The Legal Arena

In 2014, Massachusetts Police Detective Kevin Burnham retired after 43 years on the job with the Springfield Police Department.
Local media celebrated him as a dedicated cop who could have retired ten years earlier, but chose to stay on out of pure love for his job.
Now it appears as if he stayed on solely for the purpose of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the department’s evidence room.
Burnham, who was the narcotics evidence officer, is accused of stealing nearly $400,000 from December 2009 until July 2014.

An Oklahoma judge dismissed three felony child sex abuse charges against a retired cop Monday despite forensic evidence proving he had molested a 3-year-old girl as well as evidence he had burned her diapers afterwards.
The judge also threw the girl’s father in jail for a year after he voiced objections to how his daughter was being treated on the witness stand.
Judge Matthew Sheets

It took more than a decade, but the federal government finally released nearly 200 photos depicting prisoner abuse by American soldiers during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The photos were released Friday in response to an ACLU lawsuit filed in 2004 when George W. Bush was still president.

The Pittsburgh police officer who was acquitted this week on assault charges when a surveillance video clearly shows he assaulted a teenager will once again face the same charges after the FBI announced it would launch its own investigation.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala made the announcement this afternoon, informing reporters that he would refile charges against Sergeant Stephen Matakovich.

Two Montana deputies said they were in fear for their lives when they opened fire on a stolen SUV, killing the man inside.
However, a dash cam video shows the SUV veered left as if to avoid striking them.
It also shows the two Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputies walking towards the approaching vehicle with their rifles drawn, opening fire as the vehicle veered left and continuing to fire after the SUV was nowhere in their path.
“I told him to stop, he hit the gas and came right at us,” one deputy can be heard telling a supervisor who later arrived on the scene.

After being shot and paralyzed from the waist down by Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy Adams Lin, a 22-year-old Florida man was awarded $23 million by a federal jury Wednesday.
But that does not mean Dontrell Stephens will be able to receive the money anytime soon.
Because of a $200,000 state cap for jury awards, the issue must now go before the Florida Legislature.

The Michigan cop known as Robocop will spend at least 13 months in prison for placing a man in a chokehold and punching him repeatedly in an incident captured on dash cam video.
However, that sentence can stretch up to ten years if he is not granted parole after the 13-month period.
But we know that won’t happen.

The assault was caught on camera, a Pittsburgh cop shoving a teen down to the ground twice, then punching him a few times before handcuffing him, which led to criminal charges against Sergeant Stephen Matakovich last year.
All because the 19-year-old man would not leave the outside of Heinz Field where a high school championship football game was being played on November 28.
Well, actually, Gabriel Despres did try to leave after being ordered to do so by a group of security guards.

A Florida School Board and its lawyer announced that they’ve violated the state’s constitution’s “Sunshine Law” requiring open meetings, by making the decision to file a SLAPP lawsuit against PINAC’s Jeff Gray for reporting about school bus safety violations.
The St. Johns County School District swore in court documents that filed suit without a public hearing or notice, and it’s attorney admitted publicly this week polling elected school board officials in advance of any possible hearing.

The Chicago police officer who shot and killed a teenager wielding a baseball bat along with an innocent bystander last month plans to sue the teen’s estate because of the emotional distress he has suffered since killing them both.
Robert Rialmo, who has been on the force for three years, said he was in fear for his life when he killed Quintonio LeGrier the day after Christmas.