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Mildly interesting court opinion:
A woman and her daughter allege the following: In the middle of the night, they are about to get out of their car in front of their house. They look out of the car's window and are terrified to notice a cousin of theirs standing outside the window and pointing what appears to be a pistol at them, with his finger on the trigger. They hear two clicks, but no gunshot occurs. The two alleged victims flee to a nearby alley. By the time they return to their car with a police officer, the cousin has disappeared.
The cousin is charged with possessing a gun as a felon, possessing an instrument of crime, assault, and reckless endangerment. A search of his residence turns up no gun. Nevertheless, at a bench trial he is found guilty of all charges and is sentenced to 26 years of prison (with the possibility of parole after 13 years). The appeals panel vacates the conviction of reckless endangerment since there is no proof that the gun was loaded, but affirms the other three convictions, and leaves the 26-year sentence untouched since the trial judge imposed no penalty for the reckless endangerment.
Don't forget that you can be convicted of serious charges in a "he said she said" case, on witness testimony alone, if the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) finds the witnesses more credible than you are "beyond a reasonable doubt"!
Mildly interesting court opinion:
While driving around in the middle of winter, a police officer observes a woman crying and yelling as she bangs on the front door of a house while wearing only a bathrobe and a pair of slippers. When the officer stops and inquires, the woman states that her romantic partner pushed her out of the house after an argument. The romantic partner exits the house and talks with the officer. The officer advises the woman of her state-law rights to seek a restraining order or press criminal charges for domestic violence, but the woman refuses to do so.
Several minutes later (after, among other things, using her car's computer to review the department's training on domestic violence), the officer returns to the house and talks again with the woman to advise her even further of her rights under state law. The woman still isn't interested in doing anything. However, since the police have been called to this house five times in total, the officer tells another officer to contact a detective for further investigation.
Later on the same day, the woman is found dead in the house. The romantic partner pleads guilty to manslaughter. The woman's estate sues the officer for negligence, arguing that the officer was obligated to arrest the romantic partner because there was evidence that the romantic partner had perpetrated domestic violence (pushing, which constitutes the crime of assault) against the woman. The officer moves for summary judgment, arguing that state law grants absolute immunity to liability for any failure to make an arrest. The trial judge denies the motion.
The appeals panel reverses. The law says that an officer is obligated to arrest an alleged perpetrator of domestic violence if the alleged victim "exhibits signs of injury". Here, the officer observed no such signs. And, in any event, that domestic-violence law does not override the separate law that grants absolute immunity to liability for failure to make an arrest, which applies in all cases where the officer acts in good faith. The woman's estate will not be getting any damages.
Not-so-fun fact: While both the federal government and the New Jersey government allow random members of the public to access all the documents in a case docket online, it appears that the Pennsylvania government does not! Rather, electronic access to Pennsylvania judicial documents is restricted to lawyers and case participants "for legal and security reasons", and members of the public must request documents manually by submitting a form to the court clerk.
Microsoft has a convenient list of controller manufacturers that are sufficiently high-quality to be trusted with the official Xbox license.
8BitDo
ByoWave
GameSir
Hyperkin
HyperX
MSI
Nacon
PDP (Turtle Beach)
PowerA
Razer
ROG (Asus)
SCUF
Surge
Thrustmaster
I own an 8bitdo controller. It's Bluetooth, runs off a rechargeable internal battery, and does everything I ask of it. For £17 (I think), can't really ask for more. The build quality seems decent
Of course, I'm a diehard m+k user, so I must admit I've used it literally once for a session of Forza before never using it again. Money well spent.
I'm a m&k guy myself, but unfortunately some games just suck with that control method. The Yakuza series is one good example, with the games having had a tongue in cheek "real Yakuza use a gamepad" splash screen on the PC for many years. My controller of choice on the PC is a PS4 controller, as I have them around already and they work well via USB.
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