Perhaps, as a public service announcement, TalkLeft should have reminded readers that it's not a good idea to celebrate New Years Eve by shooting firearms into the air. It is, in fact, a downright dangerous practice, given the prevailing wisdom that what goes up must come down.

According to this article, "celebratory gunfire is common in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve." Common or not, it isn't smart, as two men discovered after Baltimore's police commissioner saw them firing shotguns into the air. The commissioner gave chase, resulting in the arrest of the two men. They're in trouble for discharging firearms within city limits, but probably in greater trouble because the shotguns in question were sawed-off. The men could face federal charges for possessing sawed-off shotguns.

Moral: leave the guns at home on New Year's Eve -- particularly the illegal ones.

In one of Jim Blanning's notes that he left at the Aspen Times after dropping off packages with homemade bombs at two banks on the afternoon of News Years Eve, he wrote “May Bob [Sheriff Braudis]help to understand it all.” In an interview with the Aspen Daily News, Braudis explains Blanning. He was mostly a man obsessed with mining claims.

“He was an encyclopedia of the mineral and geological reality here as far as silver and gold mining,” Braudis said. “Mineral extraction was a big part of his avocation and occupation.”

....Blanning also mastered the arcane world of mining claims dating back to the 1880s. The claims are typically rectangular pieces of property. On maps, the claims present a patchwork quilt of ownership of both the land on the surface and the minerals underneath.

“He was always looking for the mother lode,” Braudis said.

[More...]

Around 7pm last night, four and a half hours after leaving suspicious packages at Aspen banks, these letters from now deceased Aspen bombing suspect James Chester Blanning, Jr., were delivered to the Aspen Times. (background here):

More...

Update: The suspect, James Chester Blanning, Jr., on parole for racketeering, has committed suicide. More updates here.

****

One of the biggest nights of the year in Aspen is New Year's. Not this year. Police evacuated downtown -- 16 blocks in all -- because someone, possibly this 71 year old man dropped off two suspicious packages with threats inside. Police identify the man in the photo as Jim Blanning of Denver (formerly of Aspen) and are out looking for him.

The Aspen Police Department said the packages came with "a note (that) indicated a credible threat to the community."

Authorities hadn't said by 11 p.m. what was inside the packages. They were wrapped in Christmas paper and had pizza boxes underneath them, said Officer Stephanie Dasaro. Surveillance pictures got a clear image of an older man leaving the packages.

[More...]

Forbes and the New York Post are making a big deal out of former IMClone President Sam Waksal getting 9 months off his 87 month sentence for having participated in RDAP, a 12 month residential drug and alcohol program for inmates.

The papers seem offended that Waksal didn't acknowledge an alcohol program until he was about to be sentenced. So what?

Waksal pleaded guilty to the charges as filed against him. He pleaded guilty without a plea agreement and he didn't cooperate against anyone else. A perusal of the court docket sheet in his case shows he paid more than $4 million in fines and restitution.

Waksal was on home detention prior to his surrendering to prison. Even the granting of his request to visit his elderly, sick mother for a day was met with a barrage of conditions A court order available on the case docket sheet advises him: You can leave after 8 am, you must be home by 8 pm, you can't make any stops along the way and you must call the probation department at noon.

I'm not surprised someone stuck at home 24/7 and subjected to such rigid restrictions would develop a drinking problem. As far as Waksal's reduction is concerned, I think he earned it. [More..]

Most of the 140 on-duty police deaths in 2008, as in other years, were accidental. The good news is that the number of police officers killed by non-accidental gunfire was smaller than it has been in more than 50 years.

Forty-one officers were shot and killed in 2008, down 40% from 68 in 2007. That's the lowest number since 1956, when 35 officers died from gunfire. The U.S. population today is 305 million, compared with 169 million in 1956.

Philadelphia had the most deaths of any police agency, with four.

There are new details the the drug case of Sherry Johnston, the mother of future Palin son-in-law Levi Johnston, who was arrested on oxycontin-related charges last week.

The police busted a couple of her associates, turned them into snitches, wired them, and taped her allegedly engaging in oxycontin transactions:

She allegedly sold OxyContin tablets to the informants on three occasions this fall, the affidavit states. Police said two of the meetings were recorded by a hidden camera and a microphone.

The affidavit that has now been released says they sat on the search warrant due to Sarah Palin's candidacy and secret service protection:

Authorities say the case against Sherry Johnston began in the second week of September, when drug investigators intercepted a package containing 179 OxyContin pills. That led to the arrest of the suspects, who agreed to be informants. [More...]

Six year old JonBenet Ramsey was killed on Dec. 26, 1996. She'd be 18 today. Her parents, who were mercilessly vilified in the media and the victims of the most obsessive, unfair tarring I can ever recall, were finally absolved by the current D.A this year.

Now, Boulder is getting a new D.A. (Colorado has term limits on district attorneys) and he's promising to re-evaluate what to do with the case, perhaps sending it back to the police.

What to do with it? Close it. Get over it. The Boulder police will forever be tarnished by their handling of the case, there's no reason to give them another chance. Absent a DNA match or a valid confession, it's history.

Boulder has had a rapist/attacker running around for weeks. [More...]

Update: The Toussie pardon has been withdrawn “based on information that has subsequently come to light.” The "information" that escaped the notice of Fred Fielding appears to be the bad publicity generated by pardoning the son of a GOP donor without awaiting the outcome of the Justice Department's customary review.

original post: Our unusually unforgiving president issued a miserly 19 holiday pardons yesterday, including one given posthumously. More usefully, President Bush "commuted the life sentence of a convicted methamphetamine dealer in Iowa."

Bush has granted 190 pardons and nine commutations so far, less than half the number granted by Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, the other most recent two-term presidents.

Missing from the pardon list (so far): Scooter Libby's full pardon, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the president himself ...

[more ...]

Update: The spokeswoman for the Alaska Troopers says the drug involved is OxyContin. The prosecutor hasn't even seen the paperwork yet.

*****

In the "you can't make this stuff up" department, Sherry Johnston, soon-to-be grandmother to Bristol Palin's as yet unborn child, was busted at her home yesterday and charged with six felony drug counts.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor's father, Chuck Heath.

Gawker says it sounds like a meth lab.[More...]

When will jurors learn? You can't do your own research on the case you are deciding. Judges always advise them of this.

A juror in the murder trial of former Sorpranos' actor Lillo Brancato got booted today.

A mistrial was avoided Thursday in the trial of a former "Sopranos" actor accused in the shooting death of an off-duty police officer after it was discovered a juror had been taking notes during testimony and doing research on the case at home.

Lillo Brancato, charged with second-degree murder in the December 2005 shooting death of Officer Daniel Enchautegui, agreed to a substitution with an alternate juror after the original juror was dismissed.

So, deliberations start over with the new juror.

Former "private investigator to the stars" Anthony Pellicano today was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, despite the fact that the Probation Department recommended 5 years. Last month the judge sentenced one of his co-conspirators, lawyer Terry Christianson, to 3 years despite Probation recommending home detention.

Background on the case is available from our past coverage here.