Miami News-Digest

CASH, CARS, GUNS AND LAND: WHEN SEIZED PROPERTY BECOMES GOVERNMENT REVENUE In Ottawa and Delaware counties, state reviewers found incomplete forfeiture records. Elsewhere in Oklahoma, official examinations documented missing cash, broken vehicle custody trails, and nearly $1.91 million in questioned federal forfeiture expenditures. MIAMI, Okla. — The central question surrounding civil asset forfeiture in Oklahoma is considerably larger than what happens to cash found during a traffic stop. It can involve the family car. It can involve a pickup truck, aircraft, boat, or even farm equipment. It can involve firearms. It can involve land and the improvements standing upon it. Under Oklahoma's controlled-substances forfeiture law, qualifying vehicles and other conveyances, real property, money, and weapons may all be subject to forfeiture. In a contested proceeding involving those categories, the state generally bears a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Oklahoma law al...

Public records trace intersecting Ottawa County ties among judge, banker, cannabis businesses and disciplined attorney Youth-foundation records identify Matt Whalen and Joe Morgan in leadership roles; historical marijuana records contain matching names, while Oklahoma Supreme Court records document Whalen’s former professional relationship with P.J. Shyers Updated September 26th in light of newly identified information and clarification, thanks to professional and long-standing community news reporter, Shiela Stogsdill.  MIAMI, Okla. — A collection of public records reviewed by Miami News-Digest documents a series of intersecting civic, business and professional relationships involving Ottawa County Associate District Judge R. Matt Whalen, First National Bank & Trust Company Vice President Joe Morgan, historical Oklahoma medical-marijuana businesses and attorney Phillip John “P.J.” Shyers. The records do not establish corruption, conspiracy or an ethics violation. T...

Of Dust, Copper, and Breath Matter, Life, Consciousness, and the Soul I. Matter Matter is the physical substance of the world: stone, water, metal, bone, blood, and the bodies of living creatures. Chemistry commonly distinguishes between organic compounds, associated chiefly with carbon chemistry, and inorganic materials, which include metals, minerals, salts, and many other substances, although the boundary between these categories is not absolute. Neither term should be confused with living or nonliving, because living organisms depend continually upon inorganic substances such as water, calcium, iron, sodium, phosphorus, and potassium. Human bone itself joins an organic collagen framework to an inorganic calcium-phosphate mineral phase, demonstrating that life does not inhabit a chemical realm separated from the mineral world. The more important question, therefore, is not merely what substances an organism contains, but how those substances are selected, ordered, mainta...

When Prosecutorial Discretion Becomes a Commodity Oklahoma history shows why no prosecutor should have the final, unreviewable power to decide when the criminal law will—or will not—be enforced MIAMI, Okla. — Prosecutors need judgment. They decide whether evidence is sufficient, whether witnesses are credible, what charges fit the facts, whether a plea agreement serves justice and whether limited public resources should be spent pursuing a case. But there is another side to prosecutorial discretion that receives far less attention. A prosecutor also possesses the power not to act. The power not to charge. The power to reduce a charge. The power to dismiss. The power to decline a referral. The power to decide that conduct which might ordinarily result in prosecution will go no further. Usually, those decisions are legitimate exercises of professional judgment. But Oklahoma history demonstrates something that should concern every citizen regardless of politics: Discretionary ...