Leave without pay pending the outcome of an investigation.
The Internal Affairs investigation deals with Sgt. Barton admitting to not telling the truth to investigators during the pre-trial investigation of a case against Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton and several Deputies.

During the trial Barton took the stand and said he saw Sheriff Eaton punch Billy R. Stinnett in the groin while he was handcuffed.
However, he had previously testified to a grand jury he didn't see this happen. In fact, he said he intentionally lied to the grand jury about the incident.

Barton said law enforcement was like a brotherhood and he didn't want to get anyone in trouble.
The Glasgow Police Department says no other information will be available until this investigation is closed.

Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, Files Motion To Acquit Or Grant Him New Trial.

Eaton attorney files motion to acquit or grant new trial

The attorney for Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton filed a motion today requesting that the federal judge who presided over the sheriff's trial for civil rights violations either overturn Eaton's convictions on two counts of witness tampering and grant an acquittal or vacate the convictions and hold a new trial.

A jury found Eaton guilty earlier this month on the witness tampering charges but acquitted him and two others of all other charges stemming from a federal investigation into the 2010 arrest of Billy Stinnett in Barren County.

Guthrie True, the attorney representing Eaton, argues in his motion that the guilty verdicts on witness tampering are not consistent with the jury's conclusion that no criminal conduct occurred to give rise to a suggestion of witness tampering and that Eaton did not prevent the FBI from receiving information in the course of its investigation into Stinnett's arrest.

Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton Returns To Work Pending Sentencing And Possible Appeal Of Two Felony Federal Convictions For Witness Tampering.

Eaton case is ongoing until final judgment

GLASGOW — Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton was convicted on two felony counts of witness tampering at the end of a nine-day trial last week, but his case is not over yet, and neither is his time as sheriff.

Eaton returned to work this week after being on trial for allegedly beating suspect Billy Randall Stinnett after he was handcuffed on Feb. 24, 2010, and then lying to federal investigators about the incident. Eaton was acquitted of the assault, of lying to investigators and of destroying evidence, but he was convicted of witness tampering. The two other defendants, Barren County Deputy Aaron Bennett and Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force Detective Eric Guffey, were acquitted of all charges against them.

Trial Has Been Exhausting For Convicted Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, Who Faces Removal From Office Plus Imprisonment And Fines.

Whole Case has been Exhausting for Sheriff Eaton

It hasn't been long since a federal jury handed out verdicts for Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton, Deputy Aaron Bennett and Barren Edmonson County Drug Task Force Detective Eric Guffey.
While Sheriff Eaton didn't return our phone calls his attorney Guthrie True says this case has taken a big toll on Eaton.
"I think in large part he was somewhat overwhelmed by both exhaustion and just kind of a sense of shock initially. He's had a little time to decompress since then and is absorbing it. We've talked some about what I think some of the problems are with the verdict on those two counts and what we may be doing, but he's kind of in the process of trying to recover from the physical exhaustion and to just try to help his family through this right now," said True.

For Sheriff Eaton, it was good and bad news.
He was found not guilty for the alleged beating of Billy Randall Stinnett of Glasgow and the alleged cover-up, but was found guilty on two counts of witness tampering.
Eaton's attorney Guthrie True said it doesn't make sense.
"It does appear on its face to be inconsistent. I think there may be some other legal issues frankly with regard to the guilty verdict on those two counts," said True.
True said they plan to make some motions and will continue the fight.

The other two defendants in this case, Bennett and Guffey were found not guilty on all charges.
Guffey's attorney called him a hero.
"Eric got out of that truck and he ran after a meth head who was violent. He's a hero and it's a shame he had to go through this. Thank god the jury saw that he was a good person, did the right thing," said Guffey's attorney Brian Butler.

Bennett's attorney Buddy Alexander is very glad the jury found his client not guilty, but said this whole case was a witch hunt.
"This wasn't about justice. This was about notching your gun when you get a win. That's ridiculous. It's a rough guess, but the federal government has probably spent three million dollars to prosecute this case and you know for what?" said Alexander.
Eaton's sentencing will be August 1st.

The federal sentencing guidelines estimate Eaton would serve between 15 and 21 months.
State law says Eaton would not be immediately required to step down, but could be removed from office by the Commonwealth Attorney once all appeal rights have been exhausted or abandoned and the conviction becomes final.

(hat tip: WBKO).

Federal Court Jury Finds Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, Guilty Of Two Counts Of Witness Tampering In Beating Case, Acquits His Deputies.

BOWLING GREEN — After eight hours of deliberation, a jury returned two guilty verdicts against Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton in a federal deprivation of rights trial. Eaton was acquitted of the other six charges against him, and Barren County Deputy Aaron Bennett and Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force Detective Eric Guffey were acquitted of all charges against them.

The three officers were accused of beating Billy Randall Stinnett after he was in handcuffs on Feb. 24, 2010, and then lying to federal investigators about the incident.

The jury found all three not guilty on one charge of depriving Stinnett of his civil rights by assaulting or allowing other officers to assault him, and not guilty on one count of making a false statement to federal investigators in FBI interviews on April 20, 2010.

Eaton was found guilty of witness tampering by encouraging BCSO deputies Steve Runyon and Adam Minor to falsify details in their reports of Stinnett’s arrest. Runyon and Minor both took the stand earlier in the nine-day trial. Runyon alleged that Eaton told him to write in a report that he was with Eaton when he found a knife that belonged to Stinnett on the ground near the place of Stinnett’s arrest. Minor alleged that Eaton told Minor what to write in his report of Stinnett’s arrest and then the sheriff proof-read the report before it was given to federal investigators.

Eaton was also found not guilty of allowing officers under his command to assault Stinnett, falsifying his own report given to the FBI, striking Stinnett in the groin after he was handcuffed and telling an employee to delete a photograph that documented the alleged groin shot.

Guffey was also found not guilty of willfully allowing other officers to assault Stinnett and lying to federal investigators in an additional interview on March 7, 2011.

Family members and friends who stayed until the 9 p.m. verdicts in the Bowling Green courthouse cried as they hugged each other and the defendants.

J. Guthrie True, counsel for Eaton, did not hide his confusion after the verdicts were read.

“I’m baffled by the result,” True said.

Unfortunately, it looks like the jury may have compromised in their deliberations, True said.

“They acquitted of the allegation of the violation of the civil rights, so it seems a little inconsistent to find him guilty on witness tampering,” True said.

The penalties for the witness tampering charges are no more than 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and no more than three years of supervised release. Sentencing will be Aug. 1, 2013, at 9 a.m.

Buddy Alexander, counsel for Bennett, said he felt wonderful after court. There is always doubt when a jury is deliberating, Alexander said, but he was happy for the acquittal of his client. They got a good trial, Alexander said, and were able to break down the prosecution’s witnesses. Hearing two guilty verdicts for Eaton was hard, he said.

“But the jury speaks, and when they speak you have to listen,” Alexander said.

Brian Butler, defense attorney for Guffey, said he was “elated” with the verdicts, and he feels his client has been vindicated. The prosecution of Guffey was shameful, Butler said.

“We’re just very grateful and thankful the jury returned him to his family and returned him to Barren County where he can continue to protect and serve,” Butler said.

After leaving the courthouse with dozens of supporters who have sat through the trial, Guffey gave credit to one source.

“I give all the glory to God,” Guffey said.

Federal Judge, Joseph McKinley, Jr., Has Instructed The Jury In The Beating trial of Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, And His DEputies; Jury Starts Deliberation.

May 8, 2013

Judge gives jury final instructions

BOWLING GREEN — Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. read more than 30 pages of instructions to the jury Thursday. Some of the points include:

• Find the facts, and apply the law to the facts,

• Whether you like the law does not matter,

• Your personal likes or prejudices cannot enter your deliberation,

• The defendants are presumed innocent,

• Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not the same as beyond a possible doubt,

• Use only witness testimony, evidence and exhibits and stipulated facts to come to a verdict,

• You decide how much weight you give each piece of evidence, whether direct or circumstantial,

• You may take into consideration the credibility of a witness or a witness’ drug history,

• Opinion evidence is still evidence, but still up to the juror to decide value, and

• The defendants’ choice to testify or not cannot be considered.

Parties Conclude Closing Arguments In The Beating Trial Of Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, And His Deputies.

BOWLING GREEN — EDITOR’S NOTE: All charges against the defendants are accusations only, not statements of fact. Evidence presented and statements made by attorneys in closing arguments are left to the jury to determine their value.
The jury was able to get instructions from Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. and listen to closing arguments from civil rights prosecutor Roy Conn III and defense attorney J. Guthrie True Wednesday before court recessed for the afternoon in the federal trial of Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton, Deputy Aaron Bennett and Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force Detective Eric Guffey. Defense attorneys Buddy Alexander and Brian Butler will present closing arguments and the government will give a rebuttal Thursday before the case is turned over to the jury to decide the fate of the three law enforcement officers alleged to have beaten Billy Randall Stinnett after he was in handcuffs on Feb. 24, 2010.

Roy Conn III

Watching from the windows of Calvary Baptist Church, three teenage girls saw something “to scar their minds,” Conn told the jury. The church witnesses called to the stand at the beginning of the trial may have been young, Conn said, but they were positive of six things on Feb. 24, 2010. They saw a man on the ground, that man was beaten by law enforcement officers, the man’s hands were cuffed during the beating, there was no reason for the beating, all the officers were participating and no officer stopped it.

“Police officers are simply not allowed to beat anyone who is not posing an immediate threat,” Conn said.

Adam Minor, originally indicted with the defendants and now a cooperating witness, has admitted the beating took place and that he and the defendants participated or, in Guffey’s case, allowed it to happen, Conn said. While the defense tries to throw doubt on Minor’s truthfulness, Conn told the jury that Minor’s account is the one that is corroborated by the eye witnesses in the church. Evidence such as Bennett’s broken hand, Stinnett’s head laceration and bruises and the blood at the scene further corroborate the government witnesses’ testimonies. The defense’s medical expert also said Stinnett’s head wound could have been caused by a baton, the prosecutor said.

“The force used was excessive,” Conn said.

The beating was also thoroughly willful, Conn said, as Minor has testified that Eaton told the other officers it was their turn after he hit Stinnett, and officers later laughed about Stinnett’s bruises and Eaton’s alleged fake screaming into the radio.

Just because Stinnett does not remember getting hit in the groin by Eaton after he was “beaten in the head,” Conn said, does not mean it didn’t happen. Minor and Glasgow Police Officer Jessie Barton testified that Eaton hit Stinnett in the groin. And while Trevor Phillips denied it, Minor heard Eaton direct Phillips to delete an incriminating photo, Conn told the jury.

“Apparently, defendant Eaton wasn’t satisfied with the beating that had happened earlier,” Conn said. “He needed to get an extra blow in.”

As each of the defendants worked to create a false cover story to hide their crime, Conn said that Eaton went to extra lengths to tamper with witnesses in regard to Steve Runyon and Minor. He pressured his longtime friend, Runyon, to lie about a knife because he needed that aspect of his cover story, Conn said.

“It shows you that nothing mattered to him except covering up what happened on Feb. 24, 2010,” Conn said.

After he testified at a grand jury, Runyon testified that Eaton called him and said to Runyon that he was going to go to jail, Conn said.

“That comes as close to a confession about what happened on Feb. 24, 2010, outside that church as you’re going to hear,” Conn said.

Conn told the jury to “use your common sense” when considering the validity of the defendants’ stories and the statements they made to the FBI following Stinnett’s arrest. Every time a defendant wrote or stated that no one used excessive force on Stinnett, it was a lie, Conn said.

Guffey further lied when he changed his story about whether he saw blood at the scene and whether he told the FBI he saw blood, Conn said. Those lies were intentional falsehoods about material facts related to a federal investigation, he said, and they demonstrate Guffey’s tendency to mislead investigators.

The defendants not only committed a crime against Stinnett, Conn said, but they also committed a crime that will always stay with the young girls who saw it. The officers would have gotten away with it, he added, if it weren’t for those girls.

“These three defendants swore an oath to uphold the law, but instead they violated the law by beating a handcuffed man while he was down on the ground,” Conn said.

J. Guthrie True

There are a few “unimpeachable” sources of evidence in this trial, True told the jury as he presented his closing argument on behalf of Eaton.

One, the time frame is indisputable, True said. A dispatch log and a photograph’s time stamp put Stinnett being escorted from the arrest scene about a minute after the radio call that Stinnett was fleeing his van on foot.

“Those numbers don’t lie,” True said.

Stinnett’s injuries don’t lie either, and True said Stinnett’s photographed injuries do not demonstrate a beating.

Further, several witnesses have showed evidence that the government has used pressure and intimidation throughout the investigation. Normally, accusing the government of intimidation would be an impeachable issue, True said, but the back-and-forth between Ron Lafferty, whom he called a “walking affidavit,” and Conn both on the witness stand and in the grand jury transcript demonstrated the government’s intimidation tactics.

After looking at the unimpeachable evidence, True said the jury next must analyze Adam Minor. Minor testified that he lied multiple times to investigators, a district court and a Barren County grand jury, True said. The question becomes, he told the jury, “has he lied to you?” Minor’s accounts of pushing Stinnett to the ground, seeing another county employee punch Stinnett in the face and seeing Eaton hit Stinnett in the groin don’t match up with Stinnett’s own account of what happened Feb. 24, 2010. Minor’s account of a conversation between Eaton and Runyon don’t match Runyon’s testimony, True said.

“I submit to you, you can feel comfortable in concluding that Adam Minor has in fact lied to you,” True told the jury.

As people, True told jurors that they would not rely on Minor’s word to make any important decision in their own lives, so they should not rely on Minor when making the most important decision in the defendants’ lives.

True does not believe that the young church witnesses are trying to make things up, he said, but there were two church witnesses, who didn’t testify, who were positive that Bobby McCown was one of the officers beating Stinnett. McCown was indicted on that false information, but it was later proven he was not there. Those children have never seen the violent arrest of a resisting suspect, True said, and they did not understand that a violent altercation could still be a lawful one. The violent strikes that some of the church witnesses testified to, such as an officer hitting Stinnett repeatedly on the shins, were not evidenced in Stinnett’s injuries, True said.

“What they think they saw, they didn’t see,” True said.

The government has said that photographs of blood spatter at the scene corroborate their description of the officers beating Stinnett, True said, but not a single witness has testified that any of the officers had any blood on them. The government’s forensic blood spatter expert said the blood could have been caused by a single hit to the head, True said, and the defense’s medical expert said head lacerations are known to spurt. That injury could have been caused during the vehicle chase and still spurted that much during a struggle, according to George Nichols, True reminded the jury.

Stinnett’s bloody hood and the bloody glove found near the scene could easily mean Stinnett sustained a head injury in the van while he was wearing his hood and a glove to protect his hand while he stirred a methamphetamine lab, True said, and when he exited the van, he pushed his hood back with his gloved hand, getting blood on the glove.

FBI agent David McClelland testified that Eaton’s version of his use of the baton “would have been justified,” True said. Witnesses, including Jessie Barton, also describe Eaton already away from the immediate scene of Stinnett’s arrest within 30 seconds to a minute of the beginning of the foot pursuit. If anyone hit Stinnett after he was handcuffed, True said, Eaton could not have been there to witness it.

The government’s charges against Eaton of false statements rely on the statements actually being false, True said, but several people witnessed Eaton walk up to Stinnett with a knife, as described in the report Eaton allegedly pressured Runyon to falsify, and Eaton’s own report cannot be false if no assault occurred after Stinnett was handcuffed.

“I think the evidence is, there never was an assault on Stinnett once he was cuffed,” True said.

The real tragedy of the case is the doubt it may plant in a police officer’s mind the next time he is faced with a similar situation with a suspect like Billy Randall Stinnett, True said. Citizens and the government cannot second guess actions taken by law enforcement to protect the community, True told the jury.

The government has the burden of proof, True reminded the jury, so the jurors must decide whether an assault occurred, and if that assault occurred after Stinnett was handcuffed. Above all, however, True said that the jury must remember the presumption of innocence.

“If you’re sitting there confused, that’s a reasonable doubt,” True said. “That’s a not-guilty verdict.”

(hat tip: GDT)

Cleveland, Ohio, Judge Sets Bail At $2Million On Each Case For "Monster" Ariel Castro. Watch Video.

THE TRIAL OF BARREN COUNTY SHERIFF, CHRIS EATON AND HIS DEPUTIES HAS LAW ENFORCEMENT LOOKING FORWARD.

Glasgow Law Enforcement Looking Forward

• Glasgow Law Enforcement Looking Forward

The trial of Sheriff Chris Eaton has had law enforcement in Barren County directly in the spotlight the past week and a half. A few members of the law enforcement community in the area have recently admitted to lying under oath, including Glasgow police officer Jessie Barton. The police department says a recently established internal affairs department makes sure that situations like these are handled correctly.

"We set the standard high for our officers. We want them to keep that standard and sometimes they don't. When they don't, we deal with it." said Chief Guy Turcotte of the Glasgow Police.
Officials in Glasgow assure that progress and transparency are incredibly important to any small community.

"We set the standard high for our officers. We want them to keep that standard and sometimes they don't. When they don't, we deal with it."  -Chief Guy Turcotte, Glasgow Police

"These are the facts and get those out to the public. It might not be what they want to hear, but it's what we need to do. We need to make sure they know that we're being as transparent as possible." commented Glasgow Mayor Rhonda Trautman.

There's no greater sign of progress than the new police station currently in operation. Along with the new facility the agency has added a public information officer, and has created an initiative for officers to be involved in the community.

"It's not all arresting everybody and giving citations. When you're a police officer in the Glasgow Police Department you wear several hats. We'll do whatever we can do to make someone's life better in our community." added Chief Turcotte.
"We've focused on getting them involved in community projects and being out in the community in different ways than they would normally be. That's been real positive as well." commented Mayor Trautman.

Officials say it's not what happened in the last four years that concerns them, rather what the future holds for the next four years.
"We have a lot of experienced officers and we have a lot of new officers. They're learning from each other and kind of building on that culture as we can make those changes." said Trautman.

CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN THE BEATING TRIAL OF BARREN COUNTY, KENTUCKY SHERIFF, CHRIS EATON AND HIS DEPUTIES START.

Closing Arguments Underway

In the trial of Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton and two other law enforcement officials the defense rested and the jury heard some closing arguments today.
The final witnesses in the defense's case Wednesday morning were an expert witness and two character witnesses.

Alex Payne, an expert in the use of force, testified about amount of force used on Billy Stinnett. He said baton was best option in this case.
He also said once you control the subject and they are compliant, all force must cease. This was a point the prosecution hammered home.

Defendant Eric Guffey's attorney, Brian Butler, called a couple of character witnesses for Guffey. They testified Guffey had great character.
The prosecution pointed out neither character witness was there that day, and they don't know exactly what happened.

The character witnesses also said their opinion of Guffey would change if he did use excessive force.
Before closing arguments began, the defense attorneys once again asked for acquittal of all charges for the defendants. Judge Joseph McKinley once again denied their motion, saying it should be up to the jury to make the decision.

The first closing argument was given by the prosecution. They began and closed the argument drawing on the emotion of someone of the girls that testified they saw a beating at Calvary Baptist Church in Glasgow.
The prosecution also clearly said it was a beating and the defendants lied about it.
Sheriff Eaton's attorney, Guthrie True, gave his closing argument Wednesday as well. He said you can't believe some of the witnesses because they have lied previously in this investigation while under oath.
He also said the time line of the events according to dispatch records does not fit for an excessive beating. True is told the jury Sheriff Eaton should be found not guilty on all charges.
Closing arguments will continue tomorrow for defendants Eric Guffey and Aaron Bennett. Then the jury will begin deliberation on a verdict for all of them.

Trial Of Barren County Sheriff, Chris Eaton, And Deputies Continue, This Time Defense Presents Its Case.

Defense calls first witnesses to stand

BOWLING GREEN — After five and a half days of testimony, the government rested its case Tuesday and turned the trial of Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton, Deputy Aaron Bennett and Barren-Edmonson Drug Task Force Detective Eric Guffey over to the defense team. DTF Detective Ron Lafferty and Dr. George Nichols were the first two witnesses called to the stand by the defense.
Ron Lafferty

Lafferty, who works alongside Guffey, was intermittently part of the Feb. 24, 2010, vehicle pursuit of Billy Randall Stinnett that ended with a foot chase and arrest. Lafferty was not one of the arresting officers, like the defendants, but was one of the first at the scene of Stinnett’s arrest at Calvary Baptist Church. Lafferty turned onto Cherry Street from Columbia Avenue that Wednesday evening to see a Barren County Sheriff’s Office SUV turn into what appeared to be a driveway next to the church, he testified. He saw Guffey’s truck parked across Cherry Street and watched Guffey run across the street into the alley where Stinnett and the SUV entered. Lafferty pulled into a driveway next to the alley, and as he was leaving his truck he said he saw Adam Minor and another deputy jump a fence and run after Stinnett.

Working on an earlier report that there may have been children with the suspect, Lafferty testified he first ran to the green van Stinnett had been driving, to ensure no one else was in there. When he opened the van door, the smell of anhydrous ammonia hit him in the face, Lafferty said, and he knew there was a methamphetamine lab in the vehicle. Lafferty said he then ran past the van and saw Eaton come around a corner, screaming in pain from being kicked by Stinnett. He also saw Guffey leave the scene around the same time as Eaton.

UPDATE: DEFENSE RESTS, JURY INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW AFTER LUNCH RECESS.

When Lafferty rounded the corner, he testified that Stinnett’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was sitting on his heels with a deputy behind him. Lafferty still cannot remember who that deputy was, he said. He knows there was one, and there may have been more. Lafferty recited Stinnett’s Miranda rights as he walked toward him, and Stinnett acknowledged the rights with a nod and then a verbal yes.

“I never saw anyone strike him,” Lafferty testified.

It seemed like only 30 seconds or less passed between pulling his truck into that Cherry Street driveway and running around that corner to see Stinnett, Lafferty said. That “30 seconds or less” became a sticking point between Lafferty and the prosecution, as testified by Lafferty and then demonstrated in Lafferty’s grand jury transcript and his cross examination by prosecutor Roy Conn III.

J. Guthrie True, defense counsel for Eaton, asked Lafferty whether anyone suggested before his February 2011 grand jury testimony that he exclude any portion of his memory of the events. Before he testified to the grand jury, Lafferty told True that the prosecution team, which included Conn, FBI agent Mike Brown and Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Judd, “highly recommended” that Lafferty not tell the grand jury he thought he was on scene in about 30 seconds. Lafferty could not remember exactly which person made the suggestion, but he said he reiterated that the time frame was his estimate based on his memory. Lafferty was then reminded he could be criminally charged for lying to a federal grand jury, he said.

“I felt like I was being threatened, what it felt like to me,” Lafferty said.

Conn disputed Lafferty’s testimony about the 2011 grand jury, and asked Lafferty about how he, Conn, treated him. Lafferty said Conn was cordial, and he did not think Conn made the suggestion but that to the best of his memory, Conn was present when the suggestion to exclude information was made.

In an argument about what was said in the grand jury, Lafferty told Conn that he remembered saying openly in grand jury that he felt pressured, while Conn referenced a portion of the grand jury transcript in which Lafferty said he was treated fairly. However, True found an earlier portion of the transcript in which there was some back-and-forth between Lafferty and his questioner about the 30 seconds and whether Lafferty was being called a liar, and Lafferty confirmed that was the discussion he remembered.

Conn said Lafferty was on the stand to help the defense, and Lafferty took umbrage with Conn’s implication.

“I’m here to tell the truth,” Lafferty said. “It’s not playing favorites one way or the other.”

On Feb. 24, 2010, Lafferty testified he was positive that when Guffey ran across the street in pursuit of Stinnett, he was wearing his black DTF-issued vest. He remembers, Lafferty said, because he was surprised Guffey got it on so fast. Lafferty did not have enough time to get his own vest on. Throughout the trial, prosecutors have used photographs of Guffey on the scene in a brown jacket to suggest that Guffey’s jacket could have blended in with the brown law enforcement uniforms described by eye witnesses as being worn by men who allegedly beat Stinnett after he was in handcuffs. Guffey’s defense attorney has stated that Guffey did not put his jacket on until after Stinnett’s apprehension.

While Stinnett was in custody outside a patrol car in the street later, Lafferty testified that he saw Eaton walk up to Stinnett with a knife and ask Stinnett if it was his. Stinnett confirmed that it was. That account does not match earlier testimony from Minor, a government cooperating witness, that Eaton pulled the knife from Stinnett’s pocket.

Lafferty testified that later on the night of Feb. 24, 2010, after the meth lab in the van was cleaned up and it had gotten dark,   he and Guffey returned to the area where Stinnett was handcuffed. Using a flashlight, they scanned for evidence and found a vial containing what was later confirmed to be methamphetamine. Lafferty did see blood on the ground, about the size of a half-dollar, he testified, but he does not remember pointing it out to Guffey and it did not strike him as important. It was “no big hidden secret” that Stinnett had gotten cut on the head, Lafferty said, and as a drug task force detective he was much more focused on the meth. He did not notice any blood spatter.

Following Stinnett’s arrest, Lafferty, as the drug case officer, wrote a uniform offense citation about the drug aspects of Stinnett’s arrest. In putting together that report, Lafferty collected and included information from other officers. Later, when asked by Eaton to write a report for the FBI as part of an investigation into a possible civil rights investigation, Lafferty testified that he and Guffey were together in the DTF office when they wrote reports, and they only put about 10 to 15 minutes of effort into the reports. Lafferty copied and pasted some information from his uniform offense citation. At that time, Lafferty said he “didn’t think there was anything to” the FBI’s investigation.

In both reports, Lafferty wrote that a knife was found on the ground near the suspect. That information was never intended to make it appear Lafferty himself found the knife, he said. That was information that he gathered, maybe from another officer or maybe something he just assumed from other facts, and he wrote it like he would in any other report. If it was intended to indicate Lafferty found it, he said he would have written that “Det. Lafferty…” The lack of attribution caused Brown to think Lafferty found the knife. Lafferty told Conn that if anything, this investigation has taught him to phrase his reports differently in the future.
George Nichols

Dr. George Nichols, consulting forensic pathologist and retired chief medical examiner for the state of Kentucky, took the stand next as an expert witness. Nichols has extensive experience studying injuries and their causes in dead bodies as well as living people, he said, and he has served as an expert witness for probably more than 1,000 cases. For this case, Nichols said he reviewed photographs taken of Stinnett’s injuries, medical records from the T.J. Samson Community Hospital emergency room and witness statements.

Photographs document a five-centimeter laceration on Stinnett’s head, a scab and bruise on Stinnett’s elbow and various other bruises. While March 4, 2010, photographs show that Stinnett’s bruises are old at that point, Nichols said it is a myth that a bruise’s age can be determined by its color. Tissue samples would have to be taken in order to make any meaningful determination of the age of the bruises, Nichols said.

It is possible that Stinnett’s linear head laceration was caused by a baton, Nichols said, but there is no way to tell. The laceration, whether it was created in the struggle or an hour earlier in the van, would probably have bled a lot, Nichols testified.

“Scalp lacerations are notorious for spurting,” Nichols said.

When adrenaline of a chase or a struggle is considered, Nichols said the blood from Stinnett’s head could have traveled from the witness stand to the wall behind the jury box.

Stinnett’s bruises were definitely not caused by the shaft of a baton, Nichols testified, because there are no lines that indicate the width of the baton striking skin. Bruises behind Stinnett’s ears may have been caused by fists, but they could have been caused by a struggle while officers attempted to arrest Stinnett. The bruises’ shapes were all ambiguous as to what caused them.

“Could be a fist. Could be from bumping into an object in a motor vehicle,” Nichols said.

Bruises on the thigh could have been caused by kicks, Nichols said, but lower on the legs, Stinnett’s shins showed no sign of having been hit multiple times by a baton, as previously testified in trial.

“There would have been open wounds,” Nichols said.

When prosecutor Sanjay Patel brought up Stinnett’s steel-toed boots, Nichols agreed those might have protected the skin they covered. Blue jeans would not have been any protection, Nichols said.

Marks made by batons would have been affected by whether the person holding the baton was using his dominant hand, the speed of the strike and the padding of Stinnett’s two jackets, Patel said, and Nichols agreed.

However, Nichols told Patel he was wrong when the prosecutor said abrasions described in the emergency room records could have been caused by a baton. The T.J. Samson staff documented a variety of abrasions, and Nichols said an abrasion is a scrape, which could not be caused by a baton. Abrasions are generally caused by scraping a hard surface, such as pavement, Nichols said. Stinnett was arrested in a grassy area.

Nichols is paid to be an expert witness, and he told Patel that his rate is $400 per hour. Before court began, Nichols said he had spent four hours on the Stinnett case.

UPDATE: DEFENSE HAS RESTED, JURY TO RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS AFTER LUNCH.

Amanda Berry, The KIDnapped Girl In Cleveland, Ohio, Returns Home, Will Speak To The Media. Watch Live Video.

Evil Is Alive And Well, This Time With The Castro Brothers In Cleveland, Ohio.

watch video below:
read more and watch another video here.