August 23, 2018
VOL. 31, No. 80
Mayor James T. Butts Offers A Report From The Field: “A Bad Day In Inglewood”
INDICTMENTS? IMPEACHMENT? TRUMP’S LEGAL WOES By The Associated Press
COHEN
11:23PM Been in the field all evening - a bad day in Inglewood. At 6:42 p.m. in the 3200 block of west 112th Street, a 13 year-old boy was on the sidewalk when he was struck by a single bullet fired over a block away. There is no indication that the child was targeted but was struck by a stray round from several gunshots fired in the 3100 block of west 112th Street, a block away. This was determined by the location of shell casings found. The child, who will not be named, has exited surgery at UCLA Harbor General Hospital in stable condition.
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A bad day in court for his former associates could foreshadow hard days ahead for President Donald Trump. But it’s unlikely he’ll find himself in a courtroom facing criminal charges, at least while he’s president. On Tuesday, Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations. Cohen said Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, acknowledging the payments were made to influence the election. Around the same time, a jury found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty of eight financial crimes unrelated to the campaign. It was the first trial victory for prosecutors in the office of
TRUMP
MANAFORT
special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation Trump has derided as a witch hunt. Both cases have increased buzz about possible impeachment. But indictments are another matter. Legal experts generally agree that sitting presidents can’t be indicted. Some questions and answers about the legal implications for Trump of the Cohen and Manafort cases: DOES COHEN’S GUILTY PLEA MEAN TRUMP VIOLATED THE LAW? Cohen said in a New York court that he made one payment “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and the other “under direction of the same candidate.” The amounts and dates all line up with the payments made to porn
star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president, saying Cohen acted “in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election.” Legal experts said there could be multiple reasons for government lawyers’ more cautious statements. Daniel Petalas, former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said the issue of whether Trump violated the law comes down to whether Trump “tried to influence an election, whether he knew and directed it and whether he knew it was improper.” But Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement: “There is no allegation
PAST MARIJUANA CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
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MAY BE OVERTURNED By Francis Taylor, Asst. Editor
A bill requiring California prosecutors to erase or reduce thousands of marijuana criminal convictions was approved by the state Legislature on Wednesday and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature. When voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016 to allow adult use of marijuana, they also eliminated several pot-related crimes. The
proposition also applied retroactively to past pot convictions, but provided no mechanism or guidance on how those eligible could erase their convictions or have felonies reduced to misdemeanors. The Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would make that happen. The bill orders the state Department of Justice to identify eli-
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