Category Archives: Justice

UPDATE II: The Elephant In the Courtroom

Crime, Justice, Law, Racism, South-Africa

Finally, media other than yours truly mentions, if fleetingly, the elephant in the Pistorius courtroom: unidirectional, black-on-black and black-on-white violent crime. Examined in depth and at length in Into the Cannibal’s Pot, crime, and the fear of being butchered, was likely behind the blade runner’s irrational, irresponsible actions.

“[F]or all his privilege, Oscar Pistorius knows the rapacity and invincibility of the criminal class in his country. Like every other Afrikaner, he knew in his gut what infiltrating gangs would do to a legless Boer. He had seen images of the mangled bodies.” (From “Blade Runner Killing And The Media Blackout.”)

The Economist doesn’t go so far as to acknowledge the legitimacy of the fear, but does mention it:

When Mr Pistorius declared in his testimony, “I shot out of fear,” he became the voice of many white South Africans. They tend to see themselves as living in the shadow of violent crime, retreating behind high walls, electric fences and steel doors. From there they can summon private security guards, who are twice as numerous as policemen, by pressing a panic button.

The trial has revived a long-running debate about other aspects of crime. South Africa’s murder rate is one of the highest in the world: 30.9 for every 100,000 people, compared with 4.7 in the United States. Yet the rate has fallen by half in the past 15 years. Rich whites, the most fearful among South Africans, are actually the least endangered. Most victims are poor and black.

Though both the accused and the victim in the Pistorius case are white, race is never far away. … the case in fact involves a third protagonist, “the threatening body, nameless and faceless, of an armed and dangerous black intruder”. …

Actually, in proportion to their numbers in the general population, whites and Indians are more likely to be victimized by the criminal class in South Africa.

UPDATE I (4/21): A reader affirms the above, writing as follows:

“I have so often, ever since the dreadful act that ended the life of Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend, wanted to write to you Ilana, and say: Please tell your readers about the ghastly fear that every Afrikaner suffers from; the fear that he would be murdered in the most atrocious manner, mangled, tortured, raped before family members;slaughtered. So thank you for being true to the truth. His is the insane reaction of anyone—especially an Afrikaner living in his birthland—who knows what he will suffer at the hands of black criminal gangs who almost have permission to murder from the silent government. You, Ilana, are the right person, at the right time to make this known.”

UPDATE II: Via Brian James Smith on Facebook: Thanks to Cuan Elgin with the below list. Nothing to fear? South African justice is seen to be working like this circus of a trial…? Think again. The reality of South Africa this past week.
Black-on-White attacks: 7 Days. 20 Attacks. 27 Victims. 3 Women Raped. 7 People shot. 6 People Murdered:
9 April: Leon Pretorius (50) and his wife Phylis (49) were attacked at their place of business in Bloemspruit. Leon was shot twice. He is in hospital.
9 April: An Elderly man was attacked and murdered in his home in Dinwiddi. He was stabbed and his neck was broken.
9 April: An elderly couple was attacked, assaulted, tied up and robbed in Helderkruin.
10 April: A Family was attacked in their home in the Featherbrooke Estate. The mother and daughter were assaulted and the father was shot. He is recovering in hospital.
10 April: A 27-year-old woman was attacked by 4 black men. She was abducted and raped.
10 April: ‘A 58-year old woman was attacked and raped at the Anstey’s Beach Guest House in Brighton Beach.
10 April: The Lombaard couple was attacked on their farm in Tulbach. They were able to defend themselves and the attackers fled.
11 April: Lazlo (87) and Carol Bercsenyi were attacked in Bon Accord. They were hacked with axes. Lazlow died from his injuries.
12 April: Jaap Pretorius (52) is in a critical condition after an attacked on him and his fiancé in Bloemfontein. He was shot in the head.
12 April: A 62-year-old man was attacked in his holiday home in St. Francis. He was assaulted, tied up and robbed.
12 April: Vicus Botha (63) was assaulted in front of his home in Pietermaritzburg. He was badly beaten and died from his injuries.
13 April: A 48-year-old woman and her husband were attacked by 4 black men in their home in Benoni. The woman was raped by the attackers in front of her husband.
14 April: Kobus Nieuwoudt (41) was attacked, assaulted and shot in Ontdekkerspark.
15 April: Rina Hough (65) was stabbed to death at her home in Senekal.
15 April: Bart Klopper (63) was attacked and assaulted at his farm in Edeville. He sustained serious head injuries.
15 April: Johan Nel and his 13-year-old son were attacked and assaulted on their farm in Wolmaransstad by 6 black men armed with CZ88 pistols.
15 April: Frik Bodenstein (58) was attacked on his farm in Witbank. He was hacked with machetes and is recovering in hospital.
16 April: Johan Bornman and his wife were attacked in their farm in Vredefort. Johan was shot in his face and shoulder and is in hospital.
16 April: W/O Steven Britz (44) was shot dead at the Klapmuts Police Station.
17 April: Hannes Duvenhage (68) shot dead in Ermelo

UPDATED: Rage Against The Machine & For The Rancher

Justice, Law, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property, Rights, States' Rights, The State

On April 11, we breathed a sigh of relief: “The Tyrant has disbanded, for now. But He’ll be back. Be vigilant, brave Bundys of Bunkerville, Nevada.” Indeed, as Ben Swann of “The Truth In Media Project” (Via LewRockwell.com) divulges, “Sources Inside The BLM and Las Vegas Metro Say Feds Are Planning A Raid On Bundy Home”:

… hundreds of federal agents are still at the Bundy Ranch and the area continues its status as a no-fly zone. Despite major media reports that the Nevada Bureau of Land Management is retreating, the remaining activity that still surrounds the ranch illustrates a different scenario.

Not only is the BLM not actually backing off of Cliven Bundy, Sheriff Richard Mack of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has revealed stunning information: on Ben Swann’s radio program, Mack said that he has received intelligence from multiple, credible sources inside the BLM and the Las Vegas Metro that there is “no question” that the federal government is planning a raid on the Bundy home and the homes of their children who live on the property.

According to Mack, the so-called retreat was nothing more than theatrics. “It was a ploy to get people to back off, to get people out of the way. They weren’t expecting us to get this amount of people here. They were surprised by the numbers and so they wanted a way to get us out of here. This was a ploy to get us out of here and then they’re going after the Bundys.” Mack said that when he was at the Bundy ranch on Saturday there were an estimated 600 to 800 protesters present when federal agents were releasing the cattle. …

… Mack said that he had been told by Bundy that the federal government is actively shutting down the ranching industry, specifically in Clark County. He also revealed that there used to be 53 ranches in Clark County. All of those ranchers have been put out of business, except for Bundy who is still trying to hold on. “Every American should be outraged by it,” said Mack. The ranch has been in Bundy’s family since 1877. …

MORE.

UPDATE: What the statists are saying:

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Clive Bundy ranched in this particular area of Nevada since the 1880s. And he had grazing rights he says that preempts and predates, he says, the federal authority over the land. So when the federal government decided to say that the desert tortoise was endangered and took away, and there you see the tortoise, the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, took away the grazing rights, Bundy refused to comply, and he lost in court three times. But it started this back and forth that really came to a head this weekend.

Let’s bring in our panel, Tucker Carlson, host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and Juan Williams, columnist with The Hill. Tucker, it seems like all parties have backed down.

The Bureau of Land Management had this in a statement, “Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released” — they were holding the cattle — “from enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order. Safety has always been our number one priority and the bureau of land management and national park service appreciates the support of those who called for a peaceful conclusion to the operation.” What about this?

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Thanks heaven. It was moving in an ugly direction, and I think the feds exacerbated it by showing up with snarling dogs and drawn weapons. That’s appropriate when you are dealing with a drug cartel, not with an elderly rancher.

On the other hand, the Bundys don’t have a legal case that I can see, to be totally honest about it. And this is public land. This is not land that they own. And if you are going to use public land for profit, you have to pay for it, and they haven’t. And so the bottom line, and I think this is something conservatives ought to remember, if you want a ranch without any impediment at all, you have to buy your own ranch. That is the essence, that is the core principle behind private property which undergirds conservatism. So I have a lot of sympathy for the Bundys. I think they were completely mistreated by the federal government. But I still think it’s important to point out that this land does not belong to them, and that’s not a minor distinction. It’s the essence of private property. Sorry.

BAIER: A.B.?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE HILL: It wasn’t that he was denied grazing rights. He refused to pay the grazing fees. So he could have had his cattle grazing on federal land but he refused to pay up to $1 million in grazing feeds.

So the BLM could not have bungled this more by, A, coming in and tasering his son, which then became a viral video. Agents from the BLM also came up behind Cliven Bundy’s sister and knocked her down on the ground. This is something they have been dealing with for 20 years. They knew exactly who would be there protesting with their weapons. They knew how mad everyone would be and how this would escalate. They did not plan well for this.

They have now removed all this cattle and because of raised public concerns, brought the cattle there. They are never getting that cattle off that land. The BLM is out of leverage and it’s been peacefully concluded because they have got nothing left on Mr. Bundy.

BAIER: Juan?

JUAN WILLIAMS, SENIOR EDITOR, THE HILL: Well, I think what really talking about here is conservative angst over the sense that government has grown too large, too powerful. The government controls huge swaths of the western part of this country. And even local and state officials sometimes have disputes with federal authorities.

But the fact is, as Tucker said, this is public land. And despite his claims going back to the 1880s that his more Mormon forefathers used this land, it is public land. It’s not his land. And even by his own admission he owes the government, maybe not $1 million, but $300,000 that he has not paid.

So the courts have ruled against him three times, as you said, Bret. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on in that regard. But in terms of the larger picture, I think you have to worry about Waco, you have to worry about Ruby Ridge when people start showing up with guns and saying they are willing to take on the federal government.

MORE @ Bret Baier’s Special Report

A Law Unto Themselves

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts

Why stage a judicial intervention when you can sit back and let the executive and the legislature accrue more power, a power that invariably will redound to the Courts as well?

On Monday, the High Court, which should check the other two branches of government—how is that working out?—decided against taking up “the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program that collects bulk telephone data of millions of Americans.” (NJ)

When the Supreme Court has the chance to strike down rights-violating laws and legislation (like the Obamacare individual mandate)—it so often declines.

“Monday’s decision,” concludes the National Journal (too charitably, in my opinion), “reaffirms expectations that the justices would rather allow the issue to percolate within the circuit courts first.”

(At least NJ covers such stuff.)

In the case of Obama’s Affordable Care Act, John G. Roberts Jr., chief of the country’s legal politburo of proctologists, rewrote Obamacare, and then proceeded to provide the fifth vote to uphold the individual mandate undergirding the law, thereby undeniably and obscenely extending Congress’s taxing power.

Face it, the idea of a judiciary that would police the executive as an arm of a self-correcting tripartite government is worse than naive. Rather, it WAS recklessly naive of the American Founding Fathers to imagine that branches of a government, each of whose power is enhanced when the power of the other branches grows, would serve as a check on one another.

Remember Meredith Kercher

Crime, Europe, Justice, Law, Media, Science

The country’s national media, left and right, have once again galvanized in defense of “America’s Angelic O.J,” Amanda Knox. The same media mafia has, again, thronged to put the Italian judicial system on trial for railroading their cherub.

The reason? Via CNN:

“This is the second time an Italian court has convicted the former American exchange student of murder. Knox and her ex-boyfriend, Rafael Sollecito, were both found guilty of killing Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2009.”

Agitating for Amanda in years past “were mass murderer Hilary Clinton, corrupt King County Superior Court Judge Michael Heavey—he abused his office (my state; my taxes) to petition members of the Italian judiciary on behalf of Knox, in violation of Washington state’s Code of Judicial Conduct—Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell (she misspells her surname), ubiquitous tele-attorney Anne Bremner, public relations adviser David Marriott, and ’48 Hours’ correspondent Peter Van Sant, who had abandoned impartiality for outright advocacy.”

Said Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz:

Knox’s looks and public support may help her. “As popular as she is here and as pretty as she is here — because that’s what this is all about, if she was not an attractive woman, we wouldn’t have the group love-in — she will be extradited if it’s upheld.

“The Italian legal system, though I don’t love it, is a legitimate legal system and we have a treaty with Italy so I don’t see how we would resist,” he told AFP.

“We’re trying to get (fugitive NSA leaker Edward) Snowden back — how does it look if we want Snowden back and we won’t return someone for murder?” he asked.

Dershowitz told CNN last March that, even if Knox avoids extradition, “she remains a prisoner in the United States, because Interpol will put a warrant out for her and, if she travels anywhere outside the United States, she’ll be immediately arrested and turned over to Italy.”

And former homicide prosecutor, Paul Callan:

I don’t have a personal opinion on this, but I do have the opinion that we have an obligation to respect of the Italian system and they heard all of the evidence in this case. You know, the one name we haven’t heard is Meredith Kercher. She was a young woman in her 20s, stabbed 40 times and that’s why British public opinion and Italian public opinion is anti-Amanda Knox.

What is the case against her? One, the Italians says she confessed to the crime. Then she recanted the confession, but she also wrote it out in addition to orally confessing to the crime. They said that her DNA is linked to the murder. It’s on the murder weapon. They say that her DNA was found mix would Meredith Kercher’s blood at the apartment. Then they say she acted totally inappropriately after the murder.

she and her boyfriend were making out in the area that they were being held while questioning was going on. Now, this, while Meredith Kercher her best friend and roommate lies stabbed to death. So everyone thought inappropriate conduct. Now let me add one other thing the Italians say. They say that Sollecito [was] her alibi. The alibi was that they were together at the time of the murder. However, when they interviewed him first, his alibi was different than her alibi.

BURNETT: So, stories didn’t match up.

CALLAN: The stories didn’t match up. So they say false alibi, DNA, inappropriate behaviour and she confessed to the crime. How can you ridicule the Italians for convicting on that evidence?

Of course you can. “Another of our media’s collective moos was that, not being American, Italian justice was simply backward.”:

… Five spots of blood were harvested from the apartment where Meredith Kircher was murdered. More key forensic evidence against Knox included her footprint in blood outside Kercher’s room. Traces of Knox’s DNA and Kercher’s blood commingled on the fixtures in the bathroom the girls shared, “on doorjambs and walls,” to be precise. And a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment bore Knox’s DNA on the handle and Kercher’s DNA in a groove on the blade.

MORE.