Category Archives: The Courts

Smacked By A Liberal Girl

Barack Obama, Constitution, Federalism, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts

The Ass had his formidable ears smacked about by Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor, who is not exactly a conservative, “effectively rebutted President Obama’s warning that a ruling against Obamacare would be ‘judicial activism.'” (Washington Examiner)

Recall, President Obama had used the term “judicial activism” “when he described a possible ruling against Obamacare as “an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” (Washington Examiner)

O’Connor derided such reasoning today, without mentioning the president. “It seemed to me that it was primarily a lack of understanding by many people about the role of the judicial branch [that motivates charges of judicial activism],” O’Connor said today. “I really thought that we needed to enhance the education of young people about how our government works.”

Since federalism is a chimera—it no longer exists in any meaningful way—the level of decision-making is immaterial to me. In this context, what matters is the decision to strike down ObamaCare. Who cares which branch of the hydra-headed monster makes it, so long as it is made, and, once made, it holds.

UPDATED: All Burglars Are Home Invaders (Property Über Alles)

Crime, Democracy, GUNS, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, The Courts

In “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM, I discuss the culprits Joshua Komisarjevsky and his accomplice Steven Hayes, who “On July 23, 2007, were apprehended at the scene of a crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. Their crimes:

• Raping Mrs. Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter Michaela.
• Strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit.
• Setting the family home on fire, thereby killing Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley.

“… the Media and law enforcement are in the habit of describing a deadly home invasion as “a robbery gone wrong.” Consequently, homeowners have been culturally conditioned to consider the uninvited house guest as one would a modern-day Jean Valjean. Like Victor Hugo’s protagonist in Les Misérables, the “thief” is likely looking only to take a loaf of bread and leave—that is unless he openly announces his intentions to harm his reluctant hosts.

One extremely conservative writer even bristled when a news reporter broke protocol and applied the ‘home invasion’ appellation to the offense of breaking and entering:

… burglary is when a person illegally enters private property and steals things. A home invasion is when people illegally enter a home in order to terrorize, harm, or kill the residents… If we start calling all burglaries ‘home invasions,’ we lose the distinction between them.

The sooner we lose this distinction the better! All burglars are home invaders in-the-making.

Confronted with a criminal breaking and entering, there’s precious little the occupant can do to divine the intentions of the invader. It should be assumed that anyone violating another man’s inner sanctum will willingly violate the occupant. …If you believe in the sanctity of life you should fight for the sanctity of private property. It is a man’s right—even obligation—to defend his life and the lives of the loved ones living under his roof. Arguably, a right that is not vigorously defended is as good as a right forfeited. …”

The complete column is “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM.

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UPDATE (Sept. 23): PROPERTY ÜBER ALLES. I would probably disagree with Myron Pauli about the equal importance of the troika of liberties all libertarians should shout from the rooftops. Property trumps liberty, for liberty can be variously defined. Our government insists we are free so long as we can vote. We know this to be untrue. Property, moreover, is harder to redefine. Thus, if our rights to property were fully upheld—the same state that tells us to consider ourselves free (and be grateful) would be unable to control huge areas of our lives—bedroom, boardroom, you name them.

“Life, liberty property”: I don’t believe them to be equally weighted elements of liberty.

UPDATE I: Commute The Troy Davis Death Sentence

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Courts

If it hasn’t yet, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, reconsidering the death sentence of Troy Davis, ought to consult Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus. According to Dr. Loftus’ seminal work, eye-witness testimony is terribly unreliable.

A man should not be put to death based solely on the testimony of eye-witnesses most of whom have since recanted.

Troy Anthony Davis (born October 9, 1968) was convicted of the August 19, 1989, murder of Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a restaurant when he intervened in an argument between several men in a nearby parking lot. He was shot in the heart and face without having drawn his gun. One of the men, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in the killing, and Davis was arrested four days later. During Davis’ 1991 trial, many witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two others testified that Davis had confessed the murder to them. The murder weapon was never found, and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime. Throughout his trial and subsequent appeals, Davis has maintained his innocence. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1991.

(I discovered the work of this leading world authority on memory in the late 1990s, when I was writing and raging about the the recovered memory ruse. I also heard Dr. Loftus testify in court thereby securing a man’s liberty. As is obvious from the prominence of characters like Drs. Phil and Drew Pinsky, the profession of psychology is festooned with popularizers, poor thinkers and plain charlatans. Elizabeth F. Loftus has always stood apart.)

On the other hand, Joshua Komisarjevsky needs killing.

He and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (already waiting to die), were arrested at the scene of the crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. He and Hayes had just killed all three—and raped two—of the women of the Petit family. They then proceeded to burn down the house.

UPDATE I (Sept. 20):Breaking News vial Amnesty International: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis on Tuesday. This means that very little is standing in the way of the state executing a potentially innocent man this Wednesday.” Amnesty International is “calling on the Board to reconsider its decision, and on the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney Larry Chisolm to do the right thing.”

More from Amnesty International:

Death penalty supporters like Bob Barr, former Texas Governor Mark White, and former FBI Director William Sessions also support clemency in this case, for the same reason. And at least three jurors from Davis’ trial have asked for his execution to be called off. Putting Troy Davis to death would be a grave injustice to those jurors who believe they sentenced Davis to death based on questionable information.

Although I want to see the Troy Davis death sentence commuted, I don’t like the way this cause celebre has the media omitting mention of the name of the victim. “A police officer from Savannah” is how this lot is referring to the late Mark Allen MacPhail. Google throws up not much about this heroic, off-duty officer. You have to dig:

The 27-year-old former Army Ranger was moonlighting on a security detail when he ran to help a homeless man, who had cried out because he was being pistol whipped. MacPhail was shot three times before he could draw his handgun.

Understandably, The victim’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, has expressed the need for closure. She believes, however, that executing Davis will give her a sense of finality. Killing a man who may not have pulled the trigger is not the kind of closure a victim has the right to demand. A commutation of the death sentence would probably still mean life in jail for Davis. That should suffice.

UPDATE III: Jeff Ashton: Class Act in the Classless Casey Anthony Case

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Logic, Pop-Culture, The Courts

What a class act is Florida’s Assistant state attorney Jeff Ashton. What magnificent closing arguments he delivered in the case of the through-and-through sociopath, Casey Anthony. What a stellar presentation of evidence, rebuttal of the defense’s pie-in-the-sky’s clashing theories of the crime, and slap shod, ad hoc, invent-as-you-go narrative.

Ashton etched in evidence an identikit of the classic sociopath. Casey Anthony had never told the truth in her short life; had never done a day’s work in her life, and expected constant gratification and thrills at every turn. It’s a great shame that a man with as rigorous a mind as Ashton’s is retiring. I don’t blame him. Reason and reality, increasingly, will be lost on younger juries, who now inhabit a parallel, electronic universe where idiocy is normalcy.

One criticism of Ashton: His slurping of bottled water was annoying; he ought to have been supplied with glasses of water for his hard work.

Another is his theory of the day of the crime. It was well-done, but a little narrow for the morons in the jury box to grasp. Mommy dearest departed with her daughter, who was never again seen alive. It is, however, possible, even likely, that this wanton woman, a sociopath—who kept telling her parents she had a job, a babysitter, but had neither and was lying and stealing to keep herself in the loop of club life—lost it with the child, and climbed into her in a fit of rage.

The murder of Caylee Anthony was no accident, but it could have been committed in an unplanned manner too. Casey is clever, but she is also a bitch in rage (and in-heat). The child was probably spirited and willful, and this woman (now letting down her hair, primping and preening as though on a red carpet) had had enough of her child’s willfulness, and of the responsibility her (pretty liberal) parents attempted to foist on their difficult daughter.

“I have never been able to figure out why someone would cover up an accident by putting three pieces of duct tape over the nose and mouth of a child and then dumping him in a swamp. When children die of accidents, people call for help; that’s how it works in the real world, not in fiction.” (Ashton on CNN)

Rather than do the job with which they were entrusted, and deduce a logical sequence of events from the powerful evidence provided by the prosecution, the Millennial moron juror interviewed took elements of the profile and the evidence as discrete, atomistic items rejecting her duty to apply some deductive thinking. As I’ve said, short of a YouTube clip, nothing would have convinced these clods of the Anthony woman’s guilt.

Casey’s victory is about “winning”… in the Age of the Idiot.

[I can’t find transcripts of Closing. Can anyone send these?]

UPDATE I: I give your Dean Eckstadt, alternate juror. He instantiates most everything I said about the Millennials, some of who sat on this case. “Like, from the pictures, she seemed a good mother to me. Like she’s innocent. Like, it is what it is.”

I called this justice in the age of YouTube and I told you that there is something deformed about many younger Americans’ mindset and mentality, some of whom debuted on the jury. I’ve witnessed it in the young people with whom I am forced to deal in my interactions—narcissistic, informal, disrespectful to their elders and betters; they conflate how they feel with how things should work, they are the center of the universe, lazy, often incompetent, slow, can’t follow any logical, sequence or algorithm, conflate the personal and the professional. On and on. In short, Dean Eckstadt.

Behold another such specimen: Russel Heuckler. Not as young but as limited.

UPDATE II (July 11): In Florida, there are two possible penalties for first-degree murder — life in prison without parole or the death penalty.” Also, as I understand it, there are two phases to a trial. The other, highly opinionated, young female juror doing the rounds, indicated that what weighed on her ability to deliberate was the fact that the prosecution had sought the death penalty. She was, however, prohibited from judging the evidence with the recommended penalty in mind. Moreover, the jury did not have to recommend the death penalty. When the sentencing phase commenced, they could have recommended life in prison. Not unexpectedly, Mike Huckabee was not apprised of this distinction. The man is a simpleton. Always has been.

In any event, the jurors currently proudly touting their exquisite sensitivity had flouted the Judge’s instructions in the matter of distinguishing the deliberation from the penalty phase of a trial. To these simple, Millennial minds, everything was enmeshed. And, of course, there was no footage of the act…

UPDATE III (July 11): And Greta keeps a straight face. I give you the YouTube youth vote on Jury Duty.