Category Archives: Law

Shades of Waco?

America, Criminal Injustice, Law, libertarianism, Media, Morality, The State

Another prosecutorial team is on the make, this time in Utah, where the state has been pursuing Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Prosecutors have been egged on by a histrionic media—cable coquettes, especially, with their mangled maternal instincts.

First came District Attorney Michael Nifong of the Duke “rape” case fame. By the admission of the accuser’s co-striper, her story lacks credibility. The accused has an alibi. The DNA found on the accuser is not his. And the lineup was in violation of procedures. Yet this DA run amok forges on, oblivious to the constitutional and procedural safeguards to which an accused is entitled. (Here’s another superb source on the case.)

Mary Lacy, Boulder County’s inept DA, arrested a man in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, based on no other corroborating evidence than a confession, a practice that was once prohibited, for obvious reasons. Lacy attended Patsy Ramsey’s funeral and was clearly personally invested in the intruder-theory of the case. Lacy and Nifong appear to represent a decaying legal system festooned with incompetents, who substitute the constraints of the law with their “grand” visions.

As to Jeffs, the mindless media has always been enthralled by child-abuse crusaders. Janet Reno, one of the most murderous DAs, established her career by launching the day care child sex abuse witch hunt that gripped the nation in the 1980s. She used fabricated accusations elicited from children (who never lie, right?) with the aid of highly suggestive techniques, to imprison her victims absent corroborative evidence. These cases served as a professional stepping stone for Reno, who went on to commit even greater crimes.

Here are the Jeffs arrest warrant and affidavit. It’s ludicrous. He is charged with being an accomplice to rape, no less. Such an accusation conjures visions of Jeffs holding the victim down while another commits the act. Jeffs, however, is charged, based on hearsay, with encouraging a girl, then under 18, to submit to intercourse with her husband, who was a little older. How does urging someone to consummate a marriage amount to being complicit in a rape, a very brutal crime indeed? By this standard or test, aren’t the girl’s parents also complicit?

The sect is wealthy and owns large compounds in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, and British Columbia. Despite the fact that they live in peace and are non-violent, the federal government has described Jeffs, who was unarmed and did not resist arrest, as extremely dangerous.

The polygamist was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list in May, alongside Bin Laden. In this way, presumably, when the federal and state police storm these compounds and remove the children (with a view to seizing the valuable property too, no doubt), the public, dimmed and dulled by state-worshipping media, will shrug it off. After all, it’s all for “The Children,” isn’t it?

Question: Islam permits multiple marriages, doesn’t it? I have no doubt that devout American Muslims follow the dictates of their faith here in the US. Have you ever heard of any such prosecutions against members of that community?

Updated: BAB Letter of the Week By Rick

Barely A Blog, Feminism, Gender, Law

Letter of the Week is a feature I’ll endeavor to keep up on Barely a Blog, depending on reader input. In response to “Run, Little Man, If You Can,” Rick, a long-time reader, shares his agonizing experience:

The “war on fathers” has never addressed the real culprit here: The Family Court System and its unlimited corruption. With the cooperation of the legal and mental health communities, they, daily, separate caring and loving fathers from their precious children. In my case, the mother left with another woman and my child and I were put on therapy. Is this a sick society or what? Furthermore, when I complained to the judge about the therapy, I was put an “anger management,” where they do whatever it takes to turn you into a sissy they can easily manipulate. “False and malicious allegations” is another tool they use frequently to destroy fathers and deny children their right to a loving father.

It’s a very sick society we live in and we want the world to be like us?

—RICK

Update: Rick writes:

Miss Mercer, I am honored to be a weekly recipient of your updates. I’d like to expand on the subject below. It may help someone going through the hoops to eliminate some of the unwanted and unpleasant headaches, like doing your homework before you hire an attorney. It may save you tens of thousands of dollars.
Thanks again, and keep up your great work.

The “War on Fathers” is a subject I personally know very well. As a divorce man and another victim of the Family Courts, the legal and the mental health communities and everybody else in this “boys club,” committed to destroying families. Regarding “false and malicious allegations” against a father, which they bring with the sole purpose of getting the upper hand in custody cases and ruining the father’s life in the process: For 8 long years and after seven very unethical attorneys, I proved my innocence and was able to see my precious daughter once again. Today, she is a very well balanced young lady (let’s hope it stays that way), soon entering high school, a straight-A student and very proud of her daddy.

Last year, for a school project, she wrote an essay on “My Daddy’s Courage”. When I read it, it broke my heart. NO CHILD ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD should ever be exposed to what our precious children are exposed to in America. It’s a sin, a disgrace and we should ALL be ashamed for it. The mother, at the time, was deeply involved with a married woman and moved over two hundred miles away, taking my daughter with her, without a Court Order. Needles to say, her move was later approved by the Courts, without taking into consideration the fact that we had signed a “Joint Custody Agreement” a month earlier. How can a woman inflict so much pain and sorrow on her own flesh and blood is way beyond me. Unfortunately, they do so, with the full cooperation of the Family Courts System, the legal and mental health communities. May God have mercy on us.

—Rick
South Florida.

Updated: Is the FBI Entrapping Idiots? (& No, Timothy McVeigh Was No Idiot)

Conspiracy, Fascism, Government, Law, Media, Terrorism

CNN reports that seven Miami-based men “concocted a plot to ‘kill all the devils we can,’ starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, according to charges in a federal indictment revealed Friday.”

It transpires that this information was elicited by an “FBI operative posing as a member of the terrorist network.”

I watched the sister of one of the suspects enter “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The woman, bless her, was illiterate and probably borderline retarded. Let me tell you something: If American schools are producing the likes of this poor woman, homegrown retardation is more urgent a problem than homegrown terrorism.

Entrapment is equally worrisome. If the woman’s brother, also one of the accused, is as simple as she, then a wily and intelligent FBI agent could have a field day leading him on. The FBI is supposed to uncover existing plots, not help develop them by leading on a bunch of very simple, if unsavory, characters.

Rich Lowry has compared the hapless Miami bunch to Timothy McVeigh, who, according to Lowry, was also not very bright. This is a manifestly unperceptive observation. McVeigh was certainly intelligent. Read the interview he gave TIME and tell me it doesn’t reflect considerable intelligence. Read the interview the sister of the terror suspect gave Blitzer and tell me it doesn’t reflect extremely poor cognitive skills.

Compare this:

Asked by TIME magazine who were his favorite authors of political philosophy, McVeigh said:

“Patrick Henry, John Locke, of course many of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams. I thought those men were, at the time they were extremely well-educated. They could talk us in circles these days, we wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I really respected their observations and analyses of history past.”

To this:

Asked by Blitzer about her terror-suspect brother, Marlene Phanor said:

“Actually, he’s, um, he was, he was working and he got into this group and they started going to church, trying to help the community. But the guy, the leader, I never know where he came from, who he was. Actually, my brother and them don’t even know where he come from. But he came positive for them. He came to them where he can help them and help the community and humble their minds and humble their souls and everything.”

Morality aside, a couple of IQ standard-deviation points separate these two. To compare McVeigh’s intelligence to the likes of Phanor is a little strained, to say the least.

Provided the sister doesn’t represent a genetic anomaly (and her accused brother and his associates are bright), I’ll repeat my contention: it would have been easy for the FBI to ensnare this group.

Killing Commerce

Canada, Economy, Law

I import my beans freshly roasted from the fabulous JJ Bean Coffee in Vancouver, Canada. The place is charming and quaint—it sports a vintage 4-barrel Jabez Burns sample roaster. Back in the day, I used to love sipping a cup of the house blend and munching banana bread as I waited for my beans to be packaged.

The other day I was informed by JJ Bean’s insurance agent that the company’s goods will no longer be available in the US:

Legal liability laws in the US and Canada differ markedly with respect to consumer products. American product liability laws include ‘Strict Liability’ and this difference makes it prohibitively expensive for JJ Bean to continue with its US sales.
In Canada when a business sells a product, and that product causes harm to the consumer, the consumer must prove that the product caused the harm. In the US the onus of proof shifts onto the business owner, who must prove that he did not negligently cause the harm, something that is generally much more difficult to prove.
Accordingly, commercial legal liability insurance premiums in the US are much higher than in Canada, and if a Canadian business sells products into the US they are subject to these higher rates.

Because JJ Bean is a small franchise, it doesn’t generate enough business to support the steep overhead.

It is clear that Canadian law is far more compatible with the free market. American law is illiberal; it gums up trade, infantilizes Americans, and is tantamount to open season on business. What makes it particularly egregious is that, in the event that some malcontent initiates criminal proceedings against the company, the law leans toward a presumption of guilt, not innocence. Innocent until proven guilty; no crime without intent—now aren’t those supposed to be some of the foundations of the American judicial and constitution tradition?