Lead Story
A New York appeals court overturned the drug conviction of Bienvenido Taveras because a search of Taveras’s pockets was unconstitutional. A body search without a warrant is allowed only if the arresting officer suspects a weapon; the arresting officer in this case testified that Taveras had a “huge lump” in the groin area of his pants that “looked hard” and “could have been a weapon.”
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In October in Elmore, Vermont, Robert Percy went on trial for rape a second time after a 1982 conviction was overturned. This time Percy used an insanity defense, claiming he had a flashback to his service in Vietnam and mistakenly thought he was raping a Vietnamese woman.
In May, Los Angeles Philharmonic bassist Barry Lieberman was suspended without pay for assaulting colleague Jack Cousin as they were leaving the stage after a performance. Lieberman alleged that their ongoing dispute justified his shoving his bass into the back of Cousin’s legs to trip him.
Newton McWilliams, who defeated his boss, Kenneth Boyer, in the Democratic primary for commissioner of Grant County, Oklahoma, in August, was fired by Boyer two days later. Boyer denied malice, even though he allegedly told McWilliams it was “time to pay the piper” when he fired him.
