Category Archives: Justice

UPDATE VI: Justice In The Age of YouTube (Innocent whiffs of Chloroform)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Intelligence, Justice, Law

“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” was the jingle that captured the legal argument that undergirded the OJ Simpson case, one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in the annals of American justice. Here’s the adaptation for the Casey Anthony case: “If it wasn’t uploaded on YouTube you must acquit.”

It took 12 idiots 11 hours to decide to exonerate the (ALLEGEDLY) filicidal Casey Anthony, who was found “not guilty of first-degree murder and the other most serious charges against her in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter,” Caylee Marie Anthony. (CNN)

The evidence was overwhelming, if circumstantial (as in most murder cases). The prosecution presented the more intelligent, rational sequence of events, where motive, opportunity, and evidence all stacked-up against the sociopathic Casey Anthony.

Caylee was last seen on “June 16, 2008, but was not reported missing until July 15, 2008,” and then only by the child’s grandmother, Cindy Anthony, who “tracked her daughter [the accused] down and demanded answers regarding Caylee’s whereabouts.” Casey then led law enforcement officers on a wild-goose chase, during which this wicked young woman implicated another, non-existent, alleged child minder in an abduction.

All the while Casey Anthony was partying like there was no tomorrow.

The defense team was headed by a not-very bright Jose Baez, who threw everything but the kitchen sink at the 12 idiots who decided Casey Anthony’s fate. Wits were well-matched. From sexual abuse by George Anthony (Casey’s father), to the aforementioned grandpa having helped dispose of his drowned granddaughter body—the 12 bought it.

After all, we all know, from watching, CSI, that if a crime doesn’t happen as depicted in such series—where ample samples of DNA and incriminating footage always materialize —you must acquit.

This is the Age of the Idiot. The average individual seldom reads; he knows only what he sees. If he can’t picture something, he certainly cannot think about it in the abstract.

I expect that grappling with circumstantial evidence, which demands some level of abstraction in thinking, will become harder and harder for juries.

As far as living in ignominy goes: Casey Anthony’s jurors have made OJ’s jurors a little less lonely.

UPDATED I: “A reasonable doubt was turned into a reason to doubt”: this is how a CNN analyst put it very succinctly. It is a result, to an extent, of the commercialization of the adversary legal system.

UPDATE II: Judging from the thread on my Facebook Wall, we are doomed.

UPDATE III: Bill, it seems to me that you are mixing your political theories with the facts of the case. You seem to be following a formula that’s designed to please the requirements of a political philosophy, and not to serve justice. The defense always offers a competing theory of the events. And so it should. If the facts contradict this theory, then it is up to the jury to go where the evidence leads, and not where the world of possibilities lies. Divorced from reality is what this decision was.

I do think, though, that a circumstantial case—also what most murder cases are, apparently—should not carry the death penalty. DNA evidence should be required in order to mete capital punishment.

UPDATE IV (July 6): Incredulous on FACEBOOK. G-d help me: an ex-juror thinks that, coupled with the body, the possibility of a mother giving her kid (whose body turned up in a garbage bag) whiffs of chloroform doesn’t go toward reasonable proof of serious malice, in a court of law. This is the first time I’ve researched Chloroform in my LIFE, and I’m a mom. Thing is: I’m honest; people on this thread are engaged in mythical thinking. I know, as a mother, how effing awful a two-year-old can be, and my own daughter was a blessing—a sweet child by comparison to most American kids. As sweet as she was, she could drive me to distraction, and I was an evolved, married, non-partying mom …

UPDATE V: Imported from Facebook:

I’ve never watched Nancy Grace in my life. Now a lot of pundits, without explaining what irked them about the evidence implicating the only plausible suspect in the violent death her of daughter, are using this verdict to show-off their commitment to the Constitution. What a crock. Which relevant sections in this document would a conviction have violated? “The CSI Effect” captures this trial.

I do agree with the issue of overreach: the prosecution should have gone with a lesser charge and not sought death. “We’ll never know who killed Calley,” says Sean Hannity. Come again? I hope he gets that interview he’s bookers are probably seeking as I write. So is anyone here going to detail one-by-one the bits of evidence presented which they did not find credible? Is there perhaps a lead that was not followed? Another suspect? A violent boyfriend who was crazy about the narcissistic creep called Casey, and just had to have her for himself?

UPDATE VI (July 7): Some of the comments to this blog continue in this vain: “Rah-rah, revolution man. I’m so cool. I’m anti-government, and anti-authoritarianism. Therefore, the jury is cool. And anyone who goes against the state, even if the state presented the facts, is cool.”

As the libertarian who coined the verb to Nifong, and who was perhaps the only libertarian to defend Michael Vick based on propertarian principles, and one of the few to defend Michael Jackson—readers with attitude don’t impress me much. Facts sway me, not cool factor.

UPDATE II: Right Response to Legalized Sexual Assault (Revenge Searches)

Constitution, Fascism, Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Politics

HOWL is what this woman does with all the indignation and outrage she can muster, after her breasts were “touched” by the TSA. The woman’s heroic son films the event. All the while he is threatened by the Kapos—Kameradschaftspolizei, “comrade police force”—of Sky Harbor International in Phoenix and ignored by the sheeple shuffling by. I would be very afraid at Sky Harbor. It’s where “The Homeland Security State” came together in all its brutality to extinguish the life of the fragile Carol Anne Gotbaum. And look how brazen they are.

‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp’ advised travelers “to name and shame the perpetrators. fliers who’re frisked should document the name of the particular TSA perp who pawed them, and expose him on the Internet. Footage of the victims is everywhere, but the agents—the stars in these horror films—remain nameless and faceless. Name, shame, and dissociate from them.”

NEXT, and before anything else—the debt-ceiling pseudo-debate can wait—our overlords who art in DC must stop this. The Tea-Party “freshmen” are getting stale. They’ve done nothing to make the TSA cease and desist. They must forthwith.

UPDATE I (June 6): Via Shelly Roche: “Congress strikes down body scanners”: “Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt’s (R-AL) proposed legislation, the Fiscal Year 2012 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, denies the $76 million that US President Barack Obama requested to be used toward the scanners. As per Obama’s request, the funds would provide for nearly 300 additional body scanners being deployed across US airports, as well as the employment of a staff of over 500 needed to operate them. …”

The Politburo and its piecemeal tokenism. A “nuisance and slow”: That’s the stale, utilitarian reason one Tea party freshman uses to motivate against the state’s new meat irradiation program.

Via Shelly Roche: MORE.

UPDATE II (June 7): REVENGE SEARCHES. I made the point that in certain places along the traveler’s US route, he encounters racial revenge. I certainly did. I analyzed it in “Congress: Call Off Your TSA Attack Dogs!”:

America’s airports are ugly, militarized places. As I write, malicious assaults on person and property are underway there, carried out by the detritus of humanity, and with federal imprimatur. The TSA workforce manning crucial sections of the air terminals reflects the federal government’s legislated preference for angry minorities. Each one of these workers seems singularly intent on exacting revenge upon his or her perceived oppressors. The alternative media (Anderson Cooper and his ilk are excluded) must insist that these perpetrators be tagged, collared, and impounded.

Picture Los Angeles, and hundreds of British seniors, who still have some British character left—that typical linguistic acerbic bite included—being molested for hours-on-end in the heat.

[W]hen a handful of the [tourists] questioned whether the lengthy security checks at the port were strictly necessary for a group of largely elderly travellers officials were not amused.
Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.

As tourists and American travelers are assaulted, this country’s Idiocracy continues to entertain Palin’s roving circus, as well as busy itself with the measly contents of Weasel Weiner’s trousers.

S’cuse Me While I Die

Government, Justice, Law, libertarianism, The Zeitgeist

Approved, indubitably, by Mayor Marie Gilmore, the “rescue” guidelines adhered to by members of the pampered oink sector of the City of Alameda preclude rescues that necessitate “water training.” Alameda is in the San Francisco Bay Area!

Since they did not have “water training,” the Alameda pigs chose to stake out a good spot on the sand from which to watch a man drown. The man took an hour to expire. At no time were these pampered pigs overwhelmed by an urge to violate the bureaucratic restrictions imposed upon them. What resolve!

The deceased would be alive had these services been rendered by a private company, where owners would be sued into bankruptcy over such an incident. As it stands, the taxpayers will be penalized: they will pay for ensuing lawsuits. Responsibility for criminal negligence will be collectivized, as in all state-run enterprises. Wait for a statement by the mayor, who’ll announce a commission of inquiry, which is where all issues of culpability pertaining to the State go to die.

As to the libertarian issue of free will and the right to die. I understand that the man was trying to kill himself. But I am not of the libertarian mindset that you leave him to die. Since I cherish life, my position is that it is incumbent on good people to attempt a rescue in this case. Incumbent, but not legally binding. Not in libertarian law. The point here is to alert you to government callousness. If you want rescue services to be effective, private arrangements, neighborhood associations and the like, are most effective.

UPDATED: Deadend Debates (& State Death Squads)

Constitution, Education, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Military, Political Philosophy, Reason, The Zeitgeist

Be they pundits, politicians, government watchdogs, and other dogs (no offense to the canine community), most “critics” of our ever-accreting Nanny State don’t pose the right questions. This is because they appear to lack the requisite philosophical (constitutional or other) and logical frameworks. Unless these players begin directing the arrows in their quiver at the philosophical issues—what is the proper role of the state in this republic, RIP—we will be left with the silly, “To Spend of Not to Spend” debate. (Lackluster logic is harder to fix.)

One example is this Drudge headline (click “Go Back One Page” to view actual headline): “FEDS SPEND MILLIONS STUDYING SHRIMP ON TREADMILLS?? ‘GELATIN WRESTLING’ IN ANTARCTICA??” All the screeching CAPITAL LETTERS and question marks in the world will not fill in the blanks: Is the objection to this particular spending based on considerations of frugality? Or is Drudge’s outrage over the flouting of the Constitution by Feds? A better headline would begin to steer the Idiocracy in the right, critical direction.

The founders bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. Intellectual property laws are the only constitutional means at Congress’s disposal with which to “promote the Progress of Science.” (About their merit Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, was unconvinced.) The Constitution gives Congress only 18 specific legislative powers. Research and development spending—even for crucial matters as “Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole” and the “shrimp’s exercise ability”—are nowhere among them.

Rights and the Constitution aside, once we we begin to focus on the right issues and questions, the right answers will be likelier to present themselves.

Take the fuzzy discussion facilitated by Neil Cavuto, today, with two mushy-headed women about the right of a school to fine parents for pupil tardiness.

Lis Wiehl, a lawyer no less, was of one (mushy) mind with the other guest, a mother. Both believe that it’s simply unfair, in these tough times, for schools to penalize busy parents when kids are late for school.

The question here is, of course, not only about pedagogic purview; it’s about individual responsibility. Kids of a certain age ought to be responsible for their actions. Teachers are supposed to be able to enforce minimal attendance standards. If a child in high-school is tardy, he or she ought to be punished, not his parents.

But pedagogues, parents, pundits and most politicians are all-over-the-map—incapable of articulating the simple issues at hand. If thinking is so disordered and illogical, solutions will be no better. (In the last example: teachers should wait for better economic times before they fine parents for the actions of their kids.)

UPDATE (May 27): STATE DEATH SQUADS. With grim determination William N. Grigg dogs the perps in Police State America. Here they are breaking and entering and, then, killing the occupant of the invaded private property. Look at the goons! Talk about “The Myth of Posse Comitatus.” What is this if not the deployment of the US military against the people?

A YouTube poster appended an excerpt from our dead-letter Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The speedy execution of Jose Guerena (“it’s complex,” say officials) was mislabeled by our official cognoscenti. FoxNews bobbleheads debated whether this bloodbath amounted to the use of excess force, and entertained an apologist for the SWAT fucks who shed tears over the split-second decisions these, our great defenders, undertake in the course of defending us against alleged tokers.

The only relevant debate here is: whose property is it anyway? Does a man have the absolute right to defend his abode from invaders whomever, however? The only answer: “YES, YES, YES.” If you’re vaguely compos mentis, this is the only debate you should dignify.

[For those of you who await the weekly, WND.COM column: it will be back next week. I’ve been under the weather.]