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A member of the family of gun-toting racist murderer and/or world’s worst wannabe mall-cop George “Unarrested” Zimmerman has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing him of being too gosh-darned blackity blackblack to go out and arrest clownish Fox news creation, The Black Panthers: New Edition featuring Bell, Biv, and DeVoe. We would not know about this letter by an unspecified member of the Zimmerman family if not for the fact that they released it through their publicist, butterball hedgehog Matthew Boyle of Tucker Carlson’s We Can Totally Be More Racist Than Those Dicks At Breitbart Daily Caller:
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, a family member of George Zimmerman asked the nation’s top law enforcement officer why he has chosen to not arrest members of the New Black Panther Party for their rhetoric — some of which may fit the federal government’s definition of a hate crime — throughout the Trayvon Martin case.
The family member believes the reason Holder hasn’t made those arrests is because he, like the members of the New Black Panther Party, is black.
“I am writing you to ask you why, when the law of the land is crystal clear, is your office not arresting the New Black Panthers for hate crimes?” the family member wrote to Holder.
“The Zimmerman family is in hiding because of the threats that have been made against us, yet the DOJ has maintained an eerie silence on this matter. These threats are very public. If you haven’t been paying attention just do a Google search and you will find plenty.
You would be surprised how often the Justice Department, when confronted with a massive crime wave will ignore their own NCJRS Abstracts Database and instead will say, “fuck it, just ‘google it”. That’s how the FBI caught John Dillinger. You can google look it up…
Then the Zimmerman family member appealed to Eric Holder’s sense of literary justice by comparing Hey-I-shot-an-unarmed-black-guy! George Zimmerman to a character in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Guess which one? Go on, guess, it’s fun!
Noting President Obama’s White House event last week celebrating the 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Zimmerman’s family member drew a novel comparison to the American literary classic.
“Strangely enough this case has a lot of parallels to those of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” the letter to Attorney General Holder read. “George Zimmerman has been treated much like Tom Robinson was, chastised for not being the right (or wrong) color and found guilty based on race factors.
“You have the opportunity to act as Atticus [Finch] and do the right thing. Your boss would refer to this as a ‘teachable moment.’”
Yes! Tom Robinson, the black field worker who was wrongfully arrested, tried and then convicted of raping Mayella Ewell and subsequently was shot shot seventeen times while trying to escape is exactly the same as George Zimmerman who is holed up somewhere blogging and asking for money while pointing out that he has been forced to leave, among other things, his “.. entire life“.
Greenwald points out a little known detail about the strip search decision:
What virtually none of this anti-Florence commentary mentioned, though, was that the Obama DOJ formally urged the Court to reach the conclusion it reached. While the Obama administration and court conservatives have been at odds in a handful of high-profile cases (most notably Citizens United and the health care law), this is yet another case, in a long line, where the Obama administration was able to have its preferred policies judicially endorsed by getting right-wing judges to embrace them:
In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled that in the interest of security, prisons could conduct visual body cavity searches of all detainees after they had contact with outsiders. For years after that ruling, lower courts ruled that the prison had to have a reasonable suspicion that the arrestee was concealing contraband before subjecting him to a strip search upon entering the facility.
But in recent years, some courts have begun to allow a blanket policy to strip search all arrestees.
The Obama administration is siding with the prisons in the case and urging the court to allow a blanket policy for all inmates set to enter the general prison population.
“When you have a rule that treats everyone the same,” Justice Department lawyer Nicole A. Saharsky argued, “you don’t have folks that are singled out. You don’t have any security gaps.”
As The Guardian said yesterday: “The decision was a victory for the jails and for the Obama administration, which argued for an across-the-board rule allowing strip-searches of all those entering the general jail population, even those arrested on minor offenses.”
You are a 35 year old man. One March day, you are a passenger in your family's SUV. Your pregnant wife is driving, and your 4-year-old son is in the back seat. You are driving to a Sunday dinner.
Suddenly, you're stopped by a New Jersey state trooper. Since you are the vehicle's registered owner, the officer runs your identification and discovers a bench warrant for an outstanding fine. But you have already paid the fine. In fact, you have a letter attesting to that fact, since you have been stopped on several previous occasions.
Nevertheless, you are handcuffed and arrested and taken to the county jail. Once there, you are subjected to an invasive strip and visual body-cavity search. You're told to wash with disgusting soap, and them turn around, lift your genitals, squat, etc.
Then, after six days in the county lockup, you are transferred to a Newark correctional facility, where you are subjected to another more intrusive search before being placed in the general prison population. Fortunately, you are freed the next day, when a magistrate confirms what you have been saying all along -- that you had already paid the damn fine.
So now your ordeal is over, and you are understandably pissed. You sue the state for the invasive and embarassing strip searches. Think you'll get justice?
The 5-4 divided court found two county prisons "struck a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the needs of the (correctional) institution."
The conservative majority concluded a "reasonable suspicion" standard could be applied when conducting examinations of newly admitted prisoners.
That's refering to today's decision out of the United States Supreme Court. The majority was the usual suspects -- Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas -- with Kennedy swinging (as he is prone to do) to the right to complete the majority.
I swear, if these five stay on the court longer, this country is going to go back to the stone age.
This will be used to lend some sort of vindication to Zimmerman by those on the right.
Except for a couple of things.
One, it isn't credible. Maybe Trayvon Martin decked Zimmerman with a punch, but slamming his head into a sidewalk several times? That's a gross exaggeration, at minimum. A head "slamming" into a sidewalk would result in a concussion and severe bleeding. According to the police report, Zimmerman only suffered a few lacerations on the back of his head.
And if it was merely that Zimmerman was losing the fight, that still (under Florida law) does not give him the right to use deadly force to defend himself.
In considering the Tryvon Martin case (where a black teenager armed with Skittles and iced tea was shot by a much bigger white guy on a "neighborhood watch", who later claimed "self-defense"), this timeline explainer from Mother Jones is indispensable if you want to understand the case and the context for these laws. It is seriously messed up. This is one example of how the law works:
Many readers have asked whether, given the 911 recordings, a case against Zimmerman would be easier than most homicides in which "self-defense" is cited by a defendant. In Florida, the answer probably is no: The courts' interpretation of the stand-your-ground law has been extremely broad—so broad that, to win an acquittal, a defendant doesn't even have to prove self-defense, only argue for it, while to win a conviction the prosecution has to prove that self-defense was impossible.
Numerous cases have set the precedent in Florida, with the courts arguing that the law "does not require defendant to prove self-defense to any standard measuring assurance of truth, exigency, near certainty, or even mere probability; defendant's only burden is to offer facts from which his resort to force could have been reasonable." When a defendant claims self-defense, "the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense." In other words the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt never shifts from the prosecution, so it's surprisingly easy to evade prosecution by claiming self-defense.
This has led to some stunning verdicts in the state. In Tallahassee in 2008, two rival gangs engaged in a neighborhood shootout, and a 15-year-old African American male was killed in the crossfire. The three defendants all either were acquitted or had their cases dismissed, because the defense successfully argued they were defending themselves under the "stand your ground" law. The state attorney in Tallahassee, Willie Meggs, was beside himself. "Basically this law has put us in the posture that our citizens can go out into the streets and have a gun fight and the dead person is buried and the survivor of the gun fight is immune from prosecution," he said at the time.
Wow. All you have to do is claim self-defense? Even if it makes no sense?
The good news coming out today is that the case against Zimmerman is going to a Florida Grand Jury... AND that the United States Civil Rights Division is looking into the matter.
I understand the anger that Zimmerman wasn't arrested on the spot, and that his preposterous story of self-defense (that he was attacked by a black kid armed with... Skittles?) was taken as gospel by the Florida police. But it really looks like the guy's days are numbered, and there will be justice for Trayvon.
Patience.
UPDATE: By the way, this story is getting a lot of coverage by the national media. Well, most of it. The folks at Think Progress helpfully added up how many segments the cable networks have so far devoted to the circumstances surrounding Trayvon Martin’s death.
On February 26, 2012, a 17-year-old African-American named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida. The shooter was George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white man. Zimmerman admits killing Martin, but claims he was acting in self-defense. Three weeks after Martin’s death, no arrests have been made and Zimmerman remains free.
Here is what everyone should know about the case:
1. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin’s “suspicious” behavior, which he described as “just walking around looking about.” Zimmerman was in his car when he saw Martin walking on the street. He called the police and said: “There’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about… These a**holes always get away” [Orlando Sentinel]
2.Zimmerman pursued Martin against the explicit instructions of the police dispatcher:
Dispatcher: “Are you following him?” Zimmerman: “Yeah” Dispatcher: “OK, we don’t need you to do that.”
3.Prior to the release of the 911 tapes, Zimmerman’s father released a statement claiming “[a]t no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin.”[Sun Sentinel]
4.Zimmerman was carrying a a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. [ABC News]
8.Zimmerman “was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer. The charges appear to have been dropped.” [Huffington Post]
9.Zimmerman called the police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011. [Miami Herald]
10.According to neighbors, Zimmerman was “fixated on crime and focused on young, black males.” [Miami Herald]
11.Zimmerman “had been the subject of complaints by neighbors in his gated community for aggressive tactics” [Huffington Post]
12.A police officer “corrected” a key witness. “The officer told the witness, a long-time teacher, it was Zimmerman who cried for help, said the witness. ABC News has spoken to the teacher and she confirmed that the officer corrected her when she said she heard the teenager shout for help.” [ABC News]
13.Three witnesses say they heard a boy cry for help before a shot was fired.“Three witnesses contacted by The Miami Herald say they saw or heard the moments before and after the Miami Gardens teenager’s killing. All three said they heard the last howl for help from a despondent boy.” [Miami Herald]
14.The officer in charge of the crime scene also received criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. [New York Times]
15. The police did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. A law enforcement expert told ABC that Zimmerman sounds intoxicated on the 911 tapes. Drug and alcohol testing is “standard procedure in most homicide investigations.” [ABC News]
In late September 2010, many -- myself included -- were disturbed by the story coming out of Rutgers University regarding a gay freshman named Tyler Clementi who committed suicide (jumping off the George Washington bridge) after he learned his roommate, Dharun Ravi, had used a hidden webcam to secretly film Clementi engaging in homosexual behavior.
The verdict is coming in. There are 15 counts. It seems like Ravi is being found guilty of all the invasion of privacy counts, and guilty of invading Clementi’s privacy in order to intimidate him due to Clementi’s sexual orientation.
More importantly, he's being found guilty on the bias intimidation counts (to convict Ravi of bias intimidation, Judge Glenn Berman said jurors will have to decide Ravi singled out Clementi because he was gay). That's the "hate crime" aspect of this, and carries the stiffest penalty (ten years).
Ravi has also been found guilty of witness tampering and evidence tampering (trying to get rid of the video and coaching potential witnesses when the police started asking questions).
Personally, based on what I wrote before, I think Ravi might have gotten screwed on the hate crime aspect.
In late September 2010, many -- myself included -- were disturbed by the story coming out of Rutgers University regarding a gay freshman named Tyler Clementi who committed suicide (jumping off the George Washington bridge) after he learned his roommate, Dharun Ravi, had used a hidden webcam to secretly film Clementi engaging in homosexual behavior.
The New Yorker has a lengthy piece which separates the early reporting from the actual facts in the case. Among the revelations:
* The web video was never actually broadcast, and Clementi apparently knew it wasn't broadcast.
* Dharun Ravi, while culpable in many ways, wasn't particularly homophobic and didn't have a problem with his roommate's sexuality.
* Molly Wei, who was indicted with Ravi, had very little to do with the webcam transmission.
* There were two instances where Ravi had set up the webcam to "spy" on Clementi (occurring within two days of each other). Clementi caught on to it after the first instance, but the people he told about it have since said that he didn't seem suicidal about it.
* Clementi was having a hard time adjusting to freshman life at Rutgers
* Clementi had "come out" to his parents only a few days earlier. While his father took it relatively well, his mother -- whom he adored -- was less welcoming of the news.
* Clementi may have contemplated suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge before the events with his roommate took place.
The common belief at the time the story broke was that Ravi "bullied" his roommate to such an extent that Clementi committed suicide. However, this seems not to be the case, and prosecutors have had a hard time making Ravi culpable for Clementi's death. He has been charged with invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. Bias intimidation is a sentence-booster that attaches itself to an underlying crime—usually, a violent one. Here the allegation, linked to snooping, is either that Ravi intended to harass Clementi because he was gay or that Clementi felt he’d been harassed for being gay.
But there are very few facts to show that Ravi intended to specifically harass Clementi for his sexuality, in part because Ravi did not intend for the webcam to be discovered. (Ravi has also been charged with witness tampering and evidence tampering, relating to his attempts after he realized that Clementi had killed himself, to delete certain tweets and to tell Molly Wei what to share with investigators).
This isn't to say that Ravi isn't guilty. He clearly was a grade-A asshole. But a bigot? Probably not. A bully? It's questionable. Which almost makes the suicide of Tyler Clementi more tragic, if not more mysterious.
Kudos to The New Yorker for adding facts to a matter which, like most sensationalist matters, is never as cut-and-dried or black-and-white as we think.
The New York Times is reporting that federal judge Jed Rakoff has thrown out a proposed settlement between Citigroup and the SEC. The SEC had agreed to $285 million in exchange for no admission of wrongdoing in a complaint about Citigroup defrauding investors in a 2007 residential mortgage backed security. Citigroup had told the investors a third party was picking what assets were securitized, when in fact the firm did it themselves. To make matters worse, Citigroup put bad mortgages into the security and then bet against them without telling their investors of their position. According to the Times, "Investors lost $700 million in the fund, according to the S.E.C., while Citigroup gained about $160 million in profits."
Judge Rakoff thought $285 million and no admission of wrongdoing or the facts of the case was not good enough for the SEC and wants them to go back and try again, this time with justice in mind - as opposed to what's good for Citigroup.
The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the S.E.C.’s $285 million settlement, announced last month, is “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest” because it does not provide the court with evidence on which to judge the settlement.
The ruling could throw the S.E.C.’s enforcement efforts into chaos, because a majority of the fraud cases and other actions that the agency brings against Wall Street firms are settled out of court, most often with a condition that the defendant does not admit that it violated the law while also promising not to deny it.
This truly is justice. While Citigroup tries to minimize its damage, and the SEC (in the pockets of the banks to begin with) is shirking its duties of being a regulatory agency, someone has the balls to actually think about the investors who were defrauded, and to think about exacting punishment on the fraudulent behavior of Citigroup.
There are many sad aspects to the story I wrote about yesterday regarding the exotic animal farm owner in Ohio who killed himself after setting his animals free.
The saddest, of course, is that so many animals running out in the wild had to be killed.
We also learn that the now-deceased wild animal owner was cited over and over again for animal cruelty and abuse. And it begs the question: What kind of laws exist that allow someone to hold rare animals in capitivity? And shouldn't the oversight of those animals be better?
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as brides in what his church deemed "spiritual marriages."
In all fairness, he's not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka "the Mormon Church"), but an offshoot of that church: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Actually, Jeffs LDS Church is more in line with that envisioned by Joseph Smith, but.... let's set all that aside and watch this:
I haven't posted about this story -- it's too depressing. But now maybe that her remains appear to have been found (and we all knew it would end up that way), focus can go elsewhere:
HICKORY, N.C. – Investigators said Friday they believe they have found the remains of a disabled North Carolina girl who was reported missing about a month ago.
Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said investigators matched a bone found a couple of weeks ago with 10-year-old Zahra Baker's DNA.
"I've been dreading this moment from early on in the investigation," Adkins said. "We have recovered enough physical evidence to think we have found Zahra."
Police also found a child's remains earlier this week in western North Carolina in an area near where Zahra's stepmother once lived. The remains will need to be tested to make sure they also belong to Zahra, Adkins said.
The freckle-faced Zahra, who had bone cancer that forced her to use a prosthetic leg and hearing aids, was reported missing by her parents Oct. 9. They said she was last seen in her bed at their home in Hickory, about 50 miles northwest of Charlotte.
A couple of weeks later, her prosthetic leg and the bone were discovered in some brush, about five miles away from where the other remains were found buried.
"Investigators, agents, officers and staff who worked on this case are devastated that we were not able to find Zahra alive and bring her home safely," Adkins said.
I've written in the past -- here and here and here -- about the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in the state of Texas, a state which has a disturbing record of getting it wrong when it comes to death penalty cases.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by the state of Texas on February 17, 2004 after having been found guilty by a jury at trial back in 1992. The trial stemmed from a 1991 fire in the Willingham household in which Willingham's three daughters died.
The case came into national prominence after Willingham's execution when Texas governor Rick Perry tried to bury it. A state commission on arson was about to conclude that Texas forensic "experts" (who were nothing but glorified firefighters) were dead wrong when they concluded that the fire was intentionally set. Perry basically replaced the commission, rather than have that report released. And that's who most people came to know about Willingham in the first place.
Last night, PBS' Frontline did a nice expose on the Willingham case and execution, interviewing some of the key players. It was bone-chilling.
I was reminded of the documentary The Thin Blue Line, which focussed on another man -- Randall Dale Adams -- who was facing execution in Texas. Basically, the police decided they had their man early on, and built a largely circumstantial case around it, using very thin evidence. As a result of the film, Randall Adams was freed and pardoned.
The scary thing about The Thin Blue Line was the interviews with Texas law enforcement. One of them said, "When we interviewed Adams at the police stations, he kept saying he was innocent. It was like, he was almost OVER-emphasizing he was innocent". As it turned out, Adams WAS innocent, which probably explains why he was so emphatic. But at the time, oddly, the fact that he "over"emphasized his innocence was looked upon as proof of guilt.
There was a lot of that in last night's Frontline documentary about Willingham. How he (supposedly) didn't show enough remorse for the death of his children, etc. The fact that he occasionally abused his wife. That's what made people think he was guilty.
But was there evidence that Willingham actually set the fire that killed his three children? Not according to the best experts in the country. Did he have a motive? No.
Anyway, if it re-airs, I suggest you take a gander. This type of thing happens all the time in this country, especially in Texas.
There have been a few news stories cropping up lately about "gay bullying" and they all make me wish I was a Second Amendment advocate so that I could go all vigilante on someone's ass.
It started with a Twitter message on Sept. 19: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
That night, the authorities say, the Rutgers University student who sent the message used a camera in his dormitory room to stream the roommate’s intimate encounter live on the Internet.
And three days later, the roommate who had been surreptitiously broadcast — Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman and an accomplished violinist — jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River in an apparent suicide.
The Sept. 22 death, details of which the authorities disclosed on Wednesday, was the latest by a young American that followed the online posting of hurtful material. The news came on the same day that Rutgers kicked off a two-year, campuswide project to teach the importance of civility, with special attention to the use and abuse of new technology.
Those who knew Mr. Clementi — on the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., at his North Jersey high school and in a community orchestra — were anguished by the circumstances surrounding his death, describing him as an intensely devoted musician who was sweet and shy.
According to other news sources, "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry," was the last status message Clementi posted to Facebook before parking his car on the New Jersey side, walking more than a mile to the center of the bridge span, placing his cell phone and wallet on the roadway and climbing up onto the railing before leaping to his death in the Hudson River.
Pictured below are Clementi, his roommate and his roommate's friend. The latter two are under arrest and have yet to be charged.
UPDATE: From 2008, someone caught a Youtube video of a protester outside the Discovery building, throwing money. Yes, the money-thrower is apparently the same dude.
UPDATE:Some posts about Lee and his earlier protests. View it soon before the site crashes.
UPDATE: From 2008, a blurb about his arrest following an unarmed protest of Discovery.
***
It started at 1:00 pm EST. The latest is that the police are talking to him, and that he may have a hostage. All this is happening at the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, MD.
The guy's name is James J. Lee, and here are his demands:
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!
11. You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It's like a couple are having 30 babies even though it's just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
Think his demands will be met?
By the way, this is the best part of his little manifesto:
Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
Prior to the warrant being issued, a friend of Lohan's [said] that Lindsay was not pleased with Revel being assigned to her case. "Lindsay thinks that judge is so mean ... Lindsay wants a new judge that isn't as bossy and strict ... It's not like Lindsay isn't busy. She's an international movie star," the friend said.
Shorter version: Lindsay Lohan is a movie star, so the law doesn't apply to her.
Well, it looks like Lohan will have to reflect on that when she's in jail.
Take a look at this ad, which has appeared on websites and billboards:
Mr. Davis's company, Lifelock, advertized that it could protect one's personal information. So confident was Mr. Davis in the company's product that he advertised his social security number prominently.
LifeLock CEO Todd Davis, whose number is displayed in the company’s ubiquitous advertisements, has by now learned that lesson. He’s been a victim of identity theft at least 13 times, according to the Phoenix New Times.
That’s 12 more times than has previously been known.
In June 2007, Threat Level reported that Davis had been the victim of identity theft after someone used his identity to obtain a $500 loan from a check-cashing company. Davis discovered the crime only after the company called his wife’s cellphone to recover the unpaid debt.
About four months after that story published, Davis’ identity was stolen again by someone in Albany, Georgia, who opened an AT&T/Cingular wireless account using his Social Security number (.pdf), according to a police report obtained by the New Times. The perpetrator racked up $2,390 in charges on the account, which remained unpaid. Davis, whose real name according to police reports is Richard Todd Davis, only learned a year later that his identity had been stolen again after AT&T handed off the debt to a collection agency and a note appeared on his credit report.
Then last year, Davis discovered seven more fraudulent accounts on his credit report that were opened with his personal information and have outstanding debt, according to the police report.
Someone opened a Verizon account in New York, leaving an unpaid bill of at least $186. An account at Centerpoint Energy, a Texas utility, was delinquent $122. Credit One Bank was owed $573, and Swiss Colony, a gift-basket company, was seeking $312.
In addition to these amounts, Davis’s credit report showed five collection agencies were seeking other sums from accounts opened in his name: Bay Area Credit was pursuing $265; Associated Credit Services was seeking two debts in the amount of $207 and $213; Enhanced Recovery Corporation was chasing $250 and $381.
A spokeswoman for the Albany police, who investigated the AT&T/Cingular account but never made any arrest, told the New Times that Davis’ publication of his Social Security number created more victims than just himself.
“It’s unfortunate he chose to conduct business in that way,” spokeswoman Phyllis Banks said. “It’s not fair to [AT&T] because they’re losing a pretty substantial amount of money.”
By a 5-4 vote Monday, the court says the Constitution requires that young people serving life sentences must at least be considered for release.
The court ruled in the case of Terrance Graham, who was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. Graham, now 22, is in prison in Florida, which holds more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide.
''The state has denied him any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a nonhomicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. ''This the Eighth Amendment does not permit.''
Roughly three dozen states allow for the possibility of sentencing teenagers for life with no parole, even where the teen did not kill anyone.
Writing for the dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas offered this:
''I am unwilling to assume that we, as members of this court, are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens.''
Perhaps not, Justice Thomas, but it is your job. The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. It is your job to interpret the Constitution, and make sure that laws (or, in this case, sentences) do not offend the Constitution. If you, as a judge, feel uncomfortable determining what the Constitution means by "cruel and unusual", then please step down and we'll find someone to replace you.
You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to the presence of an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.
You know those words. They are heard on TV screens all the time. They are the Miranda warnings.
There is a debate going on as to whether Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, should have been read his Miranda rights. Some on the right think that by doing so, he will clam up and not give any helpful information about, say, who (if anybody) trained him in Pakistan, etc.
This is silly, and underscores what appears to be a widespread misunderstanding of what Miranda is.
So allow me to present a short primer.
First of all, you have the right to remain silent, etc. The Miranda warnings don't give you those rights; as an American citizen, you already have them. And so does Shahzad. Look at the Bill of Rights if you don't believe me -- it's all there in the Fifth and Sixth Amendment.
Now, even the dumbest derelict knows he doesn't have to talk to police under custody, and knows he has a right to a lawyer. So reading the Miranda warnings isn't telling him something he doesn't already know.
So what is the point of reading those rights to suspects? Because it allows judges in criminal cases to tell if a person has waived their Fifth Amendment right to incriminate themselves. In other words, if the suspect has been reminded of the rights he has, and he still chooses to confess guilt to the police, then his confession can be used at trial as evidence against him.
In the landmark case of Miranda v. Arizona in 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the reading of what became known as "Miranda rights" are necessary if you want to use confessions against a criminal suspect at trial. They don't give protection to the suspect, because the suspect (as I said) already has those rights. But giving the warnings to the suspect make it easier to convict him if, after having been read the warnings, he still talks. In other words, it is a tool to help prosecutors convict.
Put another way, there are no consequences to a criminal suspect if Miranda warnings are not given. His constitutional rights to remain silent and have a lawyer are the same as they always are. But failure to give the Miranda warnings makes it harder to convict a criminal suspect, which is why the government willingly does it.
So the law-and-order types who think Miranda makes it harder to convict criminals are simply wrong.
And the concerns that a suspect will "clam up" after being read the warnings, are overblown. Suspects can "clam up" anyway, warnings or not, and they know that. But in point of fact, most of them do talk. Shahzad is.
Apparently, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten FEDEX packages have been sent out in my name. This morning alone, I have received three phone calls from people all over the country asking why I sent them a check. These checks are in the name of South Motors Infiniti (which is the name of a car dealership in Miami, Florida), and are in the amounts of $2500-3000 each.
After speaking with FEDEX's fraud department, my bank's fraud department, and the local FBI (who referred me to the U.S. Secret Service), this much, at least, is clear:
Someone opened a FEDEX account in my name about a week and a half ago. They had my address, cell phone number AND my debit card number. When they opened the account, they gave an email address which is NOT mine (The email is in the form of LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME @ YAHOO.COM; I know the name, but I won't share it; FEDEX assumes it is probably fake anyway).
They sent out ten FEDEX packages under "my" FEDEX account to various people throughout the country (some of whom have called me). According to FEDEX, at least some of the packages came from a FEDEX drop-off box in Daphne, Alabama. The shipments are charged to me. (Don't worry - my bank is on top of this now)
According to the Secret Service agent I spoke to, the targets of the scheme are the people who receive these checks. The perpetrators hope that the recipients will cash or deposit the checks, thereby revealing their bank account numbers. "My" FEDEX account serves merely to cover their tracks.
It's not clear why the perpetrator or perpetrators chose these particular people as victims. But the victims I've talked to come from Chicago, South Carolina, Texas, etc. and seemingly have no connection to each other or South Motors Infiniti. And certainly no connection to me.
Anyway, the lesson of the day is this: If you receive a big check in the mail from someone that you don't know, don't treat it as a windfall and cash it. You're probably being set up.
Yeah, I know -- that's common sense. But apparently these schemers are counting on enough people not having any.
Okay, all you Seventh Sense readers (both of you). I'm in the midst of a mystery/enigma/scam, so please weigh in with your thoughts.
Last night I received a call from what sounded like an Hispanic teenage girl. The first words out of her mouth were, "Who is this?"
I said, "I'm Ken. Who is this?"
She said, "I'm Gina. Why you send me chick?"
I almost hung up, thinking it was a wrong number, drunk caller, whatever. But I stayed on, trying to figure out what was going on. After a few minutes, I was able to discern that Gina was telling me that I had sent her a check -- a check for $2,900 (or therebouts) -- and she wanted to know why.
Fortunately, Gina's mom got on the phone. Her English was more coherent, and she told me the whole story.
That afternoon, her 16 year old daughter Gina, received a FedEx package. Inside the package was a check made out to Gina for $2900 and change. The check, I was told, came from me and it was made out to Gina.
"What makes you think it came from me?" I asked.
"Because your name, address, and phone number is on the FedEx label as the sender" she said. "That's how we got your phone number to call you."
"Okay. Then you tell me my name and address."
And she did.
Now, at the point I am very concerned. Maybe this is a scam and I should hang up. But maybe someone got my checkbook and was writing checks. So I started asking about the check.
"No, no, no," she said. "The check is not yours. It's from South Motors Infiniti. It says so on the check. But the Fedex package, which was sent on April 14, has you as the sender."
She went on to explain that she was able to determine, via the Internet, that South Motors Infiniti was a car dealership located in Miami, Florida. Both she and Gina lived in Chicago, and had no dealings with South Motors Infiniti in Miami. I assured her that I had no connection to South Motors Infiniti in Miami either, nor did I have any connection to her daughter in Chicago.
At this point, I still wasn't sure whether this was a scam. But clearly, this woman I was talking to wasn't very trustful of me either. We were both being cagy of each other. Neither one of us wanted to give out more information than necessary. She asked if I worked at a car dealership, or worked in Miami, and I said no, I was an attorney in North Carolina. But other than that, she never asked me for any personal information, I never offered any personal information, and I never asked her for any.
She went on to explain that she had called South Motors Infiniti in Miami, and they claimed to know nothing about it. They told her that the check was probably some sort of fraud. But -- at least the way she conveyed it to me -- they didn't seem too concerned about it. Which is odd since it was their check from (presumably) their bank account.
I inquired about the Fedex label bearing my name as sender, but there wasn't much to say. It wasn't handwritten; it was computerized. I wondered aloud if the Fedex label couldn't have been a computer glitch, but even that doesn't make sense. I haven't sent anything via Fedex in years. And Gina's mom pointed out that a Fedex computer glitch still doesn't explain the check.
Anyway, Gina's mom said she was going to send me a copy of the Fedex label and a copy of the check (since she had my address anyway), and said she was going to contact the FBI (which I said was a good idea).
And that's basically the mystery.
Now, to be honest, I presume my name, address, and phone number is public information, accessible by a rudimentary Google search. And no private information (my bank account number, etc) appears to have been compromised. So I can't really claim this is "identity theft" (but I am taking precautions anyway).
But if this is a scam or some illegal activity -- and tend to think it is -- I can't figure out what it is, or who is the victim, or how/why my name is involved. Any thoughts?
His name was J. Patrick Bedell, if you don't know by now, and he was killed yesterday in a shootout with police at the Pentagon. What was his beef? This heavily-hyperlinked post that he wrote, pulled from Wikipedia, provides a clue:
I am looking for collaborators for ongoing commercial and intellectual efforts. Email to jpbedell at mises.com is welcome!
Here is the full transcript of an audio manifesto. Again, this is from December 2006, during the presidency of George W. Bush:
Hello, and thank you for listening.
Justice is a universal desire of conscious individuals. In modern society, critically important organizations work to ensure that justice is established and preserved. Those individuals who work to uphold justice deserve our thanks, our gratitude, and our support. My purpose in this message is to support those who work for justice by addressing matters that any individual within our existing institutions of justice would find difficult or impossible to address.
The most basic principle of economic justice is the protection of private property and the protection of the right to freely exchange that property. Modern governments, however, consistently and routinely violate the rights of property owners with the assumption – the incorrect assumption – that government can utilize property more efficiently than its lawful owners can.
As institutionalized theft by property violation becomes increasingly routine and accepted, it has far-reaching consequences for the character and morality of society as a whole. The injustice of that permeates society and creates disrespect for the law. On the part of ruling elites, the perception is created that society is to be exploited for the benefit of the rulers. Incentives are created to generate and promote ignorance throughout society to conceal the injustice of that. As the institutionalized violence of government is used to violate the rights of individuals to keep and trade their own property, the violation of economic justice inevitably results in the undermining of justice in every other part of society.
Although the establishment of justice and order is a key responsibility of the United States government, the sheer size of the United States economy and the enormous wealth that is devoted to government, makes the United States government a tempting prize for any organization or collection of bandits ruthless and clever enough to seize it. A criminal organization able to conduct its activities from within the center of power of the United States government would have powerful advantages over other criminal groups.
Such an organization, having seized control of the United States government, would derive enormous power from the taxes extracted from the wealthiest society in the history of the world. Such an organization would be able to manage present objections to its corruption with lavish promises of future benefits in a form of generalized bribery. Such an organization, which would necessarily have great financial sophistication, would be able to use the credit of the United States government to issue trillions of dollars of debt to fund its corrupt activities and neutralize objections to its illegitimacy and in so doing, burden the responsible citizens among its victims with crushing financial obligations.
Very importantly, this criminal group could use its control of the United States monetary system to print money to advance its own purposes of theft, control and enslavement. Such an organization would be able to protect its shipments of illicit drugs into the United States while using the power of law enforcement organization to imprison their would-be competitors, and would subsequently be able to distribute those illicit drugs and launder the enormous profits in the huge and minutely-regulated financial markets of the United States. This criminal organization would use its powers to convert military, intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies into instruments for political control and the domination and subjection of society while discrediting, destroying and murdering honest individuals within those services that work to root out corruption and faithfully serve their fellow citizens.
This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens in an event such as the September 11th attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control. This collection of gangsters would find it in their interests to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality. The true nature of such a regime would find its clearest expression in Satanic violence currently ongoing in Iraq.
Perhaps worst of all, such an organization would usurp and destroy the historical leadership of the United States toward human freedom and would, while constantly and loudly preaching the glory of liberty, work to lead the world into a new dark age of slavery and terror.
This seizure of the United States government by an international criminal conspiracy is a long-established reality. The murder of the United States President in 1963, the associated murders and institutional subversion, and the manipulation of official inquiries and public opinion was effected by individuals within organizational structures that play a central role in the United States government up to the present day. The coup regime founded with the murder of President John Kennedy utilizes a number of mechanisms to perpetuate its criminal rule.
The most important of these mechanisms is government control of the economy. Government’s enormous tax revenues and even larger government spending give to the coup regime the means and motivation to sustain its rule. The constantly expanding regulation of business makes it possible for the coup regime to further impose its will on private economic activity and conditions the people under its rule to accept whatever totalitarian measures the regime deems necessary. The policies and actions of the coup regime are constantly masked by official deception, as well as the subversion of the free press through infiltration and secret manipulations.
On a deeper level, however, the deceit that the coup regime utilizes to justify its policies is intimately linked with the deceit that is inherent in policies that seize the property of individuals for the benefit of the politically powerful. The most subtle and dangerous of these policies, and therefore most similar rule of the coup regime itself, is the imposition of a paper monetary system throughout the United States. This far-reaching violation of property rights undermines the security of property in a way that works to the benefit of the politically powerful individuals that control the monetary system.
The political and military disasters such as the wars in Vietnam and Iraq that an illegitimate coup regime uses against the people who pay its bills are closely tied to the effects of inflationary paper monetary systems which are themselves intimately linked with financial and political disasters throughout history. The blatant violations of the constitution of limitations on the economic role of the government accomplished through many subtle usurpations over many decades are perhaps even more pernicious than, and are certainly a key motivation for, the violent seizure of the United States government.
In order to establish a firm and lasting basis for justice and sound government, the economic role of the government must be re-examined in every detail. It must be recognized that arguments for government control of the economy and government redistribution of economic resources are generally misguided … or even shameless lies to advance enslavement and conceal theft and murder. Furthermore, it must, once again, be recognized that the most successful means to ensure justice, secure domestic tranquility, and promote prosperity is to ensure the protection of private property.
Apparently, some men still need training on this relatively simple matter.
Let's compare two similar scenarios.
In the first, Stacy is a college freshman. She goes to a fraternity party and meets Derek, a sophomore at the same college. The pair hit it off. It's a college party, and alcohol is consumed. Stacy, impaired by alcohol, and Derek, who has also been drinking, find an empty dorm room. Stacy flirtatiously takes off her clothes -- the two have sex. The next morning, Stacy wakes up and regrets what has happened.
The second scenario is exactly the same, EXCEPT Derek initiates the sex, and Stacy, coming in and out of consciousness, is simply too drunk to resist.
Surprising, an astonishing number of college males don't see much difference between the two. BOTH scenarios, in their mind, are not rape.
There's a common assumption about men who commit sexual assault on a college campus: That they made a one-time, bad decision. But psychologist David Lisak says this assumption is wrong —-and dangerously so.
Lisak started with a simple observation. Most of what we know about men who commit rape comes from studying the ones who are in prison. But most rapes are never reported or prosecuted. So Lisak, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, set out to find and interview men he calls "undetected rapists." Those are men who've committed sexual assault, but have never been charged or convicted.
He found them by, over a 20-year period, asking some 2,000 men in college questions like this: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?"
Or: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn't want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn't cooperate?"
About 1 in 16 men answered "yes" to these or similar questions.
***
It might seem like it would be hard for a researcher to get these men to admit to something that fits the definition of rape. But Lisak says it's not. "They are very forthcoming," he says. "In fact, they are eager to talk about their experiences. They're quite narcissistic as a group — the offenders — and they view this as an opportunity, essentially, to brag."
What Lisak found was that students who commit rape on a college campus are pretty much like those rapists in prison. In both groups, many are serial rapists. On college campuses, repeat predators account for 9 out of every 10 rapes.
And these offenders on campuses — just like men in prison for rape — look for the most vulnerable women. Lisak says that on a college campus, the women most likely to be sexually assaulted are freshmen.
"It's quite well-known amongst college administrators that first-year students, freshman women, are particularly at risk for sexual assault," Lisak says. "The predators on campus know that women who are new to campus, they are younger, they're less experienced. They probably have less experience with alcohol, they want to be accepted. They will probably take more risks because they want to be accepted. So for all these reasons, the predators will look particularly for those women."
Still, Lisak says these men don't think of themselves as rapists. Usually they know the other student. And they don't use guns or knives.
"The basic weapon is alcohol," the psychologist says. "If you can get a victim intoxicated to the point where she's coming in and out of consciousness, or she's unconscious — and that is a very, very common scenario — then why would you need a weapon? Why would you need a knife or a gun?"
Sex without consent is rape, period. It doesn't matter if it was forced by a knife or a gun. Alcohol, too, is a weaon for committing rape. And as the above story shows, even the perpetrators themselves don't belief that unforced rape is "rape", which is probably why they are repeat offenders.
What's really scary is that the myth goes beyond the rape perpetrators themselves:
At Texas A&M, Elton Yarbrough was a promising student. Then he was linked to five rapes.
The first woman went to the student health center. She says that as staffers did a rape examination, one asked, "Well, were you drunk?" The woman felt she was being blamed. Because of that — and because she'd considered herself a friend of Yarbrough's — she didn't report the assault to campus police.
Here we have a rape examiner insinuating that victim bore some blame with the old chestnut: "Well, you were drunk".
Happily, the subject of this part of the story, Elton Yarborough, was convicted of rape, but it wasn't until the fifth victim came forward that the campus authorities realized they had a problem. But on college campsuses, this isn't always the case. (Another story here)
To me, the "rule" is pretty bright-line. If the woman does not give her consent, either because she says "no" or because she is too impaired to say anything, it's rape. Not a very hard rule to understand, or to follow. Why can't universities make this clear to their students? And why can't they strictly enforce this rule?
GO SEE A MEMORY, A MONOLOGUE, A RANT & A PRAYER
Tickets: $10 Tickets can be purchased at the door or you can make reservations by calling the number below. Cash or check only please.
Info Phone: (336) 687-1319
Times: Performances are March 12, 25, 27 @ 8p Open Space Cafe Theatre 4609 West Market Street Greensboro, NC 27407
Remember Lee Eisenberger? The guy who took several people hostage at the Clinton Campaign Headquarters in Rochester NH in 2007? Well....
New Hampshire authorities say the man who took hostages at a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign office in 2007 has cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and is a fugitive.
Strafford County Attorney Thomas Velardi says Leeland Eisenberg cut off the bracelet Tuesday morning. That was a day after Verlardi says he was given a "last chance" at freedom by a judge who released him despite probation violations.
Velardi says Eisenberg is a danger to the public and should not be approached.
Leland spent about two years behind bars for the November 2007 siege at Clinton's campaign office in Rochester. He was released on probation last November. His first violation occurred soon after his release, when he failed to charge his monitoring bracelet.
WICHITA, Kan. - A man who says he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller to protect unborn children has been convicted of murdering the doctor.
A jury deliberated for 37 minutes Friday before finding Scott Roeder guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder. The 51-year-old Kansas City, Mo., man faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Roeder testified that he shot Tiller in the head May 31 in the foyer of Tiller's church in Wichita because he believed Tiller posed an "immediate danger" to unborn children.
His attorneys were hoping to get a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter for Roeder, but the judge ruled that the jury could not consider such a verdict.
The judge's ruling will no doubt be the basis of an appeal. The defense tried to argue that the jury should be allowed to consider manslaughter, based on the Kansas statute which permits a killing when the killer "is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent it appears to such person and such person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend such person or a third person against such other's imminent use of unlawful force."
The only problem with that is that the last two word "unlawful force". Abortion is not unlawful. And that's probably why the judge in the Roeder case didn't allow the jury to consider manslaugher. Roeder could use force, even deadly force, to prevent somone else's unlawful acts, but not their lawful act.
It makes perfect sense from a public policy standpoint as well. If we allowed people to decide on their own volition when a murder is "justified" or not, then we basically make murder statutes into a dead letter law. I would venture to say that many murders are justified in the eyes of the murderer. But a criminal law system cannot work that way.
Remember that conservative filmmaker who posed as a pimp, went into ACORN offices, and secretly recorded what happened?
Quite a coup for the guy, whose name is James O'Keefe. He got to be on Fox, he pretty much dessimated ACORN (which, despite a few bad eggs, was a very worthwhile community organization), and just a few months ago, 31 far-right House Republicans introduced a congressional resolution to praise O'Keefe's work, claiming he was "setting an example for concerned citizens across America."
The conservative young filmmaker whose undercover sting damaged a liberal activist group last year faces federal criminal charges in an alleged plot to bug the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
James O'Keefe was among four men who created a ruse to enter the lawmaker's downtown office, saying they needed to repair her telephones, according to court records unsealed Tuesday. O'Keefe used his cellphone to take pictures of two men, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who are accused in an FBI agent's sworn affidavit of impersonating telephone company workers. Stanley Dai is accused of aiding the Jan. 25 plot.
All four were taken to a suburban New Orleans jail and charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. If convicted, each man faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Bugging a senator.....Well done, conservative model citizen!
UPDATE: The Salt Lake City GOP has uninvited Mr. O'Keefe to this event:
BECK: If they were doing that — that’s Watergate. Insanely stupid and illegal. … I haven’t heard his side, but you don’t do anything illegal, that’s Watergate territory. You just don’t do that. And besides that I don’t think you go dressed up — I mean it’s a senator. For the love of Pete, it’s a senator.
CO-HOST: First of all, it’s different than an ACORN office. Because you’re talking about a U.S. senator here! [...]
BECK: It’s exactly the same thing I said for the state dinner. You must not allow — the Secret Service must come down on these peoples in the White House like a box of rocks. You don’t do anything to hurt security for the president or for a senator or anybody else. You don’t mess around with it. Ever, ever, ever, ever. … We have enough [evidence] to, I believe, condemn.
UPDATE: Looks like one of the four break-in boys, Stan Dai, is the same Stan Dai who once wrote an anti-feminist piece called "The Penis Monologues".
Let's take a quick look at some of the new laws which take effect today in North Carolina.
The big one is, of course, no texting while driving. Now, don't think you can be cute about this. But no, it applies to emailing, too. In fact it applies to any time you "manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person" while driving. You can do it while parking, though. Exceptions are carved out for GPS devices. And you can still use voice activation.
Kids are being protected better, as of today. There is a criminal law on the books, as of today, for cyberbullying a minor, or using a minor to cyberbully a parent. School buses have better protection: a new law allows for cameras on school buses to get at drivers who don't stop -- the penalty for failure to stop and killing a kid is increased as well. Sex offenders cannot drive school buses anymore (this was a problem?). And solicitation of a minor by computer now extends to mobile devices.
Other stuff:
New rules regarding preservation of DNA evidence that is used to convict criminals
It is illegal to "target picket" a single residence in a manner that would cause severe emotional stress to the occupant.
School board members are now held to the same standard as police, sheriffs, court clerks, etc. when it comes to failure to discharge their duties
Certain glass tubes which can serve as crack vials are now regulated.
Stonger penalities against deadbeat dads who defy court orders to pay child support.
Stronger penalities for removing or altering serial numbers on guns.
With some exceptions, it is now illegal to own a venomous snake, crocodile, or a boa constrictor (or other "restricting snakes").
And my personal favorite:
AN ACT to create the offense of LARCENY, DESTRUCTION, DEFACEMENT, OR VANDALISM OF PORTABLE TOILETS OR PUMPER TRUCKS.
SECTION 1. Article 16 of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to read:
"§ 14‑86.2. Larceny, destruction, defacement, or vandalism of portable toilets or pumper trucks.
Unless the conduct is covered under some other provision of law providing greater punishment, if any person steals, takes from its temporary location or from any person having the lawful custody thereof, or willfully destroys, defaces, or vandalizes a chemical or portable toilet as defined in G.S. 130A‑290 or a pumper truck that is operated by a septage management firm that is permitted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources under G.S. 130A‑291.1, the person is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor."
SECTION 2. This act becomes effective December 1, 2009, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 21st day of May, 2009.
That shooter (still on the loose) who shot and killed four cops in Tacoma? The suspect's name is Maurice Clemmons and:
Nine years ago in Arkansas, The Seattle Times reported, Mr. Clemmons was released from prison after Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his lengthy prison sentence, over the protests of prosecutors. Late Sunday night, Mr. Huckabee’s political action committee released a statement saying that “a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State” would be to blame if Mr. Clemmons were found responsible for the shootings.
Not good for the "tough on crime" crowd.
Then again, Huckabee has been in this spot before....
Kentucky state police have ruled that Bill Sparkman, the census worker found dead with a rope around his neck and "fed" scrawled on his chest, was a suicide. Sparkman apparently made his suicide look like a murder in the hopes that his son would get a pay out from his insurance policies.
I guess everyone will have their own theories about why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 13, and wounding dozens.
How much of it had to do with the fact that he was a Muslim?
How much of it had to do with the fact that he was taunted as a Muslim?
How much of it had to do with his apparent opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars?
How much of it had to do with his pending deployment to Afghanistan?
How much of it had to do with his familiarity, as a psychiatrist, of the horrors of war and PTSD?
Experts will scour the Internet looking for clues, people will be interviewed, etc. Hopefully, over time, a clearer picture can be drawn. In the meantime, one could play these guessing games forever, and I supposed one's speculation at this point says more about the speculator than Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
Actually the Hate Crimes bill was tacked on to the 2009 Defense Appropriations Act, which Obama signed this afternoon, but it's still there, and Obama noted the significance of it:
So today I'm pleased to say that we have proved that change is possible. It may not come quickly, or all at once, but if you push hard enough, it does come eventually.
Now, speaking of that, there is one more long-awaited change contained within this legislation that I'll be talking about a little more later today. After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are. (Applause.)
I promised Judy Shepard, when she saw me in the Oval Office, that this day would come, and I'm glad that she and her husband Dennis could join us for this event. I'm also honored to have the family of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought so hard for this legislation. And Vicki and Patrick, Kara, everybody who's here, I just want you all to know how proud we are of the work that Ted did to help this day — make this day possible. So — and thank you for joining us here today.
The new law strengthens existing U.S. laws by extending federal hate crime protection in cases where the victim was targeted because of their sexual orientation, gender, disability, or gender identity.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Twenty murderers, rapists and robbers sentenced to life in North Carolina prisons in the 1970s will be released at the end of October as a result of recent court rulings.
Why?
Well, basically it comes down to this. These murderers, rapists, and robberts were sentenced to life in prison in the 1970s as a result of their crime.
In 1981, the NC sentencing guidelines were revised. Essentially, all sentences were cut in half. The new guildelines were applied retroactively.
One industrious lifer argued to the court that, back in the 1970s, the sentencing guidelines interpreted "life in prison" as meaning "80 years". Therefore, when the 1981 changes came along, that meant that their sentence was, effectively, 40 years.
Last week, the highest court of North Carolina agreed with this interpretation.
So, with some staturorily-recognized time off for good behavior, some "lifers" are now being set free, having served their sentence. More will be released in the decade to come.
Thank you, legal fluke.
[For what it is worth -- since 1994, when North Carolina eliminated parole, a life sentence in North Carolina has meant the convict will die behind bars. But only first-degree murder can carry a life sentence, and now, the shortest sentence someone convicted now of first-degree forcible rape can serve is 12 years.]
This story is starting to get national attention. Presumably, that's why Perry said what he said:
Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday defended his actions in the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, calling him a “monster” and a “bad man” who murdered his children.
Specifics? Sure...
“Willingham was a monster,” the governor said. “Here's a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so he wouldn't have those kids. Person after person has stood up and testified to facts of this case that, quite frankly, you all are not covering.”
Willingham, he said, showed how bad he was on the day of his execution.
“This is a bad man. This is a guy who in the death chamber in his last breath spews an obscenity-laced triad (sic) against his wife,” Perry said.
This is utter bullshit.
First of all, the prosecutor claimed that he beat his wife to abort his kids; his wife denied that at trail (and she really ought to know). Did he beat his wife other times? Yes, the evidence suggests that. But is that a fact of the case? Emphatically, no. Neither does swearing to your wife while being put to death. (She insisted he was innocent, until he was found guilty, and then she changed her mind, and failed to assist him for over a decade as he exhausted his appeals). Frankly, if I were an innocent man sitting in death row, I might be inclined to cuss as well.
But here's the thing -- I don't care if Willingham was a bad husband. It is entirely irrelevant as to whether he commited arson to kill his children. There was (as I have blogged before) no eyewitness and the forensic evidence (we now know) indicated that the fire was not deliberately set.
This seems to be a thing with the Texas criminal justice system: if you are a bad man, you must have done everything that the prosecutor says you did. It's been around a long time -- go rent (if you can find it) The Thin Blue Line. An alarming number of people have been executed in Texas -- before their innocence is discovered.
Calling Willingham a "monstor" and a "bad man" is not evidence of guilt. Perry is grasping here, because he knows he screwed up and allowed an innocent man to die.
Looks like Texas's Republican Governnor Rick Perry is digging a deeper hole for himself.
The Houston Chronicle adds some more details about how Perry disregarded doubts of Willingham's guilt. Three days before the execution, Willingham's attorney alerted Perry of a new arson analysis that cast doubt on the conviction. The ultimate analysis came from a respected arson expert, Dr. Gerald Hurst, who helped exonerate prior death row inmates.
According to the Chronicle, the five-page Hurst report was faxed to Perry at 4:52 PM. A "few minutes after" 5:00, Perry's office said he would not intervene. They probably didn't even read it. The execution occurred about an hour later.
Perry is clearly trying to cover his tracks now. As I wrote about two weeks ago, members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission were dismissed by Governor Perry, literally on the eve of the day when they were to receive a damning report from an arson expert. The report conclusively stated that Willingham was innocent, and the arson evidence on which he was solely convicted (and eventually executed) was horrible. The Chicago Tribune adds more:
Just months before the controversial removal of three members of a state commission investigating the forensics that led to a Texas man's 2004 execution, top aides to Gov. Rick Perry tried to pressure the chairman of the panel over the direction of the inquiry, the chairman has told the Tribune.
Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry's top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission's investigation.
"I was surprised that they were involving themselves in the commission's decision-making," Bassett said. "I did feel some pressure from them, yes. There's no question about that."
Not good at all.
UPDATE: Sam Bassett, the former chair of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, has now told the Houston Chronicle that lawyers for Perry told him the case was inappropriate, and that the hiring of a nationally known fire expert was a "waste of state money."
Q. I have a restraining order filed against me. Can I still "poke" that person on Facebook?
A: It depends on the terms of the restraining order, but the answer is probably "no".
A Hendersonville woman was arrested for virtually “poking” someone on the social networking site Facebook.
Shannon D. Jackson, 36, was arrested Friday, Sept. 25 for allegedly violating an order of protection.
According to the affidavit filed in Sumner County General Sessions Court, Jackson is accused of using the “poke” option on Facebook to contact a Hendersonville woman, thus violating the terms of the order of protection, which stipulates “no telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner.”
Poking is a feature unique to Facebook that conveys no other message but informing a user they have been “poked” by another user.
Of course, this incident begs a question. Since you can only "poke" your friends, why wasn't this Shannon D. Jackson already blocked by the alleged victim?
Being the beginning of another fiscal year, about 100 new laws go into effect in the State of North Carolina today. They're all listed here (PDF).
But just so you know, here are a few:
Local governments get to regulate golf carts now. Phew. Our long national nightmare is... uh... over?
It's now illegal to sell novelty lighters. (A "novelty lighter" is defined as a lighter which is designed to look like a "cartoon charactor, toy, gun, watch, musical instrument, vehicle, animal, food or beverage, or similar articles, or that plays musical notes" -- in other words, a lighter that might attract kids, A regular lighter with a logo, however, doesn't count)
"Truth in Music Performances" Law: It's now illegal to give a live musical performance pretending to be somebody else (e.g., Elvis) unless you make it clear that it's a "tribute".
You can no longer object to the location of an ABC store, if the municipality allowed the store to be located there after a public hearing.
North Carolina will conduct a swine flu-related study to see if it needs to change the wild boar hunting season.
Municipalities can take vehicles abandoned on public property to the junkyard if the vehicle is more than five years old and worth less than $500 (it used to be $100).
It's still illegal for motor vehicles to stop on a highway in a way which impedes traffic, but now there's an exception for garbage trucks collecting garbage. Lovely.
Beaver traps with a mouth greater than 7.5 inches and less than 26 inches can only be placed in water where beavers hang out. [Insert your own joke here]
Municipalities can go after chronic violators of public nuisance ordinances by serving a single notice.
It's now easier for residential areas off of state roads to get speed bumps put in.
Before, stray dogs and cats which bit a human could be tested for rabies and if needed, euthanized; now, it applies to stray ferrets as well.
Safety rules which applied to skiers also apply to snowboarders and other winter sports people.
It's still illegal to drive while watching TV or a computer screen, but GPS screens don't count. Neither do factory-installed video screens which provide weather or radio information. Glad we got that straightened out.
Public wine-testing events were always legal (with a permit); now beer-tasting events are legal (with a permit) as well. NASCAR enthusiasts rejoice.
If you want to be a licensed marriage or family therapist in NC, they have to run a criminal background check on you now beforehand.
Dealers who buy gold or other precious metals from the public have to be licensed. That law is probably a fallout from the Cash4Gold.com scandal.
Big intrusive government bastards.... messing with my beaver traps and boar hunting.
Oh, and while I'm on the topic, there are two other notable new criminal laws on the books:
It's now illegal -- a Class 1 misdemanor -- to vandalize a Port-a-potty (NOTE: Actually, this law isn't effective until December 1, 2009, so you have a couple months of scot-free Port-a-potty destruction ahead of you, if you are so inclined).
TEXTING WHILE DRIVING IS ILLEGAL -- Okay, this doesn't start until December 1, 2009, but don't do it anyway. I'm driving NC roads...
I've blogged twice now (here and here) about Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man who was tried, convicted, and eventually executed on what now appears to be really bad "expert" testimony. In a nutshell, arson "experts" were convinced that Willingham intentionally started a house fire intending to kill his children (all three died). There was no other evidence against Willingham -- just the opinion testimony by arson "experts" who were, as it turned out, not experts at all.
This is, sadly, quite common in Texas -- people convicted and/or executed for "bad science" offered as evidence through opinion testimony. So overwhelming pervasive is the problem that Texas decided to adopt a Forensic Science Committee.
Well, guess what happened when the Forensic Science Committee was set to look at the case of Cameron Todd Willingham? From yesterday's New York Times:
Gov. Rick Perry replaced the chairman and two members of the state’s Forensic Science Commission, two days before the commission was to hear evidence that Texas executed an innocent man. The new chairman canceled the hearing, at which an arson expert was to present a report critical of the arson analysis that led to the conviction of the man, Cameron T. Willingham. Mr. Willingham, above, was executed in 2004 after being convicted of setting a 1991 fire in which his three children died. Governor Perry, who was in office at the time of the execution, has expressed confidence in Mr. Willingham’s guilt. “This is like the Saturday night massacre,” said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which has been working on the case. “It’s like Nixon firing Archibald Cox to avoid turning over the Watergate tapes.”
Scheck, who has said there is "no doubt" about Willingham's innocence, was alluding to former President Richard Nixon's firing of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had been probing the Watergate scandal in 1973.
The governor's office claimed that there was nothing unusual about replacing members of the Forensic Science Commission, saying that some of their terms have expired.
The Houston Chronicle adds some color to the story. One of the commission members ousted by Governor Perry said nothing about his term expiring.
The report by the arson expert (Craig Beyler) concludes that the findings at the heart of Willingham's conviction -- that the fire that killed his daughters was set deliberately -- "could not be sustained" by either modern science or the standards of the time.
Two previous reports by other experts also concluded that the fatal blaze was not arson, but Beyler's is the first commissioned by the state.
Beyler, a nationally known fire science expert, was commissioned not by a newspaper or an advocacy group, but by a state commission chaired by Perry's own political appointee.
So, when Beyler concluded recently there was no credible scientific evidence to support the finding that the Willingham fire was arson, and likened the investigative methods used to folklore and mysticism rather than science, it appears that the governor had to find a way to silence him.
At first, Perry tried to discredit Beyler, using air quotes in an interview with The Dallas Morning News two weeks ago to refer to “latter-day supposed experts” who have cast doubt on Willingham's conviction.
Then, this week, days before Beyler was scheduled to present his findings to the Texas Forensic Science Commission in a public meeting Friday, Perry made a move so blatantly political that it was stunning even for a candidate locked in a tight primary battle.
He canned the commission's chairman, Sam Bassett, his own two-term appointee, and replaced him with a new chairman who promptly canceled Friday's meeting on the Beyler report.
It's pretty clear what's going on. Governor Perry was governor when Willingham was executed. He refused to grant clemency for Willingham, at the time ignoring the conclusions of many many arson experts who said that the conviction of Willingham was based on "folklore" forensics conducted by untrained non-experts. Now, in the middle of a heated re-election bid, the governor is trying to sweep the Willingham execution under the rug by removing state investigators intent on looking into the matter.
Yes, the 13 year old victim, now in her 40's, has long since forgiven him.
Yes, the victim's mother at the time was apparently some freaked out fame wannabe, and put her daughter in that position.
Yes, it was a long time ago.
Yes, he's famous.
But here's the thing. A crime is a crime. He committed a crime. He pled gulity to it, before he fled. That's all that matters. And crimes, by the way, are crimes against the state (that's why criminal cases are typical title "The People versus Joe Smith"), so it doesn't matter what the victim says now.
And it doesn't matter how long ago it happened (no statute of limitations once you've pled guilty).
And it certainly doesn't matter that he makes movies.
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man executed -- wrongly, it seems -- for the death of his daughters by intentionally committing arson (according to Texas prosecutors).
Hon. John Jackson, the judge in the case that led to Willingham's conviction, has spoken out. I've excerpted his guest column in the Corsican Daily Sun. I want to address his salient points, to show the poor quality of the judiciary in Texas:
In fact, the trial testimony you reported in 1991 contains overwhelming evidence of guilt completely independent of the undeniably flawed forensic report.
Always omitted from any examination of the actual trial are the following facts:
1. The event which caused the three childrens' deaths was the third attempt by Todd Willingham to kill his children established by the evidence. He had attempted to abort both pregnancies by vicious attacks on his wife in which he beat and kicked his wife with the specific intent to trigger miscarriages;
Then why does his own wife deny these so-called "vicious attacks"? Besides, past bad behavior, even if true, carries only circumstantial evidentiary weight. Not all wife-beaters commit murder -- in fact, most don't.
2. The “well-established burns” suffered by Willingham were so superficial as to suggest that the same were self-inflicted in an attempt to divert suspicion from himself;
3. Blood-gas analysis at Navarro Regional Hospital shortly after the homicide revealed that Willingham had not inhaled any smoke, contrary to his statement which detailed “rescue attempts;”
According to this New Yorker article, Willingham didn't try to rescue his family, although he told investigators he did. He fled from the burning house because he was scared. He was ashamed of his cowardice (although he did try to go back in, only to be stopped by firefighters). He admitted it later on. But lying about "rescue attempts" is not evidence that he started the fire.
4. Consistent with typical Navarro County death penalty practice, Willingham was offered the opportunity to eliminate himself as a suspect by polygraph examination. Such opportunity was rejected in the most vulgar and insulting manner;
This is an embarrassment to the judiciary of Texas. Polygraphs are inadmissible in court because they lack reliability as evidence. Refusal to take a polygraph, likewise, isn't evidence of guilt either. Willingham was (wisely) told by his lawyers not to take the polygraph, and he didn't. To use that now as evidence of his guilt is incredibly corrupt. Judge Johnson should know this.
5. Willingham was a serial wife abuser, both physically and emotionally. His violent nature was further established by evidence of his vicious attacks on animals which is common to violent sociopaths;
This is, again, indirect and almost prejudicial evidence at best. It's like saying -- well, most violent criminal has a bad childhood; Person X has a bad childhood; therefore, he must have committed a violent crime. Sorry, that doesn't cut it.
By the way, a prosecution expert who testified that Willingham was a “sociopath” was expelled from his professional association just three years later for unethical behavior, including making diagnoses without examining people. Willingham’s former probation officer and a judge both directly refute any notion that he was a sociopath.
6. Witness statements established that Willingham was overheard whispering to his deceased older daughter at the funeral home, “You're not the one who was supposed to die.” (The origin of the fire occured in the infant twins bedroom) and;
A grievingfather telling his daughter she wasn't supposed to die isn't evidence of guilt. There remains the distinct, indeed likely, possibility that he was speaking metaphysically -- i.e., that she was too young to die. As for the origin of the fire, even the experts at trial (who, even the judge agrees produced a "flawed forensic report") couldn't find evidence of arson in the twins' bedroom)
7. Any escape or rescue route from the burning house was blocked by a refrigerator which had been pushed against the back door, requring any person attempting escape to run through the conflagration at the front of the house.
According to this, the refrigerator was covering a back door because there were two refrigerators in the small kitchen. The police detective and the fire chief who handled the case both now say that the refrigerator’s location does not support the theory that the fire was arson.
The judge adds:
Co-counsel Alan Bristol and I offered Willingham the opportunity to enter a plea of guilty in return for a sentence of life imprisonment. Such offer was rejected in an obscene and potentially violent confrontation with his defense counsel.
And isn't that how an innocent man might act?
Here's the bottom line. Could Willingham have committed arson, intending to kill his twin daughters? Sure, if you stack the evidence the right way, and ignore other evidence, it's certainly possible. But we don't convict people, and certainly don't sentence them to death, on being able to construct a scenario in which the murder is a "possible" truth. The standard is (even in Texas) "guilt beyond a resonable doubt".
Anyone assessing all the hard facts (or lack thereof) objectively would have a doubt, and that doubt is reasonable. Flawed expert evidence and "circumstantial" evidence was enought to construct a plausible story about how Willingham could have murdered his children. But those things, even taken together, should never have resulted in a conviction.
I alluded to it before, but this long read in the The New Yorker is worth it.
As you probably know now, Jaycee Lee Dugard, 29, walked into an Antioch (CA) police station earlier this week, and told authorities she had been kidnapped in 1991 waiting for a school bus in South Lake Tahoe. Authorities have since arrested two suspects for the crime.
His latest entry, from August 14 of this year reads:
During the month of July 2009 JM's Enterprises, 1215 Willow Pass Road * Pittsburg CA,(925) 439-8118 was the host to a powerful demonstration, the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world.
You too can witness what the world believe's is impossible to produce! email: godsdesire@rocketmail.com. DON'T MISS OUT!
Yeah, he's formed a church called God's Desire, and he's the savior, and he claims to have the ability to "control sound with his mind".
Pretty soon he's going to hear the sound of the ch-chuck of slamming prison cell doors.
By the way, I vaguely recall this kidnapping when it happened. It was shortly after the Elizabeth Smart some other publicized kidnapping, so it made the news. It was just one of those things that you read about for a couple of days, and then forgot about.
That's Amber Willingham and her father, Cameron Todd Willingham.
In 1992,the Willingham house caught fire. Amber and her two sisters perished.
Cameron, the father, was charged with murder. He is the only person in history charged with murder where fire was the weapon.
There wasn't much evidence against him. He was convicted largely on the testimony of Texas arson "experts" who claimed that there were twenty indicators of arson.
By 2004, Willington has exhausted his appeals. Much progress had been made in arson investigation techniques, and many (if not all) of the techniques used by the arson experts at Willingham's trial had fallen into disrepute.
For example, "crazed glass" -- cracked but not shattered glass -- was once thought to be an indicator of the use of a liquid accelerant. But "crazed glass" is now classified by fire investigation experts as an "Old Wives Tale." Crazed glass can be caused by a liquid accellerant, it can also be caused by the rapid chilling of hot glass by water used to extinguish a fire.
"Crazed glass" was only one of the indicators used to convict Willingham, but the other so-called indicators are largely myth-based.
Despite that fact the myths of his alleged arson were well-known by 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by the state of Texas on February 17, 2004. His last words included:
Yeah. The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do.
The story doesn't end there. Following some high-profile forensic screw-ups, the Texas Legislature in 2005 created a commission to investigate lab error, negligence, and misconduct among forensic experts.
Their first major review was the Willingham case. The commission hired an outside firm to review the case materials and issue a report. Their investigator, Craig Beyler, just released his findings, and his report is bonechillingly frank:
In a withering critique, a nationally known fire scientist has told a state commission on forensics that Texas fire investigators had no basis to rule a deadly house fire was an arson -- a finding that led to the murder conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.
***
Among Beyler's key findings: that investigators failed to examine all of the electrical outlets and appliances in the Willinghams' house in the small Texas town of Corsicana, did not consider other potential causes for the fire, came to conclusions that contradicted witnesses at the scene, and wrongly concluded Willingham's injuries could not have been caused as he said they were.
The state fire marshal on the case, Beyler concluded in his report, had "limited understanding" of fire science. The fire marshal "seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created," he wrote.
The marshal's findings, he added, "are nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation."
Twenty years ago, a late-night scuffle broke out in a Burger King parking lot in Savannah. When Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer, tried to intervene, someone pulled a gun and killed the officer. Soon after, Sylvester "Red" Coles, came to the police with a lawyer, accusing Troy Davis of the shooting.
Witnesses say it was Coles, not Davis, who killed MacPhail, but once the man-hunt began for Davis, law enforcement officials wanted to believe he was the man responsible for the slaying, and pressured witnesses accordingly. At this point, most of the witnesses who testified at trial have signed statements contradicting their identification of the gunman. Other witnesses who fingered Davis have said they made their stories up, facing police threats.
What we're left with is a case in which a man was sentenced to death despite no physical evidence, based on the word of witnesses who have since recanted or contradicted their testimony.
What about the witnesses who say Cole shot MacPhail? They're anxious to say so, but their testimony was blocked by federal courts, citing a provision in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
Yesterday, in a 6-2 ruling, the Supreme Court took the highly unusual step of ordering the lower court to hear the new evidence.
"This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."
"Imagine a petitioner in Davis's situation who possesses new evidence conclusively and definitively proving, beyond any scintilla of doubt, that he is an innocent man....The dissent's reasoning would allow such a petitioner to be put to death nonetheless. The court correctly refuses to endorse such reasoning."
Stevens is right. But here's the thing -- so is Stevens.
A habeus corpus petition is a legal device that goes back to the Magna Carta. It's what prisoners -- particularly death row inmates -- use when all their appeals have been denied. Basically, it allows someone imprisoned for a crime to petition the court on the grounds that their incarceration is illegal or unconstitutional. In effect, if the habeus petition is heard and granted, it amounts to another trial -- another bite at the apple to prove one's innocence.
Traditionally, most habeus petitions aren't even heard, and when they are heard, the court considers the arguments, and usually denies a new trial. That's because, in order to win, the petitioner must show some defect in the trial that led to conviction. An incompetent lawyer, a bribed jury, etc. In other words, the prisoner must show that he did not get his constitutional right to a full and fair trial.
Scalia's point here is well-taken. Troy Davis got a full and fair trial. Did the witnesses who pointed their finger at Davis lie at the trial? Well, it would seem so, but that doesn't make the trial "unfair". Why not? Because Davis' lawyer got to cross-examine those witnesses, try to expose them as liars, etc. He failed, but that doesn't make the trial unfair or unconstitutional.
So yes, believe it or not, "actual innocence" is not an independent ground for a new trial.
But of course, "actual innocence" can only be determined by a new trial in the first place. Catch-22.
It should be noted that, by the strict letter of the law, Scalia is right. The constitution does not protect an obviously innocent man who got a fair trial and was found guilty.
Stevens and the other five judges in the majojrity are, strictly speaking, going beyond the letter of the law, expanding the scope of habeus review, and allowing a hearing on whether this guy should get a new trial. They are invoking humanity. Or reason. Or both. They're not saying he's innocent; they're just saying that he has a right to have the new evidence considered so that a court could order a new trial.
Any way you look at it, it is an interesting development in habeus jurisprudence.
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart
May 4-6 & 10-13, 2012
Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm
Perhaps Broadway’s greatest farce, this show is light, fast-paced, witty, irreverent and one of the funniest musicals ever written. It provides the perfect escape from life's troubles. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave tries to gain his freedom as a reward for his struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan for his young master.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Pseudolus - Ken Ashford
Hysterium - Gray Smith
Senex - Miles Stanley
Domina - Christine Gorelick
Hero - Charlie Kluttz
Philia - Gracey Falk
Erronius - Lee McKusick
Miles Glorisosus - Mike Orsillo
Marcus Lycus - Neil Shepherd
Proteans - Justin Bulla, Josh Gerry, Bradley Phillis, Jacob Weinberg
Courtesans - Angela Brady, Ashley Howe, Sarah Jenkins, Natalie Juran, Scarlet Van Loon, Mary Lea Williams
Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
FREE at MILLER PARK AMPHITHEATRE May 19, 20, 26, 27 and June 2, 3 at 1:00 and 4:00 pm (no 4:00 pm on June 3)
Onje of Shakespeare's most-cherished comedies. Benedick and Beatrice are engaged in a very "merry war"; they both talk a mile a minute and proclaim their scorn for love, marriage, and each other. In contrast, Claudio and Hero are sweet young people who are rendered practically speechless by their love for one another. By means of "noting" (which sounds the same as "nothing," and which is gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar. However, Dogberry, a Constable who is a master of malapropisms, discovers the evil trickery of the villain, Don John.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Benedick - Chad Edwards
Beatrice - Sally Meehan
Don Pedro - Mark March
Claudio - Carlos Luis Nieto
Hero - Devon Currie
Leonato - John Shea
Don J - Annie Weir
Margaret - Robyn Shute
Antonio - Lee Willard
Balthasar - Suzanne Vaughan
Borachio - Ken Ashford
Conrade - Rob Taylor
Friar Frances - Linda Minney
Dogberry - April Marshall
Verges - Sarah Jenkins
Sexton - Andrea Rivers
Messenger - Ryan Ball
Boy - Ben Taylor
Watch - True Jones and others TBA
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