but for some reason, I am. I guess I just never realized that being offended was an actionable offence.
Knoxville native Terri Carlin filed a proposed class action lawsuit in a U.S. District Court on Wednesday, charging the accused with causing her and "millions of others" to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury." The suit reportedly seeks billions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.You know, if this thing actually goes anywhere, some of us liberals may want to get together, higher a lawyer, and see if we can't sue, say, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the gang. Surely, they've caused millions to suffer outrage, anger and serious injury in the process of prosecuting their little war.
You know, I have no idea what kind of 'serious injury' unexpectedly seeing a naked breast on TV can cause - unless you were walking through a room at the time and were so stunned by the sight that you tripped and fell or something - but if seeing Janet's boob causes 'serious injury' and makes for a suing offense, then the nearly 600 American deaths so far in Iraq (plus the thousands of soldiers who have been injured, and all of the dead or injured Iraqis) should easily qualify.
Even better - how about we sue Ralph Nader for his role in helping get Bush elected in the first place? I mean, were it not for his "so what if I can't win?" candidacy, Gore might actually have gotten enough electoral votes to beat Bush in a few more states and think of all the outrage, anger and embarrassment THAT would have saved our country.
Or, if we want to stick to media and "entertainment" figures (since trying to sue the President could get rather messy), surely folks like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Rielly have caused at least as much outrage and anger as Janet and Justin. I'm pretty sure they've had - at times - a negative impact on my blood pressure.
I could go on, but you get the picture. If we're going to start suing over everything that upsets us or makes us feel angry or embarrassed, the courts won't have time to actually deal with the suits where people have REAL injuries and REAL issues that are truly worthy of the courts time. We already have more than enough frivolous suits as it is, and this kind of litigious grandstanding isn't going to help matters. If you really can't handle seeing a momentary medium-distance shot of a naked-but-decorated breast, you probably shouldn't be watching TV in the first place.
What has long been the largest unsolved serial murder case in America is now one step closer to being solved. The BBC is reporting that Gary Ridgeway, 54, will admit to being the "Green River Killer" and plead guilty to 48 counts of murder in exchange for a life sentence, rather than being put to death.
The Green River case is one that has long fascinated me. I have no idea why, but I've always had a thing for reading about true crimes - serial killers in particular. I don't like to read things from the killer's perspective or that paint them as some kind of folk hero - instead, I prefer the kind of true crime books that look at the crime and the psychology of the criminal - including what might have gone wrong that allowed him to choose to become a killer - but do so without trying to create sympathy for the bastards.
But back to the Green River case. I had lived in Seattle from the mid- to late- 80's, during a time when the case was still getting some publicity. I remember one night there was a large-scale search being done at the home of a suspect, which, sadly, didn't lead to anything at the time. Even after leaving Seattle, I've keep an ear out for updates on the case and was quite pleased when Ridgeway was arrested. I had long ago given up hope that the culprit would be caught.
I think, for me, one of the most fascinating aspects of this case is that Ridgeway had been a suspect back in the 80's, and in 1987, the police had him bite down on a swab to get a sample of his saliva - and 14 years later, that sample was matched to DNA taken from the victims, and Ridgeway was arrested. Whoever had the foresight to save that sample deserves to be given a medal - because that was the key that finally unlocked the mystery.
I'm sure many people are quite disappointed that Ridgeway will be allowed to live out his full life - whatever that may be - rather than being killed by the state, but as much as I think he deserves to die for what he did, being able to get a confession - giving that final knowledge to the victims' families that their loved ones' killer has been caught, and the certainty that Ridgeway will be punished for his crimes (since there is always a bit of uncertainty in any rial situation) make it a wise decision on the part of the prosecutors. The rest of his life won't be pleasant, and, I suspect, it may not be long. Prisons aren't always known to be hospitable places to notorious criminals - look at Father Geoghan and Jeffery Dalhmer for examples of that.
So, tonight, I raise my horn to Tyr, for seeing to it that a measure of his justice has been meted out after all these many years, and to the many men and women who have carried the burden of this case for so long, and who have built it strong enough that Ridgeway decided it was wiser to confess than try to fight the charges in court. Hail!
Gttim of Notes from Atlanta links to a story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about a student who had a diary she'd brought to school with her confiscated by a teacher, who subequently read the diary. In there was a fictional story in which a teen dreams of killing a teacher. The girl ended up being expelled from school.
It reminded me of an experience I had in my 12th grade Creative Writing class. I posted about this also in notes over on gttim's site, but thought it was worth posting here as well.
We were given an assignment to write a story using the line "suddenly, everything was peaceful." Most of the students wrote a bit of fluff about being out on a picnic and bunnies hopping buy and "suddenly...." (I kid you not!) Apparently they'd thought "peaceful" was the key word in the required phrase. I, however, focused on the "suddenly" aspect.
My story was about a guy, fighting in a war, who had come to the end of his rope and decided to let the enemy kill him rather than face going on any longer. After a rather graphic description of the bullet tearing through his body, he dies, and it was there that I used the requisite line. After the readings were done, my teacher looked at me for a bit, and then sent me to the school shrink.
This was in 1982. At the time, it was humiliating to have a teacher send you to the counselor, because it meant they thought you were either a REAL trouble maker, or they were VERY worried about you. I managed to get through a single hour-long session and apparently convinced the woman I was fine - just imaginative - and that was the end of it.
Looking back, I have to say it's a good thing I went to school when I did. I'd HATE to think what a teacher would make of such a story today. Oh, and for anyone wondering - I've never been in a war or had anyone close to me have to go fight. I've only touched maybe 3 guns in my life and am deathly afraid of them. The story was just the first thing that came to mind where the peacefullness would truly be sudden. It certainly wasn't the warning sign of a psycho in the making....
The case in the Atlanta paper makes me really angry, though. The girl maybe wasn't very wise to have brought her diary to school, and obviously she shouldn't have been reading it in class rather than doing whatever the teacher wanted. If I were a teacher, under those circumstances, I might well have taken the diary away, also. From there, though, I have some serious problems with the teacher's actions.
The appropriate thing to have done would have been to either return the diary to the student at the end of the class period, or, if the teacher felt it was enough of a potential distraction that it wouldn't be a good idea to give it back to the student right away, she could have told the girl she was taking the diary to the Principal's office, where the student could pick it up after school.
Rather than do either of these reasonable things, however, the teacher takes the diary home and proceeds to read it. It was during the reading that the teacher found the story in question, and after she communicated the contents of the diary to the school officials, the girl was suspended and told she would have a meeting during which it would be determined if she would be expelled or not.
The inital determination, made on October 22nd, was that the girl would be expelled. Shortly after the decision was made, the student wrote an article that was published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about her experience and her intention to continue writing, if perhaps a bit more carefully. Since then, the story has hit the news, and the school has decided to rescind the expulsion while they study the situation further.
Hopefully, the school will come to its senses and allow the student to return. The teacher was, in my opinion, seriously out of line to take the student's journal home and read it, and the school overreacted in it's response. Unfortuantely, that kind of overreaction is becoming almost commonplace in this new age of zero tolerance, and undoubtedly, it will only lead to students stiffeling their own creativity in the hopes that they won't stand out enough to be considered a threat.
According to MSNBC and NBC News, the CIA has requested an investigation into the White House's role in last summer's leak which blew the cover of Valerie Plame, wife of former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who angered the White House earlier this year by revealing his role in discrediting the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. That revelation launched a brief firestorm over the administration's honesty in presenting their case for going to war against Iraq and helped to damage the President's credibility.
The White House had tried to blame the CIA for failing to remove the information from the State of the Union address, and CIA director George Tenet did accept responsiblity for it, but Wilson's story made it clear that people in the White House had also been aware that the informtion was bogus prior to the SOTU speech.
Plame's identity as an undercover operative (whose speciality is weapons of mass destruction) was revealed in a column by Robert Novak that was published about a week after Joseph Wilson's article about his findings in Niger.
The White House has denied being Novak’s source, whom he has refused to identify. But Wilson has said other reporters have told him White House officials leaked Plame’s identity.Speculation has centered on Karl Rove as being the one responsible for the leak. If the investigation is run properly (and not muffed for political reasons), and If Rove - or others in the White House - are behind the revelation, this could be huge.NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials blew Plame’s cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents’ Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.
UPDATE - 11:29pm 9/26/03: Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a good post about this situation - including the following information on how investigating something of this nature works:
The way this works is that the CIA does its own investigation to determine whether there is reason to believe laws were broken. But the CIA has no law enforcement powers itself. So it makes a referral to the Justice Department, which obviously does have law enforcement powers. If the folks at Justice concur in the Agency's determination that there is reason to believe that laws were broken, they then task the FBI with mounting a formal criminal investigation.[...]
On it's face, this news tonight almost certainly means that the CIA's internal investigation concluded that laws were broken or that there was sufficient evidence of wrong-doing for a criminal investigation to be undertaken.
Governor Perry managed to pull his head out of the redistricting controversy long enough to issue pardons for 35 people convicted in the Tulia, Tx drug scandal (for background on the Tulia cases, see here and here)
This is excellent news, and about damn time.
Gov. Rick Perry on Friday pardoned 35 people who were arrested in the 1999 Tulia drug busts and convicted based on the testimony of a lone undercover agent later charged with perjury.
"I believe my decision to grant pardons in these cases is both appropriate and just,'' Perry said in a statement.The governor said he was influenced by questions about the testimony of Tom Coleman, the only undercover agent involved in the busts. In June, Perry signed a bill allowing the release of the 12 Tulia defendants who were still in prison. The father of a man sentenced to 20 years in prison on Coleman's word called Friday's pardons "fantastic.''
"We've been waiting for this for four years,'' said Freddie Brookins Sr., whose son was released in June.
From Secular Blasphemy, we learn that there have been three possible sniper-style shootings in West Virginia which authorities think may be the work of a new serial killer copycatting the DC snipers from last fall.
Kanawha County Chief Deputy Phil Morris said he was concerned that the Charleston shootings resembled last year's sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area. The FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives joined state and local authorities in the hunt for the shooter.There are reports from at least two of the crime scenes of a black pickup truck racing out of the area immediately after the shootings, but its important not to forget the lessons of the non-existant white van and get too hung up on the black pickup truck concept.In the West Virginia slayings, two victims were shot in the head and another was hit in the neck, Tucker said. The shooter was more than 30 yards away from each victim, officials said, and they believe a rifle was used in the attacks.
All three were gunned down outside convenience stores, including a man killed while talking on a pay phone and a woman killed while pumping gas.
In addition, authorities are not ruling out a possible connection to a March killing in which the victim was shot twice in the chest outside a supermarket.
Police advised residents yesterday not to travel alone to convenience stores and to be watchful.
Thanks to reader Anne for letting me know about this, even though the news is sad. Ashleigh Moore, the 12-year old girl in Savannah who disappeared April 18th, was found, dead, by a fisherman on Wednesday, in a wooded area behind a hotel.
Savannah police have confirmed that the body found near the Savannah Marriott Riverfront Wednesday is that of missing 12-year-old Ashleigh Moore.Ashleigh's case has been reported on in several blogs, noting how much less attention the national press had given to her disappearance than they had to other missing girls - with the primary, noticable difference being that Ashleigh came from a lower-income black family, and the cases that tend to get the most attention usually come from middle- or upper-class white families.At a news conference at 1 p.m., Maj. Willie Lovett said Moore's family was informed this morning by two Savannah police investigators and a department chaplain.
"With deep regret, our investigative process did not work out as we expected," Lovett said
Although police will not identify any suspects, Lovett said they do have "a number" of them.
Though the police are not saying yet is the mother's boyfriend, who had previously been convinced of the molestation and statuatory rape of a different 12-year-old girl, is a suspect or not, he was the last person known to have seen her and is the one who reported her missing.
A court today decided that nearly all of Lee Malvo's confession can be used against him in his upcoming trial in the "DC sniper" case.
Malvo's lawyers had argued that police and prosecutors essentially conspired to keep Malvo away from his lawyers on Nov. 7, when federal charges against Malvo were dropped and he was transferred to Virginia custody. He had been in Maryland.The waiver that Malvo "signed" was marked only with an "X".Malvo's federally appointed lawyers on that day testified that they scrambled to find their client and prevent him from talking to police, but were unsuccessful.
But Roush wrote that "there is no evidence that Fairfax police or prosecutors colluded with federal authorities to spirit Malvo away to Virginia without the knowledge of his Maryland attorneys."
Roush also ruled that Malvo had no right to counsel on Nov. 7, because the federal charges against him had been dropped and the Virginia charges were not formalized until Nov. 8, when he made his initial court appearance. She also ruled that, even if he had the right to a lawyer, he knowingly waived it during his questioning with police.
Malvo had asked if he would "get to see his lawyers" prior to the start of the interview and was told that he would, but the court held that this was not a request for his attorney but only Malvo clarifying his Miranda rights.
I don't want to see Malvo get away with the murders he likely committed. Given the evidence against him - aside from his confession - it appears that he is guilty, and if that's the case, then he needs to be convicted and punished as called for in the law.
The problem I have is that the law enforcement officers and lawyers who spoke to him after his arrest appear to have played "fast and loose" with his legal rights, and this judge is letting them get away with it. Even if you feel that criminals have too many rights, and that the judge made the correct ruling, the ruling strikes me (who, admittedly, is not a legal expert) as being shaky at best, and since it is appealable after a trial is concluded, could potentially lead to an overturning of any conviction that is gained.
As far as I am concerned, neither violating a criminals rights to try and get additional information against him nor a legally questionable ruling that could lead to a conviction being overturned are good. Lawyers and cops know what the rules are and should avoid breaking them. That part is very simple. Nearly everyone gets angry when a criminal gets off on a technicality, and in many cases, its something that could easily have been avoided.
Judges should also uphold the rules, because when they don't, they put the case at risk for reversal on appeal. That's no better.
The flip side of that is that convicting someone using illegally obtained evidence, even if it's allowed by a judge, runs the risk of false convictions, something that only gives justification to the understandable concerns about the use of the death penalty. We've seen in cases like that of the Central Park jogger (among others) that false confessions do happen, especially when the interrogations take place under questionable circumstances. While I have to admit that I don't think Malvo's confession is false, the way in which it was obtained, and the fact that he was denied any legal representation, do serve to at least raise the question of just how voluntary it was.
I wrote last week about Ashleigh Moore, a 12-year-old black girl from Georgia who has been missing for going on 3 weeks now, but whose case had received little attention outside the Georgia press.
This past Saturday, America's Most Wanted featured Ashleigh as one of the missing children for the week. While it's still not anything near the publicity for Elizabeth Smart, it's a start, and I'm glad to see that her case is getting at least some attention outside her home state.
This is almost (but not quite) unbelievable.
ENRON, the bankrupt energy company, is trying to claim back tens of millions of dollars in taxes from America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the ground that it paid too much during the years when it fraudulently overstated revenues and profits.Yeah, you read that right. Criminal corporations want their tax money back. This, in spite of the fact that they made use of every tax shelter and haven possible to reduce their taxes as much as possible in the first place.The audacious move is also being considered by other companies embroiled in accounting scandals, including WorldCom - now called MCI - Qwest Communications and HealthSouth.
All the companies are believed to have paid appropriate amounts of tax on the revenues and profits they reported, even though these were false.The companies are arguing that the frauds that inflated their revenues were the result of the actions of individuals who worked for them and not the fault of the companies or their shareholders.
The companies are trying to claim that the extra taxes should be repaid as they are an extra burden on the shareholders, bondholders and employees who had invested in the company through their retirement plans. If I thought for a moment that the money would actually go to any of those people - in particular the employees who not only lost their retirement incomes (in the case of Enron, largely because the company kept encouraging them to invest in Enron's plan, even after the corporate officers were selling off their own shares, knowing the end was on the horizon), but also their jobs, and have been hurt the most by the criminal actions of the companies involved.
So, how much money are we talking about?
WorldCom has so far restated about $11 billion (£6.8 billion) of earnings, Enron $586 million and HealthSouth some $2.5 billion. Between them, tax experts told The Times, they could claim back more than $1.5 billion, if the IRS accepted their claims.In other words, a lot.
Personally, I could possibly understand refunding the tax money that was paid on income that didn't actually exist on the condition that no person who knew, should have known (based on their position within the company - you know, like senior officers) or participated in the fraud sees a single penny of it. There may need to be other conditions as well, to make sure it's fairly distributed, but that's my starting point.
One story that's been a staple of popular true crime documentaries (i.e. "American Justice", "The New Detectives" and "MSNBC Investigates, among others) in the last few years has been the case of little Sabrina Aisenberg. She was taken from her home in 1997 and disappeared without a trace. Sadly, the investigation into her disappearance has been muddled at best, and, resulted in the federal government being ordered to pay $2.8 million to cover the legal fees the Aisenbergs incurred while they were being investigated on the theory that they had killed her. In fact, a good deal of the interest in the story hasn't been because it's a "missing child" case, but because of the way the police mishandled the investigation into her parents and whether they were involved in her disapperance or not. One of the key elements in the case against them, which had led to a grand jury indictment against them, were tapes that had been made via listening devices placed in the Aisenberg's home. The tapes were eventually thrown out, however, when it turned out that most of them were inaudible, and that the police had lied when applying for permission to bug the Aisenbergs.
Now, finally, there may be a break in the case, and it's a doozy.
An Illinois family is cooperating willingly with an investigation into whether the child they've been raising is a girl who disappeared from Florida years ago, police said Friday.Apparently, a woman in Texas was being deported and gave the child to a nurse there, who then gave her to her sister in Pontiac, Illinois. The family wanted to adopt the child, but because there were no papers identifying her nor did she have a birth certificate, the court would not allow it. Instead, the court ordered a search for the girl's parents, and, as part of the search, her photo was posted to a "missing children" website. A woman who saw the picture thought she resembled Sabrina, and contacted the Aisenbergs. The next step will be to do DNA tests to see if the girl is their daughter.A DNA sample has been taken from the 6-year-old known as Paloma, and results are expected within two weeks, Pontiac Police Chief Donald Schlosser said.
If the test results match with Steven and Marlene Aisenberg, the Illinois family will surrender the girl, Schlosser said. He declined to identify the family.
With everything the family has been through, I can only hope that the child turns out to be theirs. To have their hopes raised at this point only to find another dead end would be devestating. I also think is great that the Illinois couple is cooperating and have agreed to give up the girl if it turns out she is Sabrina. Too often in cases like this, even if there should be little question about whether the people who have had custody of a child have any actual right to that custody, they will try to fight to retain custody of the child in court, only adding to the trauma of everyone involved.
If asked where they thought they might feel safest, I suspect most people would answer either in their home or in their church. And while we all want our homes to be safe, it's pretty well known that homes can be - and are - broken in to on a sadly regular basis. In a church, though, most people expect that they won't have to worry about being the victims of crime. Sure, it happens, but we generally think of it as an abberation, and as a result, crimes that happen in churches still have the power to shock.
Last weekend, one of the more shocking of church crimes happened. In a small church - only 50 members - a little over half of them decided to stay after the service, mingle and have coffee - a time honoured church tradition if there ever was one. In addition to the coffee and snacks one usually expects to find at these gatherings, though, at least 16 parishoners were also served arsnic.
State investigators said today that arsenic found in coffee served on Sunday in a church just north of here had been put there deliberately and that they were treating the death of one man who drank the coffee as a homicide.Now, crimes in churches aren't unheard of. It happens. Generally, though, the crimes committed are aimed at someone in specific or for a specific reason. There have been shootings at gay churches because of the criminal's hatred of gays, shooters who have come in during church services to kill someone in particular, and cases of ministers committing murder, most commonly of their spouse, for all the same reasons anyone else has. And, of course, there have also been the church sex-abuse scandals.Fifteen people remained hospitalized, five of them in serious or critical condition, after drinking the same coffee at a church council meeting at the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, a former potato-farming town of 651 people about 20 miles from the Canadian border.
But a crime like this - where there is, so far, no clear intended victim, and a certain randomness to who was affected (only those who drank the coffee) - is fairly rare within a church, and for that reason, more frightening than many others. In time, we may learn that it's not as random as it first appears, but cases like this tend to be difficult to crack unless the killer does something to give the game away.
While Ashleigh Moore may not be getting much in the way of national coverage, her story is making the rounds of the blogs. Hesiod at Counterspin Central asks a very poignant question:
Will Ashleigh's parents have to create an "Ebony Alert?"I hope not.
UPDATE: In a positive development on covering the story, the Washington Times has run a story about Ashleigh's disapperance - the first I've found outside the Georgia media thus far.
Last summer, when Elizabeth Smart first disappeared, questions were raised about what made her case more "special" or more "newsworth" than a similar case in Milwaulkee, where a young black girl named Alexis Patterson had gone missing - but who was getting far less attention than Elizabeth's. The most obvious differences in the cases were race and economic status - Elizabeth was from a white, middle-class family, while Alexis was from a poorer, black family.
Questions are now being raised again about the effect of race on determining what makes a missing child case a nationwide story or not. Over a week ago, 12-year-old Ashleigh Moore disappeared from her home. Her mother's boyfriend was the last person to see her, and there is a possiblity that the police have found blood in the boyfriend's car, though police won't release any further information. As of the time of this posting, a search at Google News shows that the only stories mentioning Ashleigh's name are from Georgia newspapers and TV stations. No non-local sources have picked up on the story.
Even in the area where Ashleigh lived and disappeared, people are questioning how much of an impact her race is having on the public's perception of the case and the amount of interest (or lack thereof) it's getting.
"It really bothers that there isn't more community here," said Donna Torres. Torres and her 13-year-old son Daniel also have attended a weekend candlelight vigil and search for Ashleigh. "If this were a white kid, there would be a whole lot of people out here."Obviously, not ever single missing-child case can have the level of coverage that Elizabeth Smart's got, nor can every potential crime have the kind of exposure that Laci Peterson's (a white, middle-class woman, by the way) received. The problem is when it seems that the only cases that do get such intensive attention from the national media are those involving white, middle-class women and girls. One would think that - at least occasionally - the disappearance of a black woman or girl would rate significant coverage.
One bit of good news in all of this is that now 41 states have adopted the Amber Alert program to help get word out as quickly as possible about missing children, and George Bush is signing a national Amber Alert bill into law today. In addition to establishing a nation-wide Amber Alert, the law will increase penalties for child kidnapping, require live in prison for some repeat child sex offenders and strengthens laws regarding child porongraphy.
Today, nearly a year after her disapperance, Alexis Patterson is still missing, and her case still receives little coverage outside it's local area. Ashleigh Moore has been missing for 9 days, and her story has yet to break on the national news scene. When the next missing-child story breaks, odds are it will once again be a white, middle- or upper-class child. It's happened too often for it to be a "coincidence" that the cases of black children don't get the same kind of coverage.
We like to pretend that the US has made significant strides in combating racism, and, admittedly, we have come quite a ways. But when we can't seem to work up as much interest in the case of missing black kids as we do for missing white kids, it's obvious we still have a very long ways to go.
I'm not sure there is a comment for this one...
O.J. Says He May Cover Blake Trial...except maybe "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - NOOOOOOOOO!"O.J. Simpson has denied widespread reports that he will be featured in a reality TV series. He told the Chicago Sun-Times: "I have no plans in any way to do a reality show even though people have approached me about it." However, he said, he had been contacted by some TV outlets to become an analyst at the Robert Blake murder trial. "I'd love to do it," he said. "I think I have a lot of insight. I don't know if he's guilty or not but I know there's no such thing anymore as innocent until proven guilty."
For those keeping up with the Laci Peterson case, the bodies of the woman and infant that washed up near Richmond, CA earlier this week have been identified as being Laci and her unborn child. Police have also arrested her husband, Scott, for her murder.
I know several people have been following the disapperance of Laci Peterson. ABC News is reporting that over the weekend, a full-term male fetus was found near Richmond, CA, and that another body had washed ashore today. Obviously, speculation is that this may well be Laci and her unborn child, a son she had planned to name Connor.
Richmond is about 75 miles away from Modesto, Calif., where Laci Peterson, 27, was about 7 ½ months pregnant when she disappeared last Christmas Eve.
Her whereabouts have been unknown ever since, and hope that she is alive has all but vanished.
Local police said it was still too early to tell the gender of the adult corpse, but said that reporters could infer that it was female, because the Modesto police had been notified.
In an interesting move, lawyers for John Muhammad, one of the two men accused of the Washington DC "sniper" shootings last fall, have requested and been granted access to a mitigation expert in the hopes of finding ways to make Muhammad seem more sympathetic to a jury (should the case go that far). A mitigation expert might also be able to help Muhammad's lawyers negotiate a better plea bargain for him, should they decide to go that route. One factor they're planning to investigate is whether or not Muhammad may have been exposed to gas or chemical weapons during the first Gulf War, and if they might have had an effect on his mental health.
Mr. Shapiro said his client was an Army engineer in the 1991 war. Persian Gulf war veterans who served with Mr. Muhammad said they believed he once threw a grenade into a tent full of fellow soldiers. None of the soldiers were killed, and the grenade-throwing incident could never be officially tied to Mr. Muhammad.
Prince William law enforcement officials said yesterday that Mr. Muhammad's former wife, Mildred, had told them that she noticed strange changes in his behavior after he returned from the war, and she told investigators that he had said that after the grenade incident, fellow soldiers tied him down and would not allow him to reach for his gas mask during a suspected chemical attack.
I understand why our criminal justice system makes room for mitigating factors when it comes to determining what charges should be brought against a person, whether they are guilty of a crime or not and how harsh of a sentence they deserve if they're convicted. At the same time, I don't feel that we necessarily require adequate proof that either the mitigating factors existed or that if they did exist that they had a significant impact on the person's ability to control their behaviour or understand what they were doing. For example, I have no problem with the idea of either reducing or dismissing a murder charge against someone who was obviously in immediate fear for their own life - such as when a burglar breaks into their home or if an abusive husband has begun another round of attacks. But I find the idea of "imperfect self-defense" to be preposterous.
"Imperfect self-defense" is when someone believes they have reason to be in fear for their life, and feels the only option they have is to kill whomever is threatening them - but they do it at a time when the person is asleep, unable to defend themselves or otherwise not currently engaged in the threatening behaviour. One of the best known examples of this defense is from the Menendez brothers trial, where they tried to claim that their lives were in danger from their abusive father, and that they shot both of their parents to prevent them from being able to abuse them again. The thing was, at the time they shot their parents, they weren't engaged in any kind of threatening or abusive behaviour - they were simply sitting in their den, engaged in their usual evening activities. In that case, of course, the jury saw through them and convicted them anyway, but the same defense has been used, sucessfully, in many other cases.
One of the biggest problems with "imperfect self-defense", however, is that the person charged with the murder usually had several other options available to them - such as leaving an abusive marriage, moving into their own home (in the case of young adults, like the Menendez brothers, who were still living with their allegedly abusive parents), and seeking police assistance or protection, among other ideas. Yet the person still chooses to commit a murder, and then asks society - as represented by the justice system - to forgive them, since they thought they might truly be in danger. (You know, the more I'm writing about this right now, the more it sounds like the same reasoning used by the Bush administration in justifying the war on Iraq....)
Mohammad may not be claiming "imperfect self-defense" - but looking at the possible exposure to chemical weapons during the Gulf War doesn't strike me as making much more sense. From the reports in I've read so far, it doesn't sound like there's any actual proof that he even was exposed to chemicals while in the Persian Gulf - and while his former wife says his personality had changed quite a bit after he returned from the war, there are many things other than chemical exposure that could have led to that - including the horrors of war itself. Yet do we want to give all soldiers an "out" if they decide to commit murder when they leave the army, by saying that participating in a war can be traumatic enough and change your personality enough to turn you into a murderer? If we make that excuse for one soldier, we have to be prepared for any soldier who thinks he can get away with it to try using the same excuse. Even if they stick with the idea that it was exposure to chemicals that made him a killer, do we want to give that exuse to any Gulf War I veterans who might need it - especially with no known proof (at this time) of exposure to chemical weapons or evidence that they can cause such a personality change?
When reasons for mitigation are clear, when there is evidence that some outside factor or force was acting on the person charged, and when we can demonstrate that said factor or force would have the effect necessary to reduce a person's own culpability in a criminal act, then mitigating factors need to be taken into consideration and charges or sentences need to be modified in accordance. But lets not just let people come up with flimsy excuses with little evidence and no way of showing that what they claim affected their behaviour actually did. We keep stepping further and futher away from requiring people to be responsible for their own actions, and that's a trend that needs to be halted in its tracks. Now.
Recently, Katrina Leung, a prominent Republican and Asian-American activist, who had been used by the FBI as an "asset" (code name "Parlor Maid") in learning what the Chinese were up to for roughly the last 20 years, was arrested on suspsicion of being a double-agent who gave many of our secrets back to the Chinese. She apparently had been having an affair with one of her "handlers" - who was also one of the top agents in our Chinese counterintelligence program - and was able to obtain classified material from him when he would leave papers and other materials in a room with her, unattended.
If the charges are true, the damage from this case could be huge. The Washinton Post notes that [t]op FBI officials have told members of Congress that every Chinese counterintelligence case investigated by the FBI since at least 1991 may have been compromised by a suspected agent of the Chinese government arrested in Los Angeles this week.
Several cases have likely been compromised, including the "big" ones that have made the news over the last 2 decades, such as the investigation of Wen Ho Lee who was accused of selling secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, whether nuclear secrets regarding neutron warheads were transferred from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and claims that the Chinese were trying to funnel large amounts of illegal contributions to politicians in the 1996 elections. This last one may end up being the most interesting, as Leung was well known to be a prominent Republican supporter and the investigation of the 1996 campaign-financing concerns focued mainly on Democrats, including Bill Clinton, who was President at the time.
One of the more interesting twists to the case is that Leung's handler and lover, James J. Smith, was alerted to the possiblity that she was a double agent in 1991, most likely by William Cleveland, Jr., a former Chinese counterintelligence agent, who was also having an affair with Leung. Cleveland had left the FBI to work at Lawrence Livermore Labs in 1993, and resigned from his post there last week as the story broke. Currently, he has not been charged with any espionage, but is under investigation.
Officials are suggesting caution should be taken before judging the situation:
Goss, a former CIA officer, stressed that charges against Leung and Smith have not yet been proven. FBI officials who supervise double agents such as Leung "are given a lot of latitude," he said, and may have legitimate reasons to provide bits of sensitive information.
If the FBI is unable to make a case against her, howeverk, the IRS just might. Apparently, in addition to potentially stealing secrets and giving them to China, Leung was also cheating on her taxes.
The 29-page government affidavit that details the espionage case against Leung also alleges that for more than a decade she has failed to report sizable amounts of her income to the Internal Revenue Service and has contrived elaborate tax schemes to defraud the government.
Federal investigators allege that Leung did not report the payments and expense reimbursements that the FBI gave her over nearly two decades on her taxes, even though she was advised twice by Smith to do so. The affidavit also charges that Leung was paid more than $1 million by a technology company based in Hong Kong, money that she did not report on tax forms.
Leung also had been claiming mortgage- interest deductions on her taxes for a residence that was not mortgaged, according to the affidavit. It details an alleged scheme in which Leung pretended to refinance a home that she owned by paying a foreign company that she and her husband controlled.
In the affidavit, an FBI agent asserted that Leung admitted to the alleged tax scheme when she was questioned by agents investigating whether she was spying.
I'm curious to see how much play this case gets. Given Leung's connections to Republicans, and, in particular, fund-raising for Republican politicians, this could be a real bombshell - especially since one of the cases that she may have compromised is the one involving Johnny Cheung, who, in 1999, admitted to having been given $300,000 that he was supposed to give to the Presidential campaign of President Clinton in 1996, though only $20,000 of the money was ever traced to the DNC.
With 20 years of Chinese counterintelligence on the line, the amount of damage Leung could have done may well be incalcuable, and who knows how many agents or politicans may be touched by this scandal. This will take a thorough, careful and fair investigation - not exactly what the FBI is always known for - but hopefully they'll be able to get this one right.
One thing longtime fans of the "Law & Order" Series seem to enjoy doing is watch the police procedural portion of the show to watch for the point where the cops will make a mistake which will later cause the district attorneys difficulty when evidence or statements obtained as a result of the mistake are thrown out of the case. The cops don't get it wrong in every episode, but because these are dedicated, passionate enforcers of the law, they sometimes get a bit over-eager to search a certain location before anyone has a chance to destroy evidence or to keep a suspect talking in hopes of gaining a confession.
According to an article in the New York Times, it looks like some real-life detectives may have exhibited a similar weakness when they finally had caught the DC-area snipers and had a chance to question Lee Malvo, the then 17-year-old co-defendent in the case.
Lee Malvo, the younger man charged in the Washington-area sniper attacks, indicated that he wanted to talk to a lawyer at the beginning of an interrogation last fall in which law enforcement officials say he confessed to several of the shootings, according to a summary of the interviews produced by the police in Fairfax County, Va.
Mr. Malvo, who has turned 18 since his arrest late last October in the shootings that terrorized Washington and its suburbs, told a Fairfax County detective that he had been promised that he would get to see his lawyers, according to the summary.
The detective, June Boyle, a 21-year veteran of the Fairfax police, told Mr. Malvo that he would be allowed to speak with his lawyer, but that she wanted to ask him a few questions about his background as a part of the booking process. Law enforcement officials say that in the hours of interviews that followed, which are recorded on five tapes, Mr. Malvo confessed to shooting several people, including Linda Franklin, an F.B.I. analyst whose death led to the capital murder charges that Mr. Malvo faces in a trial scheduled to begin in November.
It doesn't appear that this "error" is fatal to the case - there is other evidence tying Malvo to the killings - but it does raise the question of why a detective - especially one with 21 years of experience - would engage in such a violation of a suspects rights and risk losing the admissability of any confession that might result. In a case as high-profile as this one, you'd think that they'd want to take every precaution they could to preserve every piece of evidence possible - especially any statements made by the suspect while he's still recovering from the shock of being arrested.
It appears that part of what allowed the interrogation to happen in the first place is that John Ashcroft had ordered Malvo transferred from federal custody in Maryland to the local authorities in Virginia. Malvo's public defenders in Baltimore, however, had not been told that their client was being transferred, and Virginia had not yet appointed a public defender for him in their state. In addition, his court-appointed guardian had requested to be able to speak with him prior to the interrogation by the Virginia law-enforcement officers, but was denied. I suspect a good defense attorney may be able to make an argument that federal and local law-enforcement officials were deliberately trying to deny Malvo the right to have an attorney present at his interrogation - whether this was intentional or simply a major bungling of one of the more important aspects of a case like this.
Something else the article mentioned that I found very interesting is that it appears likely that the summary this information was taken from was leaked by the police themselves.
Mr. Malvo's chief lawyer, Michael S. Arif, did not return a call for comment on the summary. But John Spario, a lawyer for Mr. Muhammad, said that information about the summary fit into a pattern of leaks, presumably by the police, that threatened to derail both cases.
An investigator involved in the case said today that the sniper task force did not object to the leak because there was a strong likelihood that the statements would will be suppressed anyway. "This way at least the public will know what he said," the investigator said.
Whether that's the case or not, the anonymous investigator quoted above may have just helped shoot another hole in the prosecution's ability to try this case. In general, the motive for one side or another in a major case to leak information to "the public" that may not be usable in court is to reach any potential members of the jury pool. The police know that they may not be able to get the interviews - and Malvo's apparent confession - into court becuase of the procedural violations.
Getting the information out there now, however, get the idea that "he confessed" into people's minds. While juries aren't supposed to consider anything other than the evidence presented to them in the court room, if they're heard that "he confessed", that can have a big impact on how they view any other evidence. Weak evidence from the prosecution may be judged to be stronger because they know "he confessed" - and even strong evidence from the defense may become more dismissible to the jury for the same reason. The defense may actually be able to gain some leverage from this, and it shows significantly poor judgement on the part of those who made the leak and those who seem to approve of it.
This is a case that needs to be closely watched. Personally, based on what I've heard and read, I feel pretty strongly that they've got their men. I don't have much doubt about the guild of Malvo or Muhammad. I would hate to see the case, then, fall apart because the police were sloppy or didn't care about respecting the rights of either suspect at the time of the arrest, and now are showing disregard for the ability of the defendents to have an unprejudiced jury.
One thing longtime fans of the "Law & Order" Series seem to enjoy doing is watch the police procedural portion of the show to watch for the point where the cops will make a mistake which will later cause the district attorneys difficulty when evidence or statements obtained as a result of the mistake are thrown out of the case. The cops don't get it wrong in every episode, but because these are dedicated, passionate enforcers of the law, they sometimes get a bit over-eager to search a certain location before anyone has a chance to destroy evidence or to keep a suspect talking in hopes of gaining a confession.
According to an article in the New York Times, it looks like some real-life detectives may have exhibited a similar weakness when they finally had caught the DC-area snipers and had a chance to question Lee Malvo, the then 17-year-old co-defendent in the case.
Lee Malvo, the younger man charged in the Washington-area sniper attacks, indicated that he wanted to talk to a lawyer at the beginning of an interrogation last fall in which law enforcement officials say he confessed to several of the shootings, according to a summary of the interviews produced by the police in Fairfax County, Va.
Mr. Malvo, who has turned 18 since his arrest late last October in the shootings that terrorized Washington and its suburbs, told a Fairfax County detective that he had been promised that he would get to see his lawyers, according to the summary.
The detective, June Boyle, a 21-year veteran of the Fairfax police, told Mr. Malvo that he would be allowed to speak with his lawyer, but that she wanted to ask him a few questions about his background as a part of the booking process. Law enforcement officials say that in the hours of interviews that followed, which are recorded on five tapes, Mr. Malvo confessed to shooting several people, including Linda Franklin, an F.B.I. analyst whose death led to the capital murder charges that Mr. Malvo faces in a trial scheduled to begin in November.
It doesn't appear that this "error" is fatal to the case - there is other evidence tying Malvo to the killings - but it does raise the question of why a detective - especially one with 21 years of experience - would engage in such a violation of a suspects rights and risk losing the admissability of any confession that might result. In a case as high-profile as this one, you'd think that they'd want to take every precaution they could to preserve every piece of evidence possible - especially any statements made by the suspect while he's still recovering from the shock of being arrested.
It appears that part of what allowed the interrogation to happen in the first place is that John Ashcroft had ordered Malvo transferred from federal custody in Maryland to the local authorities in Virginia. Malvo's public defenders in Baltimore, however, had not been told that their client was being transferred, and Virginia had not yet appointed a public defender for him in their state. In addition, his court-appointed guardian had requested to be able to speak with him prior to the interrogation by the Virginia law-enforcement officers, but was denied. I suspect a good defense attorney may be able to make an argument that federal and local law-enforcement officials were deliberately trying to deny Malvo the right to have an attorney present at his interrogation - whether this was intentional or simply a major bungling of one of the more important aspects of a case like this.
Something else the article mentioned that I found very interesting is that it appears likely that the summary this information was taken from was leaked by the police themselves.
Mr. Malvo's chief lawyer, Michael S. Arif, did not return a call for comment on the summary. But John Spario, a lawyer for Mr. Muhammad, said that information about the summary fit into a pattern of leaks, presumably by the police, that threatened to derail both cases.
An investigator involved in the case said today that the sniper task force did not object to the leak because there was a strong likelihood that the statements would will be suppressed anyway. "This way at least the public will know what he said," the investigator said.
Whether that's the case or not, the anonymous investigator quoted above may have just helped shoot another hole in the prosecution's ability to try this case. In general, the motive for one side or another in a major case to leak information to "the public" that may not be usable in court is to reach any potential members of the jury pool. The police know that they may not be able to get the interviews - and Malvo's apparent confession - into court becuase of the procedural violations.
Getting the information out there now, however, get the idea that "he confessed" into people's minds. While juries aren't supposed to consider anything other than the evidence presented to them in the court room, if they're heard that "he confessed", that can have a big impact on how they view any other evidence. Weak evidence from the prosecution may be judged to be stronger because they know "he confessed" - and even strong evidence from the defense may become more dismissible to the jury for the same reason. The defense may actually be able to gain some leverage from this, and it shows significantly poor judgement on the part of those who made the leak and those who seem to approve of it.
This is a case that needs to be closely watched. Personally, based on what I've heard and read, I feel pretty strongly that they've got their men. I don't have much doubt about the guild of Malvo or Muhammad. I would hate to see the case, then, fall apart because the police were sloppy or didn't care about respecting the rights of either suspect at the time of the arrest, and now are showing disregard for the ability of the defendents to have an unprejudiced jury.
Back in December, I had posted an article on the drug scandal in Tulia, Tx, in which 46 people were arrested on various drug charges - 40 of which were black and the other 6 having strong ties to the black community. There had been a great deal of criticism about the case, especially when questions about the reliabilty of one of the officers who had been largely responsible for the arrests began to surface.
Bob Herbert of the New York Times had written a story on the situation, and described the reasons for concern. (To read the full article, you'll have to pay for access to the NY Times archives.):
There is no reason to believe that any of the people arrested in the humiliating roundup on July 23, 1999, were guilty of trafficking. No drugs, money or weapons were found. Several defendants have already been proved innocent. All were arrested solely on the word of a clownish undercover cop named Tom Coleman who had a penchant for making up charges, throwing his ''evidence'' into the garbage, scrawling important investigative information on his arms and legs, changing his testimony from trial to trial, making false statements while under oath, referring to black people as ''niggers'' and stumbling into legal trouble himself.
Of the 46 arrested, 38 eventually either went to trial or pleaded guilty after having seen those who were tried and convicted sentenced to long sentences, in spite of the near lack of evidence. The other cases were dismissed as the case started to unravel.
Today, the Times is reporting that - nearly 4 years after the arrests were made - prosecutors have filed to have all convictions and plea bargains overturned, and all of the defendents released, though any who are currently in prison will have to remain there until the higher court approves the motion. They have also agreed to split $250,000 among the defendents, with the usual condition that if they accept this money, they will not be able to sue any of the parties involved in the fiasco.
It's been a while since we actually got some really good news in this country - and while it may really only impact the Smart family and the family of the man accused of kidnapping her, it's a story every had heard about, and the safe return of a child kidnapped by someone other than a parent involved in a custody dispute is rare enough, that, for me anyway, it's rather heartwarming.
March 12 — Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her Salt Lake City bedroom nine months ago, was found alive Wednesday with a drifter who had once done work at the family’s home, police said. “It is nothing but a miracle,” said Ed Smart, the girl’s father.
Congratulations to the Smarts - I hope Elizabeth will heal quickly and as fully as possible from her ordeal!
March 10-11 -- "Burglars to be banned from suing victims". United Kingdom: "Burglars who are injured while committing a crime are to banned from suing their victims for compensation. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has bowed to public pressure after the outcry over the case of Brendon Fearon, the burglar who is trying to sue Tony Martin for £15,000 after being shot while breaking into his home." (David Bamber, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 9).
This one law I would like to see implemented here in the US. Criminals should not have the right to expect that they will be able to safely break into any place at any time. This has been a topic of late in the US because of a suit in which the family of a burglar who was killed while breaking into a shop by a booby-trap the frustrated, and thrice-robbed, owner had set up, was awarded $75,000 in compensation. The owner even gave criminals fair warning by posting signs - including one on the window the burglar broke in order to enter the shop - telling people there was an electronic booby trap, but the burglar decided to go ahead with the robbery anyway. His family took the store owner to court, and the store owner was found partially liable for the burglar's death.
To me, that's just outrageous. The only person responsible for the burglar's death is the burglar himself. In robbing the store, the burglar made a choice - he voluntarily chose to break the law, violate the store owner's property and face whatever risks come with that. It's pretty much common knowledge that if you decide to engage in criminal activities, you may find yourself hurt or killed as a result. As far as I'm concerned, once someone chooses to be a criminal, they're on their own. They should not be able to seek compensation to anything that happens to them as a result of their own bad choices.
Northstar Online recently ran an opinion piece about this case, making an argument that the award was justified.
People should use reasonable theft prevention devices when trying to secure their property. The device rigged to shock with 220 volts aided the death of the burglar, and just as easily could have killed a police officer or a rescue worker.
A homemade booby trap that is intentionally rigged to kill intruders is irrational and inhumane. No amount of property that could be lost is worth the cost of human life.
No burglar is ever punished by death in America.
Now, I will grant that they have a point about the trap being potentially hazardous to rescue workers or police officers - and had someone with a legitimate reason to be entering the store through the windows been injured or killed in the process, I would say that they or their family would be entitled to substantial compensation. The burglar, however, had no legitimate reason for entering through the window.
I think it's also important to note that their assertion that no burglar is ever punished by death isn't entirely accurate. In cases that make their way through our legal system, this is true. Burglary does not earn someone the death penalty. People who have broken into other people's homes, however, are frequently killed by the homeowner, or, in some cases, by police responding to the call for help. In those cases, the killing is generally considered justified. No criminal charges are filed, and there is no civil remedy to be sought by the burglar and/or his/her family.
I do believe that criminals should have certain basic rights as to how their are handled by the judicial system and in our prisons. They have a right to a fair trial and humane treatment. While committing the crime, however, they are voluntarily choosing to declare themselves as existing outside the law, and show that they have no regard for others lives or property. No one forces them to commit their crimes, and if they are injured or killed during the commission of the crime, they only have themselves to blame. Compensating them for foolish or wrong choices does little to deter others, and only serves to reward them for their illegal actions.
UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments left by Vince - he makes some very good points, and I may have to rethink my position on this one a bit...
Recently, officials from the state of California presented the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with evidence that during the massive energy crisis the state faced during 2000 and 2001, the states major energy wholesalers conspired to manipulate energy availability and otherwise create situations to artificially increase the price they could charge for power. The officials claim that the energy companies overcharged California consumers to the tune of $9 billion dollars and is now seeking refunds from the companies to their customers who were victimized by the scheme.
There are some who feel that white-collar crimes, such as this, deserve harsher punishment than just paying restitution or fines. They feel that corporations that commit crimes should be treated like any other criminal, and subject to a white-collar version of the states "three strikes" law, and a bill to that effect has now been introduced in the California State Senate.
California State Senator Gloria Romero recently introduced a bill that would hold California's law-breaking corporations to the same standard to which the state holds its law-breaking citizens. Three strikes and you're out. If a corporation commits three major violations that result in a fine of at least $1 million or a death, the California Attorney General will revoke the corporation's charter. For companies incorporated in other states, three strikes means that they will lose their right to transact business in California.
It's certainly a novel approach, and given that California is one of the nations most populous states, it could have a strong impact on businesses across the country who do business there. Firms that run afoul of California law and find themselves unable to do business there any longer may lose enough of their consumer base that they will end up bankrupt or simply shut down. I have no doubt that opponents of the measure will argue that putting companies out of business in this way could have a devastating impact on the economy - not just in California, but also in the other states where the company had been doing business.
I think this argument has some merit - in part because each state has their own laws and regulations, and what may be perfectly acceptable behaviour in New York might be illegal in California. At the same time, however, companies should be well aware of what the laws are for each state they do business in, and they should be expected to follow those laws. If a company is consistently engaging in actions that are serious enough to result in major fines or the death of customers (the criteria that would trigger the corporate three-strikes law), there's certainly a question as to what, if any, benefit there is in their continuing to do business.
It'll be interesting to see if there's enough concern over white-collar crime for it to gain sufficient support to become a point of public debate. Many people do not seem to consider white-collar crimes as being as "bad" as "regular" crimes - and are willing to cut corporations more slack in terms of what they can get away with. Some of this, I think, stems from the perception that white-collar crime doesn't really "victimize" someone they same way a robbery, assault or murder does - that it's "only money", so it can't be that bad. Yet with the economy in the poor shape its in, and money being as tight as it is, there may be a change in that perception. People can ill afford to be overcharged on their energy bills, or otherwise suffer the economic effects of corporate crime - and they may be more willing to support harsher measure to try and deter companies from committing those crimes in the first place.
For more views on this proposal, see the discussion at MetaFilter.
I hate living in Kansas. I really do.
Not that there's anything wrong with the area itself - granted, there's not much to look at here, but we get some fun weather (especially if you love thunderstorms), and the people are, for the most part, nice. It's just that somehow, our officials keep doing really stupid things that tend to reinforce the opinion many people already have that this is one of the more bassakwards places in the country to begin with.
Having our education board decide that students didn't need to be tested on the theory of evolution (and - since everyone teaches only what's needed for the big standardized tests, it meant that most teachers wouldn't bother teaching it any more - which was probably the point, but I digress). Having "underaged sex" laws that penalize an older gay teen who has sex with a younger one with significatly more prison time than had it been a male-female couple doesn't help any either.
But now, oh, now they're just getting really silly. Thanks to the vague ruling by the Supreme Court that declared "obscenity" to be pretty much whatever the "community" (most often as represented by the DA's office) decides it is, we now that the honour of being the state that just secured a federal conviction against a guy who had 2 pictures of nude adult women on his computer.
Thanks to a plea bargain, this heinous criminal is going to be allowed to remain free (perish the thought!), but he does get to have the federal government watching over his shoulder anytime he goes online in the next two years. He has to tell him his passwords, they can come check his computer anytime they want, and they can even attach tracking software to his computer so they can just watch everywhere he goes. One wrong click, and he can go to jail.
I think, perhaps, the only thing worse than the fact that this poor guy is in legal trouble for looking at what most people I know (and yes, this includes Kansans) would consider to be run-of-the-mill legal pornography, is how he got in trouble for it in the first place.
Apparnetly, he ordered photo copies of some electronic images, which included pictures of some young-looking women, through a Yahoo photo service. Yahoo sent an email to tell him that they images might be illegal, so he cancelled the order. You'd think that should be the end of it, but, obviously, it wasn't. The postal inspector (apparently called in by Yahoo) got permission to deliver the order to this guy - even though he'd cancelled it! He was then busted on child pornography charges and his computer seized and searched.
When his lawyer pointed out that, essentially, the government had trapped him into committing an illegal act (by delivering the order he'd cancelled upon learning that it might be illegal), they dropped the child porn charges, but were loathe to lose the case entirely. So, they decided that these two images of naked, adult women were offensive to Kansans, and as such, obscene, and offered him the plea bargain.
Now, it's kind of hard to argue that the pictures aren't obscene when the definition of obscene is, well, obscenely vague. How does one determine what the 'community standards' are? And, as his lawyer noted, "when a respected member of the community is threatened not only with prison but with the stigma of a crime of perversion, it's pretty easy for them to accept the government's later settlement offer of a plea to an obscure offense and probation."
I can't wait to see what they come up with next.
Typically, when two or more juveniles commit a crime, the older one is considered the "leader", or the more culpable, because they are older. Yet the way our juvenile system works can lead to an odd result.
Tonight on American Justice (a documentary program that deals with crime, criminals and the justice system in general), they did a piece on Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, the two boys who at ages 13 and 11, killed a teacher and four students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Because of their ages, the justice system had to handle them as juveniles, not adults (at the time of the killings, only those over 14 could be tried as adults), and the stiffest sentence they could be given would hold them in a juvenile facility until they each turned 18, at which point they will go to an adult facility until they are 21. Once they turn 21, they will be released with clean records.
Here's the irony, though. Even if both boys were considered equally culplable, Mitchell Johnson's sentence works out to 8 years, and Andrew Golden gets 10 years - for the same criminal acts. If, as is usually the case, Johnson is considered more responsible since he's older - he still gets a shorter sentence than Golden, simply because he was the elder when the crime was committed.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but there just seems to be something wrong with this current scenario...
Hints not shared in Oklahoma City bombing?
John Solomon
Associated Press
Two federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suggesting that white supremacists living nearby were considering an attack on government buildings
. However, the intelligence was never passed on to other federal officials in the state, documents and interviews show.
[...] But federal investigators said that they had no information about a specific target and had not even heard of McVeigh until his arrest, making it impossible to issue a useful warning.
It turns out that the FBI had been concerned that white supremacists associated with Elohim City in Oklahoma might make some kind of terrorist attack on April 19, 1995, as one of their "heroes", Wayne Snell, was being executed that day. Snell, along with two others, had been planning an attack (which was never launched) on the Alfred P. Murrah building - using plastique explosives and rocket launchers - in 1983, and were arrested 2 years later for the murder of a pawn broker.
Official reports indicate that no connection was ever found between Timothy McVeigh - who used a fuel and fertilizer bomb to destroy the Murrah building on April 19, 1995 - and Elohim City, but it seems more than a bit coincidental that he would choose to destroy the same target Snell has planned to attack on the day of Snell's execution. In addition, this page from the ADL, indicates that McVeigh had contacted someone within Elohim City, and that
Prior to the attack, at least one corrections official claims that he heard Snell bragging that an attack would take place on the day of his execution, and even correctly predicted that the initial response would be for people to assume that it had to be Middle Eastern terrorists who had caused the explosion. In addition, the ATF had received reports that people within Elohim City were discussing attacks including assassinations and bombings.
ATF documents show the informant provided agents with fragments of practice explosives detonated by Elohim City members and had suspicions about a possible target. "It is understood that ATF is the main enemy of the people of EC," one report states. ATF offices were in the building McVeigh struck with a truck bomb.
Despite the warnings and concerns, however, very little information was shared between the agencies, or with the local agencies in Oklahoma City. At one point, the ATF had planned a raid on Elohim City, but the FBI called it off. Later, the FBI agent in charge at that point stated that "At the time, they hadn't told me everything they apparently knew."
However, the thousands of pages of federal investigative memos and handwritten notes obtained by the Associated Press portray government miscommunications that mirror the intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Sadly, even though there was evidence following the OKC bombing that a lack of interagency cooperation and miscommunications may have prevented law enforcement from detecting and potentially stopping the plot to bomb the Murrah building, it's apparently little was done in the seven years between that tragedy and the WTC and Pentagon attacks to improve communication or cooperation.
One would think that shouldn't be a lesson we would have to be taught twice.
Producer Phil Spector arrested
Homicide investigation under way in Alhambra, Calif.
ALHAMBRA, Calif., Feb. 3 — Legendary record producer Phil Spector was arrested Monday for investigation of homicide after the body of a woman was found at a home in this Los Angeles suburb, authorities said.
I'd heard that Phil Spector was a real dog to his wife Ronnie, both during their marriage and after - making the divorce proceedings as unpleasant as possible - but somehow I just never thought I'd be hearing about him having murdered someone.
This is one of those stories I'll probably be following a bit....
Illinois Governor George Ryan's blanket commutation of all death sentences in his state will be one of the hottest topics on blogs today - and probably for the next few days. Rather than linking to any one of the many articles or essays on it (they won't be hard to find), I thought I would just offer a few comments of my own.
As I've mentioned before, I don't consider the death penalty to be a measure of justice. It's revenge, plain and simple. It's telling someone "what you did was so awful that we have to kill you". Killing the criminal doesn't really accomplish anything positive. There's no solid evidence that it serves as a deterrent by convincing others not to commit crimes, and it doesn't erase their crime or bring back back any of their victims. Due to the cost of appeals, it's arguable whether its more expensive to house a criminal for the rest of their lives or to execute them. And, of course, there's the wonderfully mixed message of "we have to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong".
This doesn't mean, however, that I don't think there are times when the death penalty is warranted. There are some criminals whose crims are so awful that revenge seems like the best idea. I'm not going to deny that there are some executions I've felt really good about - such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Timothy McVey (though I had some mixed feelings about that one, since I knew that executing him raised the risk that he'd be seen as a martyr - and since being executed seemed to be what he wanted) and others whose crimes have been heinous and whose guilt is well-estblished. If John Lee Malvo and John Muhammad are convicted of the DC-area "sniper" attacks (and it does appear that there is fairly good evidence of their guilt), I wouldn't mind seeing them put to death. But I don't try to justify this by saying that killing them somehow balances the scales. The scales can never be truly balanced in situations like this - the evil that they have done is greater than even the forfiture of their lives can outweigh.
The problem with the death penalty, though, is that it's pretty final. Once a person has been executed, there's nothing that can be done if you find you've made a mistake, and that is the impetus behind Gov. Ryan's decision to commute the death sentences of all death row prisoners in Illinois. He found that since the death penalty had been reinstated in 1977, 12 men had been put to death in his state, and 13 others, who had been convicted and sentenced to death, had been exonerated. Had their executions gone through, they would have been killed for crimes they did not commit. Since then, at least four more death row inmates have been found to be innocent and have been pardoned of the crimes for which they were wrongfully convicted.
When the price of vengence becomes the death of innocent men and women, that price is too high. Sure, killing bad criminals can make us feel a lot better. It can even make us feel somewhat safer. But under our current system, it is far too easy for someone to be wrongfully convicted, especially when there are careers to be made and clearance rates to be maintained. In Illinois, some of the convictions came about through the use of coerced confessions - some of which were obtained through the use of torture.
I know that this decision will be very hard for the families of the victims of the criminals who actually are guilty, and now have had their lives spared, and I have a great deal of sympathy for them. At the same time, however, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend that executions continue in a state where there have been so many wrongful convictions. I hope that the families can take some comfort in the fact that those who truly are guilty will have to live the rest of their lives in prison, constantly reminded of what they did, and eventually fading into obscurity, forgotten by most people, and left to die a pitiful death, most likely alone and most likely without anyone left to even care.
What Gov. Ryan has done takes a lot of courage, and a strong sense of rightness. Even though he is doing this near the end of his term, it is the one act that will most likely be linked with his name for the rest of his life, and may well determine if he has any kind of future in politics or not. While the decision is certain to be controversial, I hope that history will judge him favourably and recognize the reasoning behind his decision as both well thought-out and fair.
Court: Rape Can Occur Even After Consent
Mike McKee
The Recorder
01-07-2003
On Monday, the California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that it's rape if a man continues to have sex with a woman who originally consented but then changed her mind.
[...] In what she called a "sordid, distressing, sad little case," Justice Janice Rogers Brown dissented, saying the majority provided no guidance about what constitutes withdrawal of consent and what amount of force turns consensual sex into rape.
This is one of those stories that kind of leaves me scratching my head. On one hand, rape is a very serious problem that can inflict a great deal of trauma and cause a significant disturbance in its victims lives. Women have to be able to say "no" and have it taken seriously. On the other hand, however, there also has to be a point at which a man can trust that a woman has given her consent and that it's ok to go ahead and have sex with her without worrying about being labeled a rapist.
In either case, the idea of a woman being able to withdraw her consent post-penetration and then charge her partner/attacker with rape has some serious issues on a practical level and in terms of enforcement. As the dissenting opinion asked "...how soon is soon enough?" for the man to respond to the woman's instruction to stop, after they begun to have consentual sex. Another question would be how long after the intercourse has started does the woman have to change her mind? Can she withdraw consent at any point - even, say, when the man is at the point of orgasm? Or does there come a point where her initial consent is considered "final" and the is actually committed to the act? And, of course, there's the biggest question - how does she prove - beyond a reasonable doubt - that she withdrew consent and that her partner/attacker understood and deliberately ignored her wishes?
Having been a victim of date rape, I do understand the emotional devastation that it can cause, and I certainly don't take it lightly. It's been nearly 15 years since it happened, and there are still repercussions of it in my daily life. But in spite of my own experience, I do think there has to come a point where a woman has to be responsible for the choice she made in consenting to have sex with a man - even if she realizes it was a bad decision - and where he can be confident that "yes" means yes.
The Raven has a couple interesting notes today on Driving While Politically Correct and Quality of Life Crimes. The following is what I left in his comments section. I thought it might be of enough interest to post here as well:
You know, things like police profiling and cracking down on the quality of life crimes always leave me feeling a bit conflicted. From a pragmatic point of view, there is a certain validity in the idea that if someone looks out of place, there may be reason to be suspicious. Yet, there is also something fundamentally wrong about stopping someone just because they're black in a "white neighborhood" or vice versa.
Similarly, the quality of life crimes issue falls on an odd crux point - enforcing even the small crimes sends a message that crime in general will not be tolerated, and in areas where people know that a litterbug is going to get busted, then a drug dealer is pretty likely to as well. At the same time, the acts being penalized are, well, petty nuisances in general, and it seems kind of silly to have a special force just to persue them.
In the long run, I try to temper my impulse to view profiling as a valid technique with the recognition that civil rights are the bedrock of what this country was built to be. I also have to remember that part of my ability to see it as somewhat pragmatic stems, at least in part, from the fact that I also know I'm not likely ever to be profiled (unless I'm doing something to may my religion apparent, which can sometimes be enough to get you looked at twice), so I don't feel the fear of what it represents.
As for the quality of life crimes, though, I do think - if the laws are applied objectively and not used as excuses to harass people of a certain class, race or other demographically-determined qualifier - that they can be an effective deterrent to other crimes as well. When an area is cleaner, quieter, and residents can feel safer, they are also more likely to take pride in their neighborhood or their city, and do more to take care of it themselves. That kind of pride can help neighbors become something of a deterrent force themselves - they will frequently be more likely to watch for signs of more serious crimes and take other steps to promote their own safety. So, while its a nuisance to have cops busting people for minor crimes, over the long haul, it can be of a benefit to the community as a whole...
After hearing on the school bus that messages could be sent to the FBI via their website, but "nobody would care" about it, a Warren, MI, teenager decided to test out the theory. Unfortunately for him, the rumour was wrong.
Johnnie Edward Harris, 17, is currently on trial for "using the Internet to communicate with another person to commit a crime". Allegedly, on two different occasions, he sent messages to the FBI via their website, threatening to kill the President. Of course, the Secret Service tends to take threats of this nature seriously, since it's very hard to tell if someone is serious or not.
Amusingly, even though the kid sent threats that specifically mentioned the President directly to the FBI, his attorney tried to argue that the charges were groundless because the threat was not directed to a specific person, but rather were just "put out there" on the Internet.
While I do think that the FBI and Secret Service may overreact at times to statements that are obvious hyperbole and have no intent behind them, at the same time, when multiple messages are sent anonymously - via a library computer - to the FBI specifically threatening to kill the President, its understandable that they'd have to investigate. In some situations, the only way to deter someone from playing pranks (and thus wasting the FBI/Secret Service's time and resources) is to make it clear that doing so will result in some kind of punishment - in this case, Harris faces up to 2 years in prison -- had he been over 18, he could have been eligable for up to 5 years.
The Latest From Tulia. Some tentative, very preliminary steps are being taken to address one of the great miscarriages of justice in the country. By Bob Herbert. [New York Times: Opinion]
A little over 3 years ago, 46 residents of Tulia, Tx, were arrested and charged with selling cocaine. Of the 46 arrested, 40 were black, and the other 6 had various ties to the black community. All were poor, and at the time of their arrests, no money, drugs, weapons or other evidence was found to support the allegations, and the prosecution's case rested on the testimony of Tom Coleman, an officer whose reliability as a witness is open to question.
The cases went to trial, and a series of all-white juries found most of those tried guilty - with sentences ranging from 14 years to over 430. As it became clear that most cases would end with convictions and stiff prison terms, several of those arrested entered into plea-bargains. A few were able to prove that they were at work or out of town at the time that Tom Coleman claims that they were selling drugs to him (as part of an undercover sting operation he was running), but even as more information comes to light indicating that the cases are likely to be bogus, there are still 14 people in jail on charges stemming from the early morning raid.
Recently, an appelate court has returned some of the cases back to the original court for further investigation, and the judge that presided over the original trials has recused himself. A new judge, who has no ties to the law-enforcement system in Tulia, has been appointed to take over the cases.
Links for additional information:
[Ed Note: This article has been slightly revised from it's original posting - revisions made at 12:30am 12/20]
Be afraid.... be very afraid.... of anti-war activists.. On December 4 the FBI issued an advisory warning corporate entities of possible danger of attack from anti-war activists. Tom Paine believes this could be an attempt to scare the public, smear the antiwar movement and discourage antiwar protests. What do you think? According to the FBI advisory, this week, December 15-21, has been set aside as a "week of... [No War Blog]
An interesting commentary on a recent advisory issued by the FBI's Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) and what it might mean can be found at TomPaine.com.
According to the article, the FBI has issued a warning of possible violence in the coming week by anti-war activists who have become loosely affiliated through the Internet into a group called "Every Day a Circle Day". The international human rights group, Global Exchange, however, says that they've never heard of "Every Day a Circle Day" or of any plans for actions such as described in the FBI's warning.
Since "Every Day is a Circle Day" is said to be an Internet group, I thought I'd see if I could find out anything about it. Using the ever handy Google, I entered "Every Day a Circle Day", as a phrase, and found only 4 references. The first was to the TomPaine.com article noted above. A second was to LewisNews.com, and is also an article reporting on the warning.
The other two lead to a site called InfoShop News. InfoShop News promotes itself as "anarchist, activist and alternative news". One article is a report on the FBI's warning. The other article, however, was posted on October 19th, and has "Every Day a Circle Day" listed as it's author. Interestingly, when you check the site profile for "Every Day a Circle Day" offers no URL for anyone to refer to or any other information. There is an email address posted at the end of the October 19th article, but according to yesterday's InfoShop News article, an e-mail sent to "Every Day a Circle Day" had not been responded to as of press time.
In part, the October 19th posting reads:
This is a call for a week of action against the war apparatus during December 15-21, 2002. It is necessary, for the sake of those who our governments voraciously long to slaughter, that we take this and every possible opportunity to strike at the executioners' hearts. Further, a deafening void of resistance to recent warmongering would likely result in a truly endless war as we careen closer and closer to a probable cataclysmic conclusion. The lives we save may very well be our own. [...]
[...] ACT, AND DON'T GET CAUGHT
This is a call for an explicit and direct attack upon the war machine. This call is soliciting damages. This is a call for resistance, not merely demonstration or advocacy, or scripted acts of "civil disobedience" where all the participants politely go to jail.
This initial article seems to have drawn little attention, even at the InfoShop News site. Only three responses were posted prior to December 16th, one asking what specific kind of action was to be taken, one speculation that "the sky's the limit" and one noting that there had already been a call made for two days of social disobedience in solidarity with the Argentinean popular rebellion".
The comments posted on December 16th, however, offer the following warning:
Do not allow government provacteurs to promote outrageous violent acts that simply promote a massive and over-whelming crack-down. Repression does not authomatically promote revolt. Usually it simply means even more massive defeat of protest.
Most of the follow-up replies also support the idea that this initial posting was from an agent provocateur. One also points out that ziplip.com, the domain that "Every Day a Circle Day"'s reported e-mail address belongs to is a corporate digital security firm that deals with encryption software.
I also did a search using Google's Newsgroups search engine, and found there only 2 postings, both about the FBI's warning; one at misc.activism.progressive and one at alt.conspiracy.jfk.
What does it all add up to? That's hard to say. On the face of it, the idea of an Internet organization calling for action to be taken against the givernment and the "War Machine" not only has it's e-mail address located at a firm that specializes in encryption but doesn't even have a website is certainly odd. For a grassroots group trying to promote a week-long "Call to Action" to only post one message (that I've been able to find - the TomPaine article notes that about 3 weeks after it was posted at InfoShop news, it also appeared at Maritimes Independent Media Centre, but I was unable to locate the article there), two months prior to the event, with no follow-up, makes little sense. Typically, if you're trying to get the word out about something, you post it as many places as you can, and, in particular, you plaster the Usenet newsgroups with your missive - and you repost it frequently, to remind people and build support. Most importantly, it seems odd that, given the limited distribution of this "call to arms", the FBI would find it of enough concern - even in the absence of a verifiable e-mail address, a website for this "Internet" group and the usual "chatter" that would typically accompany a protest event of this nature - to issue a warning about it.
If anyone had any other information about it, please post it to the comments for this entry. I find it very disturbing to think that someone in the government might have gone so far as to create a message for the purpose of trying to stir up trouble, and that the FBI is using that message (whether they know its origins or not) to discredit the anti-war movement. Unfortuantely, based on what I've been able to find, I'm not sure how else to look at this.
Press Release from AIDS Healthcare Foundation on their lawsuite versus GlaxoSmithKline
AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Anti-Trust Complaint Amended to Include GSK’s Blockbuster AIDS Drugs Combivir & Trizivir. Fraud During Patent Process Used to Procure Invalid Patents on AZT and Other subsequent HIV Drugs.
15 October 2002, NEW YORK, NY - The largest AIDS organization in the United States today announced that it has filed an amended federal anti-trust complaint against British-owned GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and related companies. AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s (AHF’s) lawsuit was filed after the discovery that Burroughs Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) lied to the United States Department of Commerce Patent and Trademark Office in 1986 in order to secure the patent on AZT (Retrovir), a key component in both of GSK’s current best-selling AIDS medications. Burroughs neither invented AZT (which was first created in 1964 as a possible cancer drug), nor showed AZT’s efficacy against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), yet claimed to the Patent Office that “we have now discovered that …[AZT] is useful for the treatment of AIDS…” when it filed for and secured the patent.
“AHF’s counsel has found the proverbial ‘smoking gun’- fraudulent statements on the patent application for the very first AIDS drug, AZT,” said Michael Weinstein, AHF president. “We believe that Glaxo’s subsequent patents on these newer AIDS drugs should be invalidated as well as one of their primary components- AZT- was illegally patented by the pharmaceutical giant. It is our hope that this amended lawsuit will break Glaxo’s monopolistic hold on key AIDS drugs worldwide.” AHF’s amended complaint also adds GSK’s two best-selling AIDS drugs, Combivir and Trizivir- a primary component of which is AZT- to the suit.
The initial patent application for AZT and its medicinal use against HIV was rejected by United States Department of Commerce Patent and Trademark Office Primary Examiner Ethel G. Love on January 9, 1986. On July 14, 1986, an attorney for Burroughs (GSK) paid a $390 dollar fee- roughly the cost today of one patient’s one year supply of life-saving generic versions of Glaxo’s $10,000 AIDS medications- to respond to the rejection and amend and secure a patent on AZT. In response, the pharmaceutical company’s attorney Donald Brown stated: “With all due respect to the Examiner’s allegations of obviousness, it is quite apparent that the NIH and others skilled in the art have been searching for a drug that will work, all apparently with little success to date.”
In fact, the NIH had been sent samples of AZT (“Compound S” as it was called) by Burroughs for testing. NIH scientist Hiroaki Mitsuya performed tests in mid-February, 1985 that confirmed that AZT or “Compound S” was active against the HIV virus. Burroughs officials were informed of the results by telephone on February 20, 1985- a full seventeen months before Burroughs filed its response claiming that the “NIH and others…have been searching… with little success to date.”
“They lied to the patent office in the 1980’s about discovering AZT’s ability to treat AIDS, and in doing so secured exclusive rights to manufacture it,” said AHF’s Weinstein. “AZT was developed with federal assistance in the 1960’s, and the National Institutes of Health tested it for HIV use in the 1980’s, but Glaxo secured patents on the substance in the’80s and locked competitors out. They then priced AZT at thirty-two times the cost of manufacture, a practice repeated with every new AIDS drug since then.”
Robert D. Becker, a partner at Manatt specializing in patent law, said GSK's predecessor Burroughs Wellcome “made matters worse by asserting the invalid patents against two generic manufacturers in the early 90's to block cheaper generic versions of AZT. Although Burroughs successfully blocked the drugs, the validity of the patents was never decided."
AHF- a non-profit that provides medical services to over 12,000 with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and Africa- is suing for damages created by such artificially high prices. “It’s patent piracy that has cost untold numbers their lives and is denying treatment to millions today,” said Weinstein, “all in the name of corporate greed. How many more lives could we have saved if Glaxo had not gouged the government and AHF for almost 15 years now?”
AHF’s lawsuit also describes a pattern of such abuse by GSK in marketing AIDS drugs. AHF charges that Glaxo’s abacavir (Ziagen) and 3TC (lamivudine) are manufactured and sold pursuant to exclusive licenses from the University of Minnesota and Emory University. Despite the fact that the drugs were developed with U.S. tax dollars, GSK is doing all that it can to gouge the public and price the drugs out of reach.
AHF claims damages as a major purchaser of these medications for its uninsured patients. “Enron’s fraud cost jobs and savings,” said Weinstein. “GSK’s fraud has cost AIDS patients their lives, and has cost the federal and state governments billions of dollars in ill-gotten gain.”
AHF in the past has criticized GSK for spending too little on assisting people with AIDS in the developing world, which by Glaxo’s own account is about $55 million over the last decade. “That’s three-tenths of one-percent of Glaxo’s AIDS drug sales,” said Weinstein.
In calling for pricing based on cost, Weinstein contrasts the annual price of triple-combination anti-retroviral care charged by GSK, generics manufacturer Cipla, and the Thai government: “Glaxo charges the U.S. government $10,600 annually, Cipla’s price is $440, and the Thai’s charge $336. Since Glaxo didn’t invent or discover AZT, Ziagen or 3TC, what could possibly justify the difference?” In developing nations, Glaxo’s so-called preferential prices are also up to double that charged by Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and Pfizer, said Weinstein.
The amended lawsuit was filed in United States Federal Court for Central District of California (Western Division) on Friday October 11, 2002. Manatt attorneys Ronald S. Katz, John F. Libby, Robert D. Becker, and Noel S. Cohen represent AHF in this action.
Surgical tags plan for sex offenders
Silicon chip to be inserted under skin
Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 17, 2002
The Observer
Britain is considering a controversial scheme to implant surgically electronic tags in convicted paedophiles amid fears that the extent of the abuse of children has been massively underestimated.
Documents obtained by The Observer reveal the Government could track paedophiles by satellite, with a system similar to that used to locate stolen cars.
The tags can be put beneath the skin under local anaesthetic and would also be able to monitor the heart rate and blood pressure of the abuser, alerting staff to the possibility that another attack was imminent.
As the US Supreme Court plans to decide the Constitutionality of sex-offender registries, the UK is looking into the possiblity of an even more draconian plan - requiring paedophiles to have an electronic tag implanted under their skin to not only monitor their location, but to also take readings to see if they are exhibiting biological signs of "nervousness and fear", which might indicate that another attack is about to occur.
The UK has been known for taking a more authoritarian stance when it comes to crime prevention than the US has, so while such a plan may seem to be unlikely to go anywhere in American, in the UK it has a better chance of being implemented.
In some ways, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. The tag would only be required for convicted paedophiles, and its widely held that there are no effective treatments or preventitive measures to help an offender avoid repeating his crimes. Unless paedophilia is made a crime that receives an automatic life sentence without parole, anytime a paedophile is released back into the community he is once again a threat to any children he happens to be around.
But the larger implications of this idea are somewhat more disconcerting. First, paedophilia isn't the only crime with a high recidivism rate. If tagging paedophiles is considered appropriate because of their tendency to re-offend, would it not also make sense to tag criminals from other categories that are deemed likely to commit the same kind of crime again? Beyond the obvious civil rights issues and possible "slippery slope" concerns, the logistical issues would also need to be evaluated.
For tracking to be effective, someone has to be paying attention to where the tracked individual is going. To create some kind of a computer program that would be able to not only monitor all of the signals being received, but then to analyze them by individual, location, biological readings and criminal history to determine if there might be a crime about to happen would be no small task - but to have it done manually through human observation would take a great deal of manpower. Without effective tracking and analysis, however, the value of the program as a crime preventative is diminished, though it would still make for excellent evidence in any subsequent trial.
One other point of concern is with the idea of monitoring biological reactions in order to predict when a crime might be about to occur. According to the article, the tags would look for signs of "nervousness and fear" - conditions that most humans feel on a fairly regular basis without there being any involvement on their part in commiting a crime. What kind of a threshhold would there be that would trigger concern of a crime being committed? How would they be able to differentiate between the kind of "nervousness and fear" an offernder might experience while approaching a potential victim and the "nervousness and fear" that someone might feel if they've been startled or had just nearly avoided being part of an automobile accident? And how would law-enforcement resources being allocated to allow for dispatch to prevent a crime if it's determined one may well be under way without running the risk of draining resources from other aspects of their work?
The technology for this kind of a program is still in development, but it's important to make sure that all of these questions, in addition to the larger civil rights issues, are addressed before entering into any kind of a program with the potential ramifications that this one might have.
On 11/10 and 11/11, I posted two articles that talked about how the government has been handling the case of John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, the accused DC-area snipers. In both articles, I noted that Malvo had been interrogated prior to his having had either a lawyer or a guardian appointed to help him. According to today's New York Times editorial, this is incorrect. Malvo had been appointed a guardian prior to the interrogation. During the 7 hours Malvo was being interrogated, however, his guardian asked that the questioning be stopped (as is a guardian's right to do). His request was denied and he was told to leave the police headquarters.
The government's disregard for Mr. Malvo's juvenile status was dramatically illustrated last week, when police interrogated him for seven hours outside the presence of his court-appointed guardian. Todd Petit, the lawyer appointed to serve as a stand-in for Mr. Malvo's parents, asked the police to stop, but they continued, and ordered Mr. Petit to leave police headquarters. It makes a mockery of the institution of guardianship for the government to appoint a guardian and then prevent him from being present for an interrogation that could lead to his ward's execution. - New York Times editorial, 11/12/2002
"Even if you don't believe in capital punishment, the legislature has said capital punishment is available for certain crimes," Mr. Horan said, adding, "If this doesn't qualify for the death penalty, what does?" - Quoted in the New York Times
This is something I just have to get off my chest. It drives me nuts to hear people, time and time again, justify seeking the death penalty by saying "If this doesn't qualify for the death penalty, what does?". In fact, it's probably my second least favourite phrase (my #1 least favourite being "If I can do it, anyone can", but that's a whole different rant).
How many times have we heard this tired cliche trotted out by some vengeance-minded prosecutor, cop, or politician to help try and placate those who don't support the death penalty, but might be able to be swayed in this particular case. The problem is, of course, that just about any case horrific enough to be eligible for the death penalty will also be horrific enough for people to use as an example of the "if this case doesn't justify it, what does..." cannard.
This is yet another example of why we, as a society, need to decide if we're going to view the death penalty as a form of justice, which I still think is a very shaky proposition, or if we're going to acknowledge that it is social vengeance - something that, while not necessarily serving the purpose of justice, sure does feel good on a primitive level.
Trying to use the example of a particularly heinous case to support the "death-penalty-as-justice" theory actually tends to defeat the purpose. For the death penalty to be just, it would have to be applied consistantly under an objective set of standards, rather than subjectively and on a case-by-case basis as it is now.
Report: Teen sniper suspect confesses. FAIRFAX, Va. - John Lee Malvo, the 17-year-old accused in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, has admitted to police that he was the triggerman in some of the killings, The Washington Post reported Sunday. [USA Today: Nation]
It's interesting to note that the reported confession came during the 7-hour interview conducted with Malvo before he was appointed a lawyer or a guardian. It's also interesting that the only crime the police have specificed on which he admitted to being the triggerman (though they've indicated that he confessed to others as well) is the murder of Linda Franklin, the FBI analyist who was shot in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in Virginia - the state preparing to prosecute him.
Perhaps it might be cynical to suggest that this "leak" might be an intentional attempt to taint the jury pool before its even selected, but given many of the other irregularities of this case, it is a possiblity that has to be considered. The confession is likely to be thrown out in court. It was obtained by police in an interview with a minor, without a lawyer or guardian to help him protect his own rights, or to help verify a voluntary waiver of those rights. With the information coming out now, it's likey that most anyone who could be called for jury duty in this case wil have heard about the confession prior to the start of jury selection, and will be able to take that into consideration, even if its never formally presented as part of the case.
I have to admit, generally I tend to lean more toward the feeling that suspects are given too many rights, and that too many cases are thrown out because of technical errors that occured while the law enforcement professionals thought they had a valid foundation for taking the actions that they did. Mistakes happen, and it bothers me when someone can exploit a good-faith error and turn it into an acquittal. In this case, however, there have been too many questionable actions to think that they all are innocent mistakes. This latest one just adds to the tally, and makes it that much more difficult for Muhammad and Malvo to get a truly fair trial.
I know that for many people, guilt is a foregone conclusion for these two. Hell, I'm even pretty well convinced that they did it. But that doesn't mean that they don't deserve - and aren't entitled to - fair treatment by our justice system.
NOTE: (added 5/10/03) The main article referenced in writing this piece was written my Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who resigned in early May after it was learned that he had turned in a number of stories that contined factual errors, fabricated or plagiarized passages or were otherwise questionable. I have reviewed the list of articles that the Times has said were problematic and this particular article was not included (as of today).
The way the prosecutions of John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are being handled can give us some good insight into what John Ashcroft considers "appropriate" in a criminal case. While it's certainly understandable that Ashcroft, and much of the public, want to see Muhammad and Malvo tried, sentenced and executed as quickly and neatly as possible, the fact that their crimes were so horrific and that the case against them appears so compelling is why its so important that we make sure this is handled fairly. If we give in to the emotional impulses most of us have, full of rage and vengeance, we run the risk putting emotional satisfaction ahead of justice, and it is justice, here, that MUST be served.
As reported in the New York Times, there are already a number of questionable elements to how this case has been handled:
Playing games like musical lawyers, interrogating a minor with neither a lawyer nor a guardian present, detaining a minor in an adult facility, bringing in evidence of crimes outside the scope of the court's jurisdiction and forum shopping for the place most likely to execute the defendents are things we, as Americans, should not tolerate from our justice sytem. We don't have to believe that the defendents are not guilty, we don't even have to like them - but we do have to ensure that they get a fair trial, and that they are treated by the courts the same ways we would want to be treated, should we ever face trial for anything.
We've already seen that the government is trying to loosen a lot of the regulations that currently help to ensure that we are properly protected as Constitution requires. So far, the Justice department has sought the ability to join religious groups or churches, even if there is no indication that any kind of criminal or terroristic activity is being discussed or planned, so that they can spy on the churchgoers and other participants, incase something does come up. They've tried to implement Operation TIPS, whereby postal and utility workers, truck drivers, and others with access to your home for legitimate purposes could report back to the FBI if they spot anything of "concern" in your home or behaviour. The Pentagon is now seeking the ability to analyze - by computer - data including e-mails, bank transaction records, travel documents and telephone records, without a subpeona and without any reason to even suspect something might be up. As with the infiltration of religious groups and churches, they just want to be able to spy on citizens in case something odd pops up.
When you add that to their treatment of "enemy combatants" the picture turns even darker. Enemy combatants can be held indefinately with no charges filed against them, and the Justice department doesn't believe that a judge should even have the right to oversee their handling of a case or be able to periodically find out why the person is still being held. Enemy combatants can be denied any contact with their attorney, leaving them undefended and at the mercy of the governments lawyers. And these practices don't apply just to foreigners who we have captured while at war, but also to American citizens who have been declared enemy combatants, such as Jose Padillo, who the government has been holding for several months, now, without any charges, without any contact with his family, and without legal council.
There's no denying that, if Muhammad and Malvo are guilty of the crimes they are accused with, that they deserve to face whatever punishment they are given. But unlike the case of Jose Padillo or John Walker Lindh, both of whom were considered potentially tied to Al Qaeda, and thus potentially terrorists (a category that some might feel is deserving of fewer rights or harsher treatment than other criminals), Malvo and Muhammad are "ordinary" criminals. Yet even in how their case is being treated, we see some of the same themes - detention and questioning with a lawyers presence and denying them access to a lawyer for as long as possible. This cannot be accepted as the "new" standard by which cases can be tried.
If the Pentagon and Justice departments get their way and are able to infiltrate religious groups or randomly scan personal data to look for potentially "suspect" patterns, keep in mind that it will increase the chance of innocent people being looked at for crimes they may not have commited. If we allow the government to bend or break the rules for Malvo and Muhammad, it can set a prescedent that can then be used in later cases. I know I wouldn't want to have tactics like that used against me, would you?
Cops ponder free cruisers funded by ads
By Mark Schlueb
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 1, 2002
In Central Florida and across the country, small-town police chiefs are salivating at this newest idea in law-enforcement circles, tempted by an offer of free squad cars -- albeit ones emblazoned with NASCAR-style ads -- from a startup marketing company in North Carolina.
Faced with tight post-Sept. 11 budgets, many towns, including Edgewood, Oakland and Windermere,think that sounds more appealing than ever. Eachis considering it.
Some criminal-justice experts have already trashed the idea, however. They say that covering patrol cars with ads for burger chains and muffler shops undermines police officers' authority and creates a minefield of potential conflicts of interest.
It's not hard to sympathize with police agencies that are having budgetary crunches. With the economy slowing down, tax revenues are down, and so there's less money to be split among all of the various agencies that are dependent on those public funds. There's no doubt that cars do need to be replaced, and they're not cheap, but I have a hard time seeing plastering them with advertising as the best option.
One of the potential problems the article mentions is that of a conflict of interest, and I think that's a very valid point. I think we all know of businesses that have engaged in criminal activities, or, worse, are fronts for criminal activities. When money becomes part of the relationship between law enforcement and those for whom they're enorcing the law, it is undeniable that problems will arise.
Almost every police department has rules that forbid officers from taking anything that might resemble a bribe, a rule that is supposed to even include things like free or discounted meals, free coffee or donuts. Somehow, I would think that helping to fund free police cars would fall under that same kind of a rule, since the effect would be roughly the same - the police are gaining a benefit at the business owners expense, and can end up feelin endebted to the buisness owner in return for his or her generosity.
It makes sense for police and other public departments to look for alternative ways to getting the equipment they need, but there would need to be a way to help insure that whatever method would be used would prevent the cops from knowing who their benefactors are. Sadly, that's a lot harder to work out than it sounds.
Operation Trick No Treat. No home delivery this year for pedophiles: "Under Operation Trick No Treat, sex offenders in Norfolk and Virginia Beach were ordered to spend 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday in parole and probation offices... Participants watched educational videos related to their offenses, were tested for substance abuse and talked to counselors." [Daily Rotten]
This is actualy a pretty good idea! Yes, it may seem to be a continuing "punishment" for sex offenders, but from a public safety viewpoint, it makes good sense. Given the rate of recidivism when it comes to sexual offenses, especially by pedophiles, taking steps to prevent them from coming in contact with potential victims is a reasonable measure to take. I also know from experience that even if you leave your porch light turned off (which is supposed to be the signal that your home doesn't participate in Trick or Treat), there will still be a number of kids who'll ring your bell to see if they can get something.
I remember when I was a little kid, Halloween was a very popular holiday, but even then we were hearing warnings about the dangers of ringing a strangers doorbell. Of course, the concerns in the 70's were more along the lines of razor blades or injected poisons and not sexual predators, but I'm sure they were there all along.
Fortunately, at least some of the sex offenders didn't seem to object to the diversion. The article notes that:
"It makes sense," said Charles E. Davis, 64. "When you're not supposed to be around children, and they do come around your home ... that's the reason." Others said they felt that attending the session protected them from being falsely accused.
Hopefully, other communities will pick up on the idea - it's better for the kids, and it may well be better for the pedophiles as well.
The Salt Lake Tribune -- Pounds of Flesh
The various jurisdictions involved in the terrifying Washington sniper case no longer have the incentive to blame one another for the seemingly endless days of fear. Now they are challenging one another for the honor of pulling the switch on one or both of the suspects.
In neither case has the American criminal justice system acquitted itself with honor.
While I thought the various jurisdictions involved in the "sniper" investigation handled themselves reasonably well (given how hard it can be to get multiple jurisdictions to work together at all), but the competition now is very unseemly. It also stands to delay the task of bring justice to the killers of so many people.
I admit that I am not a great fan of the death penalty as a tool for justice. I don't believe that it works as a deterrent, I think that it costs far too much compared to life inprisonment, I fail to comprehend how killing peope is supposed to send the message that killing people is wrong, and I'm not quite sure where we get off thinking that we, as a society, have the right to make that decision about anyone. Viewing the death penalty as a form of social vengeance, however, I can understand much better. I still don't necessarily think its the best way to handle it, but, on that primative level where most of us still feel the blood lust, I can appreciate the satisfaction it can bring to see someone who has done so evil given the most dire penalty we can imagine. Sometimes I even think that it might be good to kill these monsters by doing to them whatever they did to their victims, but to do so would require an executioner to, at least on a temporary basis, become a monster like the criminal is - and I don't believe any person could stay sane under those circumstances. Nor do I think society could, either.
But right now we are looking at a situation where many want to see Muhammad and Malvo put to death, and that is becoming a strong factor in trying to determine where to first put them to trial for their crimes. In Maryland, where there are the most victims, would be able to sentence Muhammad to death, but not Malvo. They also don't make quite as much use of the death penalty as some other states might. As a result, there is a call for Virginia to be allowed a first crack at the pair, since they do seem to like to use the death penalty quite a bit, and would be able to kill Malvo as well.
Personally, I don't think that who can put them to death the most effectively shouldn't even be an issue in determining who gets the first crack. To me, what would make the most sense would be to start with the Federal charges. These are crimes that affected people in many states - to a point where their crimes became crimes against the country as a whole, and not just of the different jurisdictions where they attacked people. After that, if other trials are deemed necessary or appropriate (or if they some how fail to convict on the Federal charges), start with the jurisdiction where the most victims were affected, and work down the list from there.
That would, in my opinion, be the fairest way to handle it. The penalties will have to be whatever the particular jurisdiction (or jusidictions) have deemed appropriate for crimes against their people. Our desire for vengeance and slaking our blood lust may have to take a back seat to ensuring that not only to the criminals get fair trials, but so do the people who live in the areas where these crimes were committed.
In Trail of Red Flags, an Ex-Friend's Warning to the Authorities Stands Out. A former friend of John Allen Muhammad said on Sunday that she drove him to a backyard gunsmith last fall to have a semiautomatic rifle made shorter and silent. By Charlie Leduffand Dean E. Murphy. [New York Times: National]
Between all of the missed clues before 9/11 and the missed clues we're learning about now regarding the sniper, I'm beginning to think that maybe the TIPS program that John Ashcroft wants so badly isn't such a threat after all.
According to the New York Times, there are now at least three separate occasions on which the federal authorities were warned about John Allen Muhammad and concerns that he may be planning something dangerous. As one FBI spokesperson commented, they do get a lot of tips all the time. When you get three tips, however, on the same person, it might it not be prudent to check them out?
Two of the calls were made post-9/11, one from the operator of a homeless shelter who was concerned that Muhammad might have ties to a terrorist group, and one from a former friend who provided details to the FBI about modifications he wanted made to a gun. Also during this time, which was roughly December of last year, Muhammad was involved in a domestic disturbance at the homeless shelter involving Malvo and Malvo's mother. Malvo and his mother were turned over to the INS, and a hearing was set up for Malvo that was scheduled to take place in November of this year.
Sadly, it seems that too often after a major crime, it turns out that law enforcement had been warned - generally more than once or even twice - that the eventual perpetrator is someone who should be looked at as a possible source of concern. Given how often it seems that a truly dangerous person slips through the cracks, and given that the reason usually given is that they receive so many tips, I have to wonder if the problem is that they're too incompetent to tell the difference between the ones they should be worrying about and the ones they apparently are worrying about - or maybe if they actually are preventing a lot more crimes than we know about by following up on the tips that they do.
The bad thing is, I'm not sure which of those possiblities is more frightening
Sniper Suspect Obtained a Rifle Despite a Restraining Order and Gun Laws. Under federal law, John Allen Muhammad was barred from buying or possessing a firearm because his second wife had taken out a domestic-violence restraining order against him in March 2000. By Fox Butterfield. [New York Times: National]
As with most things, my views on gun control tend to lean towards the left. I think that Americans should have the right to keep and bear arms, but that the government has the right to maintain records of who has what in order to help track down criminals - for example, the suggestion of maintaining ballistic fingerprints of guns. Yes, they can be altered, and no, they won't be foolproof, but they could help with solving crimes much faster than they're solved now - and, as in the case of the sniper, might help prevent some deaths or other crimes. I don't see that it's such a significant intrusion on the right to own guns that it should be discarded out of hand.
Implementing better gun control measures, however, doesn't mean that we have to create a whole raft of new laws. I'd be happy with making sure all current laws are properly and fully enforced as a starting point and see what is needed from there.
Muhammad was initially arrested on illegal gun posession charges related to a gun he had actually sold back in 2000. See, in March of 2000, Muhammad's second ex-wife had taken out a domestic violence-related restraining order against him. The restraining order not only precluded him from making contact with his ex-wife, it also meant he was not allowed to own or possess any firearms. In May of 2000, he sold a Bushmaster rifle. It was his posession of that rifle between March and May of 2000 that was the basis for the firearms charge against him. Frighteningly, it took until May of 2002 - over 2 years after the order was issued - for it to be listed in the main FBI database. During that time, had anyone done a background check outside the state of Washington to see if it was ok to sell Muhammad a gun, they would have not have been notified of the restriction placed on him because of the restraining order.
What's worse, the gun he used to kill his 10 victims and would 3 others, was shipped from the Bushmaster factory in June of 2002. It is not known yet where or how he came to be the owner, but in all liklihood, he either slipped through the cracks (which there are far to many of to begin with), obtained the gun by giving false information for use in the bakground check or he purchased it at a gunshow where no background checks are required.
What it all boils down to, though, is that he should not have been able to obtain a gun, and yet he did. This is a serious problem.
As the above-cited article notes, both the gunshow loophole and the 2+ year delay in getting information entered into the FBI's database could be resolved, but political opponants are blocking them.
As for why it took so long to enter the restraining order into the F.B.I. computer, law enforcement officials said it was not unusual for the process to take months or longer.
A Justice Department study last January estimated that there were two million restraining orders around the nation, but that only 590,000 had been entered in the system.
A bill that would give the states $375 million a year for the next three years to catch up on the backlog passed the House of Representatives but has been stalled in the Senate by opposition from Republicans.
In recent years bills to close the so-called gun show loophole, in which a background check is not required when a gun is bought at a gun show, have faced strong opposition from the National Rifle Association. None have passed.
If it turns out that the gun was bought at a gunshow, maybe it will finally be enough to give Congress the balls to stand up to the NRA and close that loophole. There's no excuse for it, and if it is costing us lives (which I believe it is) there's no justification for continuing it. And hopefully Congress will also realize that a 2-year backlog on getting information entered into a database to help ensure that the wrong people don't get guns is also unjustifiable, and need to be corrected as soon as possible.
In just a few days we have an election where all members of the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate will be chosen by their constituants. Perhpas this should be an issue to take into consideration when casting your vote. The problem isn't limited to the DC area - it could happen anywhere - and something like it is almost guaranteed to happen again if the loophole isn't closed and the database isn't brought - and kept - current.
WashPost: Almost everything sniper pundits told media was wrong. So much for the so-called experts. Paul Farhi and Linton Weeks write: "The important question is, was the orgy of speculation harmless -- or was there a very dangerous undercurrent to it? By saturating the public's consciousness with phantom images of thirtyish white men, did the media profilers distract attention from a more general and possibly open-minded search for the perpetrators?" A CNN senior veep says: "We have no regrets. . . . I think we were very responsible." (Washington Post)
- Kurtz: Unreleased info aired on TV news helped crack case (WashPost)
- CNN confirms it considered using "C.S.I." actors as pundits (NYT/r.r.)
- No TV pundit got even the broadest outlines of the story right (Newsday)
- Rosenberg praises CNN reporter Arena for saying, "I don't know" (LAT/r.r.)
- Rosenstiel: Washington media were "responsible, restrained" (WashTimes)
- Powers: Bare-bones wire stories epitomize new world of news (NatJournal)
- Journalism prof says media were aiding, abetting sniper (MSNBC.com)
Several excellent articles on the abundence - and incorrectness - of much of the profiling done on TV during the sniper chase. From Jim Romenesko's MediaNews
An Angry Telephone Call Provided One Crucial Clue. The first real break in the sniper case came last Thursday in an angry phone call from a man claiming responsibility for a murder-robbery in Montgomery, Ala. By Eric Lichtblau and Don Van Natta Jr.. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Today has been filled with good new about the sniper case, and everyone is spending a lot of time patting themselves and each other on the back. But just wait, in a couple of days the criticism will start - did the police do all they could? Did the media say or do enough or too much? Should some clues have been recognized as important long before they were?
The story of how the pieces fell together is interesting, if a bit convoluted. The first piece of the solution came about on October 8th when a policeman in Baltimore noticed a man sleeping in his car - a blue Chevy Caprice - and made note of the car and its license plate. At the time, no one recognized the car as being significant. I suspect this will be the point over which there will be the most fingerpointing - people saying that he should have realized at that point what he had, thus ending the killings nearly 2 weeks before he was actually caught. Unless there is other information I'm not aware of, however, I don't see that the office can be faulted. There had, early on, been one report - one - of a dark Chevy Caprice being seen at one of the crime scened, but by the 8th, the focus for a possible vehicle had shifted to a white van or white box truck. Add to that the conventional wisdom (and stated by profilers) that the suspect would be a white make in his 20's or 30's, and I think it's understandable why a cop might not have been overly suspicious of a black man in his 40's in a dark Caprice.
The next "break" in the case came once the police and the sniper began their odd communication. Apparently, the sniper called the police but the operator initially thought he was a crank caller. He told her to check "Montgomery" if they wanted to verify that he was who he said he was, but since much of the killing had taken place in Montgomery County, MD, they cops didn't initially realize what the caller was referring to. And interesting detail that the article provides is how the cops finally became aware of what it was the caller was referring to: Apparently feeling that the police weren't taking him terribly seriously, he placed calls to two priests to see if he could get them to give a message to the police. In an interesting bit of irony, the police contacted one of those churches the day after they received the call as they thought the killer might be a parishoner (though I've yet to find out why that is). In the process of discussing that possibility, the Monsingior told the police of the call he had received, which specified that the police should be checking in Montgomery, Alabama.
Once they called law enforcement officials in Alabama, they learned of a shooting that had taken place there in late September, and that there had been an unidentified fingerprint found at the scene. The local police in Alabama did not have access to the federal fingerprint files, and so they weren't able to make a match, but the federal officers working on the sniper case did, and traced the fingerprint to to the 17-year-old suspect. That is what led them to search the home in Tacoma.
As they gathered more information about the sniper, one of the things that cropped up was the description and license number of the car from back on October 8th. Once the police scanners and news media began broadcasting that number it was essentially just a matter of time. At 3am, a trucker pulled into a rest stop, noticed the car, realized the license number was a match and called the police.
While I still think the media has spent far too much time on this story and too much time in not only useless, but - as we can now see, misleading - speculation, I do have to give them props for having gotten that license plate number out. That made it possible for the trucker to realize that he had found the car and facilitated the arrest of the suspects.
I have to wonder, though, if we hadn't been hearing so much about the "standard" profile of a serial killer, or speculation on what the killer might be like, if people would have been more open to a wider range of possible suspects that could have ended the killings sooner. I think one big quesation that will need to be answered is how the "white van/truck" became so much a focus of the investigation. I suspect that because white vans and trucks are rather popular, and becuase the media had made several mentions of a white van or truck that witnesses were somewhat primed to see a white van, so if, in the confusion after the shooting, a white van happened to be in the area (which isn't that unlikely an occurrance), people would remember it.
Hopefully, this will be the end of the matter, and there are no other people out there who were part of the killings. And hopefully, as the post-mortem is done on how the investigation - and, just as importantly, the coverage of the investigation - was handled, both law enforcement and the media will learn the kinds of lessons that can help catch the next person who goes on a killing spree even faster.
[Ed.Note: Don't worry, I'll find a new topic soon - this is just one of those things that really frosts my cookies]
Media May Have Unwittingly Foreshadowed Sniper's Moves
By Dru Sefton
c.2002 Newhouse News
The Washington-area sniper may be taking cues from media coverage as to what his next move will be, experts say.
The evidence is mounting:
- Last Friday a former FBI profiler said on CNN, "I could see, he could keep going on down to Ashland, possibly all the way to Richmond ..." The next day, the sniper struck in Ashland, Va.
- On Oct. 15, The Washington Post ran a story headlined "Weekend Lulls in Shootings Could Offer Clue on Lifestyle," because each shooting had been on a weekday. The next victim was shot the following Saturday.
- On Oct. 4, 5 and 6, several criminal profilers were quoted on television and in print about how the sniper was "playing God" or "has a God complex." On Oct. 7 the sniper left a tarot card reading, in part, "I am God."
- On Oct. 3, a Montgomery County official appeared on several national networks, assuring nervous parents. "We feel children will be safe inside schools with us," he said on CNN. On Oct. 7, the sniper shot a student at a Bowie, Md., school.
Given the previous speculation about how much of an impact the media speculation is having on the sniper and his choices, I found this entire article quite interesting. In addition to the above examples, the article talks about how the on-air "profiling" by former FBI agents and former cops could actually lead the suspect to change how he acts in order to avoid conforming to the profile, and how it can also confuse the public. One concern is that if people hear too much about these armchair profiles (armchair because they don't have access to all the info), they might inadvertantly overlook a possible suspect if he doesn't fit what they think they're supposed to be looking for.
I know I've commented on this subject a few times already, but I find it quite disheartening that the media - print and TV - can comment on how the killer seems to be taking cues from the coverage, and yet they don't change how they're covering the case. If their ethics don't dictate that should exercise more care, common sense should.
This is one of those times I wish Jack McCoy and the other heroes of "Law & Order" were real. I have no doubt that if he were to see this kind of a pattern emerging - compete with the media recognizing that what they have to say may be helping this guy pick his targets and his timing - and go after the network editors for criminal charges based on their reckless disregard for human life. The sticking point, of course, would be proving that he wouldn't have killed someone else even if the media wasn't reporting on it, so the case might not go very far, but just getting the charges filed might be sufficient to get a better national debate on where the news media should impose limits on themselves.
I don't mind them reporting the facts - that's their job. Its the wild speculation that gives me concern. Under these circumstances, not only does it make no sense, it is, in my opinion, unethical. They're job is to report what has happened, not create news themselves - and I honestly think that in this case, even if they don't intend to, that is one of the side effects of what they are doing.
Man Arrested for Misleading Account in Sniper Case
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
A man who claimed to be a witness to the most recent killing in the series of sniping attacks in suburban areas around Washington was arrested today after doubts were raised about his account.
The man, Matthew Dowdy, 37, of Falls Church, Va., was taken into custody this afternoon by the police in Fairfax County, Va. He was charged with making "a materially and intentionally false statement or representation to a law enforcement officer who is in the course of conducting an investigation of a crime by another."
[ed note: this entry has been substantially edited from what I originally posted. On re-reading it, my thoughts seemed to be a bit more jumbled than I like. The basic concept and points, hwoever, are the same]
Too often, people fail to grasp the consequences of their actions. A couple days ago, I wrote about how the media was noticing some disturbing patterns in the snipers behaviour that make it appear that he is not only paying attention to what is being said about him, but is responding (see "Speculation -> Action").
Now we have a man who decided - for whatever reason - to give the police false information, claiming to have witnessed the latest shooting. Whether he was hoping to gain attention (from either the police or the media) by being a "witness" or to have a shot at the $500,000 reward (if any of his information proved to be a lucky guess, apparently), or for some other unfathomable reason, the very real effect of his actions could have been disasterous. As it is, the police have already wasted time trying to follow up his information through investigations, and inaccurate or misleading information has been released to the public. Even though the public has now been told that the information this man provided was a lie, with as much attention as this story (as a whole) gets, its going to be difficult for people to remember what was based on this alleged witnesses stories and what is legitimate.
Given the killers apparenty tendency to want to demonstrate to the police that they're on the wrong track, this man's lies could have led to another death. On previous occasions, when the police or media have commented on patterns that have been observed, or mentioned that the police may be speaking to a possible suspect, the sniper has taken lethal action to demonstrate that they're not talking to him, or to change the patterns that had been reported.
Fortunately, this hasn't been the case in this particular situation, and there have been no further killings since Monday night. I sincerely hope, however, that the quick identification of this man as being a false witness and his subsequent arrest (even if only on misdemeanor charges) will give others who might contemplate gaining their few minutes of fame or a shot at the witness lottery more than a few second thoughts. And I also hope that they will remember that this isn't some kind of a game.
In one of the strangest murder cases in recent memory, Ira Einhorn has been found guilty of the first degree murder of Holly Maddux.
The course of this case has taken over 25 years, from Holly's disapperance, the discovery of her body in a steamer trunk in Einhorn's closet, Einhorn's flight to Ireland and, eventually, France, a trial in absentia in which Einhorn was found guilty, the French refusing to turn Einhorn over to authorities in Pennsylvania until they passed a specific law granting him a new trial, to, finally, his conviction today.
Wichita to revisit brutal slayings as testimony begins
By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
[...] The case also has added its chapter to the culture wars by fueling a backlash against hate-crimes laws and feeding resentment against the national media for avoiding coverage of the case because, many in Wichita say, of political correctness.
The Carr brothers are black, and each of the five victims was white. At the time of their arrest, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston refused to charge them with hate crimes, explaining that the main motive was robbery, and that Kansas did not have a hate-crimes law.
This case illustrates one of the problems I have with hate crimes legislation - the fact that its application sometimes appears to be somewhat arbitrary. It's fairly easy to claim that a white-on-minority or straight-on-gay crime is a hate crime, but it seems to be tricker to claim that minority-on-white or gay-on-straight, since it is often consider inappropriate to suggest that minorities might feel hatred towards the majority they view as their oppressors - or, at the very least, to imply that they are not justified in doing so if they do.
The bigger problem I have, though, is that the primary concept of a hate-crime is that a person should be punished because of what they thought or felt about whatever group they felt their victim represented.
Hate crimes are not inherently more vicious or brutal than other crimes (though this particular case is an exceptionally brutal crime), nor are they even necessarily distinguishable from other crimes. In some cases, the perpetrator may leave some kind of sign that the crime was committed out of hatred for some group or minority, or may make comments that give away their state of mind, but whatever the case, it is what's in their mind that the hate crimes laws addresses.
It's not uncommon to hear civil libritarians to caution that someday we may be prosecuted for what are called "thought crimes", yet these are often the same people who demand prosecution for hateful thoughts under hate crimes legislations. Granted, you cannot yet be prosecuted for simply thinking hateful things, but you can have your sentence increased based on your thoughts, and I'm not so sure that's a road we want to start walking down.
One other issue I have is this:
Her decision touched off an outcry in Wichita and on the Internet among hate-crimes law opponents, conservatives and others. The online publication FrontPage, founded by author David Horowitz, said the Wichita case illustrated a national double standard.
"The indifference of government, media and civil-rights leaders to crimes such as those alleged to have been committed by the Carr brothers send a clear message across America that some lives matter and some lives don't," the magazine said shortly after the murders. [...]
In a sense, this is the message hate crimes legislation itself sends. By saying that someone should be more harshly punished because they killed a minority out of hatred sends a message that the life of that minority is more important than the life of a non-minority person, even if that person had been killed in the same manner. I think its fair to say that every crime against a person has more than a bit of hate to it to begin with - is it really necessary to create special punishments based on what kind of hate that is?
Law Bars a National System for Tracing Bullets and Shells
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
The technology exists to create a national ballistic fingerprint system that would enable law enforcement officials to trace bullets recovered from shootings, like those fired by the Washington-area sniper, to a suspect.
Such a system would have been of great use in the Washington case, in which six people were shot to death, because so far bullet fragments are virtually the only evidence. [...]
Gun control advocates and some law enforcement authorities like Mr. Vince have long advocated taking the next step, requiring gun manufacturers to keep an electronic record of the markings from bullets and shell casings when new guns are test fired. This data would be kept with the serial numbers of the guns.
With this information, the agency would be able to trace bullets and shell casings found at a shooting site to the gun maker and eventually to the buyer, said Mr. Vince and another former high ranking firearms bureau official.
But the National Rifle Association has opposed this, calling it tantamount to a national gun registry. The group succeeded in getting a provision in the 1968 federal Gun Control Act outlawing any national gun registry. [...]
I understan that the Second Amendment gives people the right to have guns, but I have a much harder time understanding where, exactly, is says that people have the right to have guns and that the government can't know that they do. Even if you accept the belief that the "well-regulated militia" - which provides the basis and justification for the right to bear arms - refers simply to the individuals who possess guns, and does not require that there actualy be any kind of structure or organization to the militia, I would think that part of being 'well-regulated" could reasonably include the concept of the government knowing who has guns, and therefore is a member of this militia.
The NRA, however, doesn't like the idea of the government knowing who has guns and who doesn't, and have managed to get laws established that prevent a national gun registry from being constructed. Sadly, the only people this really benefits are criminals, since it makes it harder for the police to connect the criminal to the a gun used in a crime - often a vital bit of information in getting a conviction. Personally, I think the idea of a ballistics registry is a great idea - test firing bullets from each gun and keeping a record of which ballistics markings go to which gun would be an excellent tool for law enforcement officers and agencies to have available to them, an would be of great use in helping solve a crime.
One of the more interesting ironies I've seen in the intense interest in "security" since 9/11 has been that virtually all of the focus has been on securing us from terrorism, with litte to no attention paid to the normal, everyday crime we've suffered with for years. The FBI wants to be able to infiltrate mosques and other religious organizations so that they can keep their ears open for any possible plots, librarians are being told that the government may need them to give information on who checks out which books, Ashcroft wants to get utility workers and postal workers to spy on peope who's homes they provide service to, there's been talk of a national ID card, registering anyone who wants to fly on an airplane and so on... more and more restrictions on our rights and freedoms, more invasions of our privacy, all in the name of preventing terrorism.
And yes, the 9/11 attacks were horrific, and yes, we do need to take reasonable steps to prevent such attacks from happening again. But when you get right down to it, more Americans are killed every year with handguns, rifles and other firearms than are killed by terrorism - even taking the approximately 3,000 dead from the WTC/Pentagon attacks. Where is the urgency to protect us from the common criminals that strike every hour of every day across the USA? In light of the steps being taken to prevent another WTC/Pentagon-type attack, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to require that all guns be test fired before leaving the store, and the ballistic evidence provided by those test firings kept on record with the serial number of the gun, so that if the gun is ever used in a crime, it can more readily be traced to its owner.
[Edited 12:06pm - please be sure to take a look at the comments for this entry - The Raven brings up an excellent point regarding illegal weapons, which I've attempted to answer, giving more details of how something of this nature might be able to work. Thanks - kj]
In 1989, a jogger was attacked and raped in New York's Central Park. At the time, 5 young black men were arrested for the crime, and they gave confessions after long (up to 28 hours) interrogations by the police. This was the attack that taught us all about "Wilding" - young boys our running around causing havoc - and which captured the attention of the nation for a while.
The boys were convicted, even though by then they had renounced their confessions, and for the most part, people assumed we'd heard the end of that case.
Apparnetly that's not even close. A new investigation into the case has been underway for a while now, ever since an inmate confessed to having committed the crime by himself. DNA testing has shown that he did, in fact, have sexual contact with the jogger, lending much credibility to his story. The testing also showed that none of the physical evidence in the case matched that of the boys convicted for the crime, though it is technically possible for someone to commit a rape and leave no obvious DNA behind - especially with as much time as has passed in this case and the belief that the case itself was closed
One odd note in the whole story is that the man who has confessed to having raped the jogger has also confessed to having raped another woman 2 nights before. Whether it's because she was not as badly injured, or because her story lacked the "shocking" element of the Wilding teens, her story never made the news - at least not in the same manner the jogger's story did. The first rape had been handled by the Sex Crimes unit, but because it was believed that the jogger might not survive, her case was handled by the Homicide division. As noted in the New York Times article on this case:
For reasons that are not clear, investigators say, there is no sign that the information about the April 17 rape was turned over to the detectives handling the attack on the jogger.
And this is where I get a bit lost. How is it that with a case being as widely publicized as the jogger's case was, no one in the Sex Crimes unit thought to call up the Homicide division and say "hey, we've gone one a lot like your's". Had that happened, odds are good that the police would have discovered that the teens they'd arrested probably were not involved, since apparently the first victim did not suffer the memory loss that the jogger has. Knowing her case had only a single attacker might have helped refocus the investigation into the jogger's case. Unfortuantely, we'll never know for sure.
This goes right along with my earlier comments (in my "Shadowed Souls" blog, which deals with both true crime and crime fiction) about both the Columbine shooting and the WTC/Pentagon attacks: In both cases, there were warning signs, and had the various bits and pieces held by different agencies been somehow coordinated, is possible that the tragedies could have been prevented.
I suspect this "compartmentalization" of information is one of the greatest problems facing our country today. We are almost more at risk because of our inability to get all of our pieces talking to each other, than we are from outside threats.
The Trial of a Radical, Finally
For 25 years, counterculture icon Ira Einhorn has dodged justice. Now, after a long, strange trip, he faces murder charges
By Steven Levy
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Sept. 27 — This week, lawyers picked a jury in Philadelphia for the Ira Einhorn murder trial, with opening arguments to begin on Monday. It’s an understatement to say that this is an event long overdue.
Over the last quarter-century, Ira Einhorn has been accused of having murdered his long-time girlfriend Holly Maddux, jumped bail, fled the country, tried in absentia and convicted, got married and settled down in France and fought his extradition to the US to serve out the sentence for his murder conviction. Also during that time, the French refused to turn him over to the US because they did not believe that a trial held in absentia could be a fair trial. Instead, they kept something of an eye on him, but allowed him to stay in their country, free - having gotten away with murder.
Then a few years back, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a special law to grant Einhorn a new trial, if he was returned to the United States. This, it was believed, would address the concerns of the French over the fairness of his trial and should allow them to extradite him back here to face the charges, this time, in person.
It worked. Einhorn was returned and the trial is now getting set to begin, and, if it is like the rest of this case has been, it should be an interesting one. As the Newsweek article notes:
A look at a list of the defense’s “potential witnesses” read to the jury shows the desperation of the Einhorn team. Besides the expected forensic experts, there is a bit of celebrity power on the list, a testament to Einhorn’s pre-arrest connections. But rocker Peter Gabriel has no evidence to present about the murder, nor does actress Ellen Burstyn. (It’s unlikely either will appear.) Less recognizable character witnesses will be of dubious value. One potential witness is a woman who met Einhorn in a hot tub at Esalen, the famous New Age retreat at Big Sur, Calif., in the period between his arrest and his illegal flight. Others on the list, like Episcopal priest David Gracie and scholar Stafford Beer, can’t help Ira at all, since they’re dead.
I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration that Holly's family has had to endure all these years, and for them, I am quite pleased that this trial is finally being held.
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