It appears that Barbie has found religion. After rebelling with Harley Davidson Barbie and bikini Barbie. There is even an S & M Barbie in all leather and fishnet stockings. Now, however, there is Burka Barbie.

Of course, this could be a surplus GI Joe in a Burka but the covered Barbie is on display with 500 other Barbies at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy. To complete the image of subjugation for feminists, Burka Barbie will be auctioned off to the highest bidder as part of the fundraiser by Sotheby’s.

For many, the doll teaches girls to accept an obnoxious practice of women covering themselves — a practice common in areas where girls as young as ten are routinely married off. Then again, many Muslims would likely argue that, if Mattel markets kinky Barbie, why shouldn’t it also make Barbies for conservative Islamic families?

Would do you think?

For the picture of Burka Barbie and full story, click here.

President Barack Obama made an surprising concession, long sought by the Chinese government, in his recent visit to China. While largely ignored by most reporters covering the speech, Obama stated the following: “We did note that while we recognize that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China, the United States supports the early resumption of dialogue between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama to resolve any concerns and differences that the two sides may have.”

That would appear to reject the view of the and human rights activists that China invaded and occupied Tibet against its will. While the State Department has made such statements in the past, Presidents have been careful not to publicly ratify the Chinese occupation. Bush was not exactly a champion of Tibetan rights, but many (particularly in Hollywood) wanted Obama to push for a Free Tibet (or at least not reaffirm its absorption into China).

Advocates for Free Tibet have long complained that Obama was sacrificing their cause for better relations with China, which holds a huge amount of U.S. debt. This includes the decision of the White House not to have the President meet personally with the Dalai Lama recently, here.

Tibet, after all, became part of China after an invasion in 1950.

For the full story, click here.

When Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was being beaten and interrogated for 118 days as an accused spy he expected death but not the Daily Show. During his beatings, the Iranian interrogator played a segment from John Stewart’s Daily Show under the apparent belief that it is a real news program and revealed Bahari’s spy activities.

Bahari was confronted with a video from the Daily Show where Jason Jones played the role of a redneck pretending to be a spy named Mr. Pistachio. Bahari had participated in the segment and the Iranian government (not big on humor but unwitting masters at irony) believed it was real.

Bahari was released from Tehran’s Evin Prison on Oct. 17th after being beaten and threatened with death for months. It is worth noting that the Iranians, while admitting that the segment was a spoof, could claim that its interrogations were not torture under the American standards. What the Iranians did to Bahari fell well short of the torture carried out by the Bush Administration. It will remain when one Bush’s most lasting legacies — denying us of the ability to denounce such treatment, particularly given Obama’s opposition to any investigation of torture.

He can only be thankful he did not do a clip on the Colbert Report.

For the full story, click here.

Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin has publicly asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy to stop taking communion with the Catholic Church due to his support for abortion, confirming that he asked Kennedy to refrain from communion in a private discussion in 2007. The confrontation became public after Kennedy revealed the 2007 conversation. The move could embolden other bishops in barring public officials from the sacrament, particularly in light of the health bill’s protection of abortion services.

Kennedy touched off the public spat in an interview with the Providence Journal when he revealed Tobin’s ban due “the positions that I’ve taken as a public official.” Tobin was clearly upset about the disclosure, stating that it was “pastoral and confidential.” He stated “I am disappointed that the congressman would make public my request of nearly three years ago that sought to provide solely for his spiritual well-being.” While Tobin may feel that he has caused to ban Kennedy, I find it a bit curious that he would first ban a man for his public positions and then be angry that Kennedy publicly discussed the ban with his voters. If the cause for the ban was Kennedy’s public work, he was more than within his rights to raise it with his voters and fellow Catholics.

The bishop is promising more public exchanges if Kennedy continues to speak out: “I have no desire to continue the discussion of Congressman Kennedy’s spiritual life in public. At the same time, I will absolutely respond publicly and strongly whenever he attacks the Catholic Church, misrepresents the teachings of the church or issues inaccurate statements about my pastoral ministry.”

Other leading Catholic leaders have faced similar moves by local priests over their votes in Congress, here and here.

For the full story, click here.

The tension between the Church of Scientology and Australian political leaders continued to grow last week. First, there was the allegation of the Church obstructing a criminal investigation, here. Then, there was the call for a criminal investigation of the Church by a powerful member of the legislature, here. Now, educators and parents are outraged over material distributed to elementary children heralding L. Ron Hubbard as one of history’s greatest figures and a symbol of human rights.

The videos and booklets were distributed by Youth for Human Rights and entitled Youth for Human Rights. The cover letter does not reveal the connection to the Church, but the material does contain a quote from L. Ron Hubbard on the back of the DVD cover reading: “Human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream – L. Ron Hubbard.”

He is also quoted in the booklet and listed as the number one “famous human rights leader” ahead of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Education Minister Verity Firth has tried to warn school officials to remove the material and not allow its distribution.

Scientology spokesman Cyrus Brooks explained “[i]f you all of a sudden want to become a Scientologist by watching the DVD, that’s good, but many members of Youth for Human Rights aren’t Scientologists themselves, and I’m fine with that.”

For the full story, click here.

Detroit has long fascinated observers as a major city in political and economic meltdown. In addition to continual political scandals and corruption investigations of its leaders, Detroit has soaring crime and debt that are accelerating a downward spiral. Now, in something out of Roger & Me, the city is dealing with a massive stack of corpses as people abandon loved ones due to a lack of money to bury them.

There are currently over 70 bodies piled up in the mortuary — unclaimed by their families and friends in a city with an unemployment rate of 28 percent.

In June, the city’s $21,000 annual county budget to bury Detroit’s unclaimed bodies was exhausted. The City is currently short $300 million in its overall budget. Yet, families were unwilling to pay for burials and preferred for Wayne County to spend the $700 for a rough pine casket at a nearby cemetery and a marker. Now the city itself cannot afford the burials and has begged for private donations to help bury the dead.

For the full story, click here.

Harold Warren Sr., 77, a Missouri funeral home director has pleaded guilty to intentionally giving three families the wrong cremated remains. This includes leaving a woman’s body in an electrical room for 10 months without embalming or refrigeration. What is interesting is that Circuit Judge Gary Oxenhandler indicated that he might not honor the plea bargain for no jail time for Warren, who is a prominent political figure in the area. There are questions of whether the prosecutors cut Warren a remarkably light deal due to his political connections and standing in the community.

Warren could face four years in prison on each of the charges, but reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid jail time. Under the deal he would get four years probation, pay back the money on the funeral services, and give the families an apology. The families have criticized the deal with prosecutors and I don’t blame them. That is pretty light for such an horrific act. Warren is accused of not only giving them the wrong body but leaving other bodies in bags in the basement.

Warren was also arrested recently for allegedly writing a bad check, here. That charge, however, was for a check of only $318 and was written on an account with insufficient funds (not normally a matter for an arrest).

Warren was Columbia’s first black City Council member and is still a prominent civic leader. He has received public support from the state and local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The deal with prosecutors has been denounced by some families, who also have the option of suing him in torts. The mishandling of corpses is treated as a distinct tort under the common law and often brings punitive damages.

For the full story, click here.

Milford, Connecticut police officer Jason Anderson has been charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of reckless driving in an accident that killed 19-year-old David Servin and 19-year-old Ashlie Krakowski. Anderson was driving at 94 miles per hour at the time and the crash was caught on the dashcam of another cruiser by Police Officer Richard Pisani.

Anderson was not responding to any call when he raced down the street after 2 a.m. Pisani and Anderson were returning to Milford in separate cruisers from a call.

The video was just released in the case.

A recent review of traffic tapes found repeated officers running red lights, here.

The investigation and charges are commendable, particularly given the response of some other departments to such cases, here and here and here. See also this story.

In Chicago recently officers were criticized for throwing a fundraiser for an accused drunk driving officer, here.

Some officers in driving accidents do not stick around to answer questions, here and here and here.

For the original story, click here.

A federal judge in New Orleans has found “monumental negligence” by the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers in the operation and maintenance of a shipping channel called the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. The finding allows residents to collect damages against the U.S. government after their homes were swamped by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters in 2005.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval rejected the government’s argument that the Corps was immune from liability and had properly maintained the navigation channel. The court specifically cited the Corps’ decision to widen the channel and allow the loss of protective wetlands as contributors to the disaster.

Duval awarded damages of about $720,000 to four people and a business in the case.

The immunity issue is likely to be appealed. Usually the government has immunity in areas where it exercises discretionary judgment or authority. A government official is allowed to be wrong and even moronic. The burning of the compound in Waco Texas is an example of such broad discretion. Few experts agreed with Janet Reno’s decision to send in a tank to charge a building filled with children and religious fanatics, but the courts still recognized immunity for officials.

For the full story, click here and here.

Pat Robertson has declared that Islam is not a religion but a “violent political system.” For many, such statements are nothing new from Robertson. However, it was a bit more surprising yesterday to learn that Virginia Governor Elect Bob McDonnell has refused to disavow that view. McDonnell was opposed during the recent campaign for having extreme religious views and close ties to evangelical leaders like Robertson.

McDonnell attended law school at CBN University (now Regent University), founded by Robertson, and appeared on his show, “The 700 Club.” While at the Republican Governors Association in Austin, McDonnell refused demands from Muslims that he disavow such views. He merely stated “I think people are entitled under the First Amendment to express whatever opinions that they may have, but I can only say that as governor of Virginia, I intend to have an inclusive administration where we bring people across the political and religious system to help us govern.”

One wonders what his reaction would have been to an imam saying that Christianity is a cult or non-religion. McDonnell did say that he does not personally view Islam as a “violent political system.”

On his television show, Robertson said “Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it’s not a religion. It’s a political system. It’s a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.”

Of course, Robertson’s statements seem to ignore parts of the Bible that promise such things as

“You . . . will also be slaughtered by my sword.” (Zephaniah 2:12-15)

“They shall be apportioned for foxes.” (Psalm 63: 11)

“The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem and captured it, killing all its people and setting the city on fire.” (Judges 1:1-8)

During the crusades, the Muslims did not exactly view the Christian faith as a peaceful religious movement.

For the full story, click here.

Donald Giles would appear to have the trifecta of mental incompetence arguments against execution. He is a paranoid schizophrenic with an IQ of 61 and a history of suicide attempts and depression. However, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Martin McDonald has ruled that Giles, 41, may be put to death if the jury so rules in his trial for the 2003 murder and robbery of Charles Goodlett.

In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Notably, Atkins was deemed “mildly mentally retarded” with an IQ of 59.

Kentucky law statutes actually ban the execution of a person with an IQ of 70 or below but McDonald ruled that Giles should have been given an IQ test as a child to claim such an exception.

This is news to many in the field who argue that the only requirement is proof that the mental condition was not recently claimed or caused. Giles has a lifetime of proven mental illness.

In the meantime, McDonald has been criticizing the local media for publicizing the case and his ruling on the mental incompetence of Giles.

For the full story, click here.

Arkansas police officer Dustin Bradshaw, used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl at the mother’s request after the little girl refused to take a shower and refused to obey him.

Bradshaw went to the house on a domestic disturbance call and found the girl on the floor screaming and refusing to listen to her mother.

Bradshaw proceeded to try to arrest the little girl, who kicked and resisted. He says that one kick hit him in the groin and he tasered the 10-year-old girl.

The girl has emotional problems, according to her father.

Most people would find tasering a little girl to be inexcusable and brutal but not Fort Smith Police Chief Jim Noggle. He insisted that Bradshaw was acting properly and even protecting her by shooting her with a taser. He has stated that, if she had not been tasered, Bradshaw might have broken her arms or legs in placing her into custody, here.

So that appears the full range of responses to an “unruly child,” as Noggle put it, is a broken arm or a tasing by deputies.

The little girl was charged with disorderly conduct.

It appears that no one is too old (here, here, here, here and here) or too young (here, here, here, here and here).

For the full story, click here and here.

Conservatives have picked a curious new slogan to oppose President Barack Obama: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” It is a quote from Psalm 109:8, but conservatives leave off the full passage: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” It is a damnation or imprecatory prayer.

In this case, conservatives are citing a passage that would seem to advocate Obama’s death. While obviously not the intended meaning, it is an interesting example of how these passages are used with no consideration of their actual meaning.

It is often interesting to see religious people use passages with little understanding of their meaning or to sanitize the passage to omit the violent Biblical message. This was the case recently in the controversy over cheerleaders like Georgia’s Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School who use Biblical verses as part of their cheers, here. They use such passages as Ezra 10:4: “Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.” The only problem is that this Biblical passage describes how Ezra followed the lead of God to banish foreign women and their innocent children for not being pure.

The Psalm is one of David and is an imprecatory prayer for God to destroy his enemies in the most horrible ways. We have seen the use of imprecatory prayers against Obama and others recently, here.

Here is the whole Psalm:

Help Me, O Lord My God
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

109:1 Be not silent, O God of my praise!
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying tongues.
3 They encircle me with words of hate,
and attack me without cause.
4 In return for my love they accuse me,
but I give myself to prayer. [1]
5 So they reward me evil for good,
and hatred for my love.

6 Appoint a wicked man against him;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is tried, let him come forth guilty;
let his prayer be counted as sin!
8 May his days be few;
may another take his office!
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow!
10 May his children wander about and beg,
seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!
11 May the creditor seize all that he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!
12 Let there be none to extend kindness to him,
nor any to pity his fatherless children!
13 May his posterity be cut off;
may his name be blotted out in the second generation!
14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!
15 Let them be before the Lord continually,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth!

16 For he did not remember to show kindness,
but pursued the poor and needy
and the brokenhearted, to put them to death.
17 He loved to curse; let curses come [2] upon him!
He did not delight in blessing; may it be far [3] from him!
18 He clothed himself with cursing as his coat;
may it soak [4] into his body like water,
like oil into his bones!
19 May it be like a garment that he wraps around him,
like a belt that he puts on every day!
20 May this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord,
of those who speak evil against my life!

21 But you, O God my Lord,
deal on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is stricken within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow at evening;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting;
my body has become gaunt, with no fat.
25 I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
when they see me, they wag their heads.

26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to your steadfast love!
27 Let them know that this is your hand;
you, O Lord, have done it!
28 Let them curse, but you will bless!
They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!
29 May my accusers be clothed with dishonor;
may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak!

30 With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord;
I will praise him in the midst of the throng.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.

Of course, the part about “May the creditor seize all that he has” appears to be working, at least for the Chinese government holding our debt. It is always nice to see the religious call for “his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!” After all, there is no vengeance and violence quite like Biblical vengeance and violence.

For the full story, click here.

Nick Balzano, president of the Service Employees International Union’s Allentown chapter, may have picked the wrong target for a threat of legal action by the union. Balzano threated the city with a grievance filing after Boy Scout Kevin Anderson, 17, says he cleared a walking path in an east Allentown, Pa. park so people could walk along the river. That should have been a job given to union employees, Balzano, claimed, and is threatening a legal filing.

The union was complaining that 39 SEIU members were recently let go by the city, which then allowed this scout to earn his scab badge. He is quoted as saying that the union would be “looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails … There’s to be no volunteers.”

Anderson is a member of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center Valley and worked for more than 200 hours creating the 1000-foot path in Kimmets Lock Park along with fellow scouts, friends and parents. He is a junior at Southern Lehigh High School.

I think that the SEIU should insist on the garbage be put back and Anderson charged under National Labor Relations Act as a lesson to any scouts who would try something horrific like this again. Indeed, the federal government should look into how scouts have been supplanting cross-guard employees by helping elderly citizens across streets. The menace of scab scouting must be confronted before every footpath in America is cleared.

Below may (or may not) be a picture of the confrontation between the scouts and the union:

For the story, click here.

The Sharia courts of Somalia have another atrocity to their credit. The Islamic court of al-Shabab sentenced a woman to be stoned to death for adultery. The man was given 100 lashes.

The 20-year-old woman is a divorcee who admitted to having sex with another single person. She was stoned to death in front of 200 people. The man, 29, was allowed to live and given 100 lashes in the bizarre world of Sharia justice.

“Judge” Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman insisted that Islam requires such punishment for women who are divorced and have sex. It is treated as adultery. The man is viewed as simply having sex before marriage — punishable by flogging.

Previously, the Sharia court stoned a man to death but spared his pregnant girlfriend — who will be stoned soon after giving birth, here. Of course, these same areas have no problem with fostering piracy and murder — which appear perfectly moral.

For the full story, click here

There has been a ruling in the Arizona case where an officer, Officer Adam Stoddard with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is clearly shown on this videotape reading and then swiping the confidential papers of defense attorney Joanne Cuccia in court. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe found against Stoddard and ordered him to either apologize or report to jail — a remarkably light sentence. However, his boss is Sheriff Joe Arpaio who has said that his officer will defy the order.

Stoddard swiped the papers while defense attorney Joanne Cuccia was addressing the court on behalf of her client, Antonio Lozano. The response of Judge Lisa Flores was remarkably understated and restrained given the horrific breach of confidentiality.

Before Donahoe, Stoddard’s explanation only magnified his misconduct. He claimed that he saw the words “going to,” “steal,” and “money” on a handwritten sheet of paper sticking out of Cuccia’s file, which led him to believe that Lozano posed a security threat. This confirms that he read the document as opposed to a cursory review of material for contraband or weapons. It is also ridiculous that such words would cause an officer to remove confidential notes — written by an attorney — in a criminal case. Most of the attorneys in that courthouse are representing people with records and have notes including such nouns and verbs.

Stoddard ordered an apology to Cuccia or jail. Many believed that Stoddard should have been fired or, in the very least, barred from work in courthouses. Arpaio, however, has declared that he will defy the order. Arpaio is the most controversial sheriff in the country and is routinely accused of abusive practices. On this occasion, he is defending his deputies pulling handwritten notes from the files of lawyers to be copied and reviewed.

For the story, click here.

It was the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland that declared “Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.” However, President Barack Obama appears to have taken a lesson our two from her majesty. Today, President Obama assured Americans that they should not be offended by trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court because he will be convicted and executed. I will be discussing this story tonight on MSNBC Countdown.

In an interview with NBC News, Obama said those offended by the trial will not find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.” He then appeared to recognize the impropriety of those remarks and said that he was “not going to be in that courtroom. That’s the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury.”

It is highly ironic that, in defending the noble decision to grant a fair trial to these men, Obama may have crossed the line in contributing to the prejudicial atmosphere against them. It is always a bad idea for a politician to comment on cases pre-trial. However, the greater damage may have been caused by Attorney General Eric Holder in his original press conference on the decision. The only thing missing from that transcript is a case caption to make it a formal motion for venue change. Holder specifically states that he wanted KSM tried a couple blocks from ground zero and wanted to give New Yorkers the satisfaction of trying one of the villains of 9-11.

I am not certain that such a trial will occur. If there is a case to be made for a venue change, this is it. Holder only magnified the need for such a motion.

For the full story, click here.

This afternoon, the Plaintiffs in the World Bank/IMF protest case filed a notice with the Court of the receipt of an affidavit in the case from a police detective, who contradicts the sworn testimony of former D.C. (and current Philadelphia) Police Chief Charles Ramsey. As lead counsel in one of the two cases (with my colleague Daniel Schwartz of Bryan Cave), I am limited in what I can say on the case. However, to reduce calls to my office, I am posting the filing below.

The notice is filed with our colleagues in the Barham Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo for the Partnership for Civil Justice who has posted videos of the deposition of Ramsey, here.

The notice states in part:

In opposition to that motion and in yesterday’s status hearing before this Court, Chang counsel raised the issue and discussed the relevance of Detective Hustler’s possible testimony. (See Dkt. No. 558 in Chang.) The Court ordered the deposition of Detective Hustler to go forward under the supervision of the Marshall Service or Magistrate Facciola. Following the hearing, counsel for both Chang and Barham jointly reviewed an affidavit that had been submitted by Detective Hustler that disclosed the evidence that would have been presented in the deposition. (See Hustler Affidavit, attached as Exhibit 1.) The evidence is
extremely disturbing and contradicts prior sworn representations given to the Court and plaintiffs during the past seven years of litigation of this matter as well as the investigation into the Pershing Park arrests undertaken by the District of Columbia Council. The affidavit details the actions and observations of Detective Hustler on September 27, 2002, including his observations of the orders given for the mass arrest in Pershing Park.

For the notice, click As filed

For the affidavit, click As filed Affidavit

For the story, click here and here

In the aftermath of the criminal conviction in France (here), the Church of Scientology is facing a call for a criminal investigation in Australia from Senator Nick Xenophon, who presented the case against the church before the legislature.

Xenophon, used parliamentary privilege to present the case against the Church, presumably insulating himself from civil liability and putting the accounts of alleged victims into the record of the body.

He called the church’s “crimes” as “shocking” and declared that ”Scientology is not a religious organisation; it is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.”
He put into the record letters from former members, detailing what he says is a criminal enterprise. He specifically highlighted the case of Paul David Schofield who says that his first daughter, Lauren, died after she was allowed to wander around one of the Church of Scientology’s Sydney buildings and fell down some stairs. His second daughter, Kirsty, also died, after swallowing potassium chloride – a substance he said was used widely in the organisation’s ”purification” programs.

Scientology officials denounced the move as ”an outrageous abuse of parliamentary privilege.” The Church insisted that former members are not reliable witnesses since “[t]hey are about as reliable as former spouses are when talking about their ex-partner.”

The Church was previously accused of hampering an investigation in Australia, here.

For the full story, click here.

Conservative commentators continue their war on the Constitution this week with increasingly shrill rhetoric of how our laws and civil liberties are endangering us. Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, however, achieved a remarkable low by declaring “I don’t care about the Constitution” on air in a discussion of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try five detainees in New York.

I am always struck by anti-American rhetoric that comes from such figures. The Constitution is the very thing that defines who we are as a nation. It is the thing that we have sacrificed lives and treasure to protect. Yet, people like O’Reilly have little reluctance in trashing it. I am less surprised by Karl Rove, who has shown little personal commitment to the rule of law and barely escaped an indictment in the Plame matter. Rove declared that giving a fair trial to terror suspects is a “long-standing plot” by “left-wing lawyers who do not love America.” America, it seems, is something other than our values and founding documents. It is, I suppose, Fox News.

I have no delusion about O’Reilly, but I am still struck by the dismissive contempt shown this common article of faith between citizens, the Constitution. While we have considerable political, religious, and cultural differences, that document is something of a covenant of faith between us as citizens. One cannot love this country without loving that document. What is less is land and “lifestyle.” O’Reilly’s statement is every bit as offensive as those of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom I also denounced. Yet, it was met with acclaim rather than condemnation from conservative viewers.

In North Buffalo, Pennsylvania, Randy Good has created a novel and disgusting nuisance. He has agreed to remove a pile of hundreds of dead deer from his property which has neighbors gagging from the odor.

In torts, we often debate what constitutes a nuisance. This would appear to satisfy even the most restrictive definition. Randy Good has a contract with the state to remove dead deer from the side of roads within 24 hours. That results in a daily collection of 50 to 100 dead deer which often end up on his property as a rotting heap.

Good insists that “Everyone has a job. This is part of it.” However, he has agreed to remove the pile of dead deer — a wise move.

For the full story, click here.

Here is today’s column in USA Today on the continuing trend toward shaming or creative punishments.

Shame is back in the United States with a vengeance.

Across the country, judges and prosecutors and jailers are freelancing by imposing their own brands of retributive justice: forcing people to wear humiliating clothing, parade in public and even sleep in doghouses. The punishments are wildly popular with many in the public who want to see criminals humiliated and seem to relish the entertainment of improvised justice.

Two weeks ago, citizens of Bedford, Pa., were able to gawk at Evelyn Border, 55, and her daughter, Tina Griekspoor, 35. The two had been caught stealing from a child and were told by the local prosecutor that unless they performed a publicly humiliating act, they would be hit with heavy charges. They agreed to appear in front of the courthouse holding signs reading, “I stole from a 9-year-old on her birthday! Don’t steal or this could happen to you!” Such scenes are being repeated across the country as citizens are told to choose between degrading public acts or long jail sentences.

Shaming punishments are a return to primitive practices common before the American Revolution, when people were forced into public pillories, marked with scarlet letters or forced into forms of public humiliation, including degrading signs. These shaming punishments declined after the Founding Fathers sought to modernize the criminal justice system and to require consistent punishments.

Gum, manure and doghouses

Elected state judges have found that many citizens relish the humiliation of others. Georgia Judge Rusty Carlisle does not deny that he is trying to degrade people who come before him. In one case, a defendant seemed “kind of cocky” in a minor littering case, so Carlisle ordered him to scrape the gum off the bottoms of the court benches with a butter knife while people watched. The “King of Shame” was Texas Judge Ted Poe, who insisted that “people have too good a self-esteem,” so he made them do things such as shovel manure to abase them. What Poe called “Poetic justice” has little to do with actual justice. It is a form of entertainment that sacrifices our most fundamental principles to satisfy our most base impulses. Judges give the public displays of retribution by using citizens as virtual props in their personal theater of the absurd.

In 2003, Texas Judge Buddie Hahn gave an abusive father a choice between spending 30 days in jail or 30 nights sleeping in a doghouse (He chose the doghouse to be able to keep his job). Likewise, in Ohio, municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti sentenced two teens found guilty of breaking into a church on Christmas Eve 2002 to march through town with a donkey and a sign reading, “Sorry for the Jackass Offense.” Cicconetti later ordered a woman to be taken to a remote location to sleep outside for abandoning kittens in parks.

Studies have actually shown limited value in humiliation as a punishment in terms of actual deterrence in crime. Its principle value is found in the political rather than the criminal system. Indeed, Poe used the popularity of his creative punishments to secure a seat in Congress in 2004.

Now, prosecutors and jailers are trying to cut in on the shaming action. In the Bedford case, the punishment was not ordered by a judge but by a prosecutor, Bedford District Attorney Bill Higgins, who promised to seek probation if they demeaned themselves.

“Giving the people what they want” can sometimes get them to forget what they don’t want — like the bread and circuses of Roman emperors. For example, Higgins was dogged by allegations of adultery and having sex in the very courthouse where he paraded Border and her daughter. Though he faced a criminal complaint and admitted to adultery, no one is calling for Higgins to wear a placard as an adulterer. Instead, he is being heralded for parading the two petty thieves.

Likewise, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has long faced complaints over his heavy-handed tactics against both citizens and illegal immigrants. However, most people know him only as the guy who forced male inmates to wear pink underwear to humiliate them.

Inventing justice

Some judges have faced charges over their meting out personal justice but have received little punishment. Gustavo “Gus” Garza, a justice of the peace in Texas, was given only an admonishment last year when he forced parents to spank their children in front of him in court to avoid heavy fines. In another spanking case, former Alabama judge Herman Thomas actually used shaming punishments as a criminal defense. Thomas was recently acquitted of sodomy and assault after he allegedly took inmates from their cells for spankings and sex in his chambers. Despite testimony alleging spanking and sodomy, Thomas’ lawyer insisted that the judge was merely “mentoring them” and trying to turn them into “productive citizens” in dealing with them in chambers.

All criminal sentences produce shame for most citizens. But there is a difference between shame from a punishment and shame as a punishment. These judges are inventing their own forms of retributive justice like little Caesars toying with citizens. It is a threat to the basic principles of our legal system. It is an abuse of not just the criminal code but of the criminals themselves. It is not just wrong. It is, in a word, shameful.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.

November 17, 2009

Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qaddafi (aka Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi) may have bombed at the United Nations with his rambling speech, but he is still trying to win the hearts and minds of the young. This week, Qaddafi spoke to an audience of young Italian women about the need for them to convert and come and see him in Libya for a vacation.

The Libyan government arranged for the audience by going through an agency that supplies attractive hostesses for conferences between the age of 18 to 35. Qaddafi wanted them to become Muslims and disabuse them of any misunderstanding about the treatment of women in Islam.

He also explained a few misconceptions about Christianity, including the fact that Christians are under the wrong idea that Christ was crucified. It turns out, according to Qaddafi that he wasn’t — it was just a guy who looked like Christ.

He gave them each a copy of the Koran, a copy of his Green Book, and a personal invitation to come to his country for a vacation and conversion.

For the full story, click here.

We recently saw a court rule that a quadriplegic has a right to hunt with a special chair where he literally blows away deer by blowing into a tube attached to the trigger. Now, Senators have adopted a provision to guarantee the right of “mentally incapacitated” veterans to buy firearms. After the shooting at Fort Hood, the provision passed with the support of Republican North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Virginia Senator Jim Webb is attracting criticism.

You might not be viewed as fully loaded but you are likely sane enough to own a gun under the new change.

The provision would allow such veterans currently listed as mentally incapacitated to buy weapons.
Burr explained that “[c]urrently, when the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) appoints a fiduciary to assist a veteran with managing their financial affairs, VA also deems the veteran mentally incompetent and reports him or her to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), . . The Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act would require a judicial body to deem a veteran, surviving spouse, or child as a danger to himself or others before being listed in NICS, which would prohibit the veteran from being able to purchase certain firearms. The legislation is supported by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.”

The provision would alter the language of Gun Control Act of 1968 and override VA regulations that bar such purchases.

The legislation is called Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act and can be found here and here. It specifically covers any veteran “who is mentally incapacitated, deemed mentally incompetent, or experiencing an extended loss of consciousness.”

Critics charge that the provision would guarantee gun ownership for people like Major Nidal Hasan, who was considered ” “psychotic.”

The family of Matthias Mayhorn has filed a complaint against two Chicago police officers alleging that they dangled Mayhorn out of a second floor window, fired their weapons near him, and then dropped him. They also allege that the officers refused to call immediate medical attention. He died later at a hospital from his injuries. The case shows how one event can present radically different accounts.

The alleged abuse occurred on March 10, 2009 and accuses officers Henry Thomas and Patrick Kane, who allegedly entered his home without permission.

The officers have a strikingly different account: alleging that they shot Mayhorn who was armed and escaping out the window, here. Mayhorn was no angel. He had been convicted of several felonies, including aggravated domestic battery, possession of a firearm and escape from a peace officer. That record is not likely to help the lawsuit.

For a copy of the complaint, click here.

President Barack Obama and his Administration set a new level of hypocrisy this weekend with calls on the Chinese government and military to end censorship and be more open with the public while barring disclosure of embarrassing photos of detainee abuse.

Obama appears much more fervent in his commitment to civil liberties and open government when it is someone else’s government. Recently, his Administration took an extraordinary step of demanding an investigation of a visiting defense official on allegations of torture — in Sri Lanka, here.

Obama waxed poetic in China in explaining how the government should not be afraid of allowing the free flow of information and openness.

He insisted “I’m a big supporter of non-censorship. I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet — or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.” Of course, we had a tradition of open disclosure of government documents and photos before the Bush and Obama administration argued that embarrassment alone is sufficient to bar release of such information.

For the China story, click here.

To make the hypocrisy complete, Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the occasion of this weekend when Obama was lecturing the China on openness to block the release of any more pictures of foreign detainees abused by their U.S. captors. The Obama Administration is opposing free speech and good government groups in the Supreme Court who have denounced his policy of nondisclosure as a dangerous and extreme policy of government control of information.

For the Gates story, click here.

Then there is Rear Adm. Kevin Donegan, commander of the U.S. aircraft carrier group for the Asia-Pacific, who specifically used the same period to lecture the Chinese military on transparency in its activities. There seems no concern that Donegan was making such demands while Gates was denying transparency in Washington.

For the military story, click here.

The Obama Administration continues to leverage heavily on the growing cult of personality surrounding Obama — much like the one surrounding Bush in his first term. For many, Obama’s popularity is unaffected by the fact that he is pursuing the very same hostile policies as Bush on civil liberties, privacy, and open government. More importantly, there appears no reaction to the disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions. Once again, liberals are committing the same mistake that conservatives committed with Bush. Many continue to display blind loyalty and offer little criticism of the President while core values continue to be challenged by his Administration.

We previously followed the investigation into the three deaths in a sweat lodge run by “Spiritual Warrior” James Arthur Ray at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Sedona, Arizona. Now, the Lakota Sioux Tribe is suing, demanding the prosecution of Ray under the 1869 Treaty of Fr. Laramie for appropriating a Native American ritual.

The case is the Oglala Lakota Delegation of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council v. United States, (D AZ, filed 11/2/2009) and relies on the language of the treaty stating:

If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent, and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington city, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained.

Ray is the bad man among the whites, they argue. Many would agree with that proposition. The question is whether Ray can self-help himself out of a treaty-based prosecution.

This could make for some interesting litigation. One does not often see prosecutions of people who are defined as “bad men among the whites” in federal court. More importantly, the claim that a sweat lodge is the property of the Lakotas is meritless in my view and would raise serious constitutional questions. Yet, they insist that the Oinikaga sweat lodge ceremony is part of the Lakota’s oral tradition which, according to the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Art. 31, is protected.

Sam Longblackcat, a spokesman for the Lakota, seemed to steer away from religious challenges from the defense. He said that the sweat lodge is one of the seven sacred rites of the Lakota. “This is a way of life, not a religion.” He insisted that “[t]he sweat lodge – we call it Oinikaga or Inipi – is a purification ceremony, to make life. Our sacred way of life was desecrated by a non-native man. This is our property, and there are laws in the United States and in the United Nations that state that these customs are ours and that they are to be protected.”

The non-Native man is also collecting almost $10,000 a person for the pleasure of self-help sweating.

I would still have to bet on the “non-native man” over the Lakota on this one.

For a copy of the lawsuit, click here.

For the full story, click here.

Paul Clarke, 27, a veteran, thought that he was doing the right thing when he found a shotgun in his garden. He took the shotgun to the police station and was immediately arrested for possession of a firearm without permit and criminally charged — an offense that brings five years imprisonment. Prosecutor Brian Stalk insisted that this is a strict liability offense and his intent to help police does not matter — he is a menace to society as defined under the criminal code.

If there was a case for “jury nullification,” this was it. However, the jury took only 20 minutes to find Clarke guilty.

Clarke insisted “I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets.” Well now he knows better.

His defense attorney tried to show that a leaflet distributed by the Surrey Police asked citizens to “report[] found firearms.”

He also showed jurors a leaflet printed by Surrey Police explaining to citizens what they can do at a police station, which included “reporting found firearms”. Notably, the arresting officer admitted that he was not even aware of the public leaflet.

However, Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge. The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”

Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11th. He will be hopefully removed from the streets, so that felons can rest assured that, when they leave loaded weapons in backyards, people will respect their proprietary interests. The only question is whether the police shouldn’t return the shotgun to where it was left. Otherwise, there is a gang banger who will continue a panicked search for his missing weapon.

In the end, the only response to the Court and the Prosecutor can be found in the English classic Oliver Twist when Mr. Bumble stated ” If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!”

For the full story, click here.

There is a disturbing trial being held in Zambia where the news editor of The Post, Chansa Kabwela, sent photos of a woman giving birth in a hospital car park without assistance to highlight the costs of a nursing strike and poor government policies. She was right. The officials, including Zambia’s President, Rupiah Banda, were horrified. They immediately arrested Kabwela for distributing pornography.

The baby died from suffocation and the pictures were quite graphic. No one at the trial seems quite as appalled by the lack of medical care that led to the death. It is taboo in the country to show a woman in labor.

Sharon Zulu, the arresting officer, told the court and jury “[w]e are all Zambian here. We all know this is not allowed in our culture.” Now that is a novel form of testimony — cultural lessons from a police officer. However, our community-based definition of obscenity is not much better given Former Justice Potter Stewart’s opinion that “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . .” One of the most ridiculous legal standards ever uttered.

Under the Court’s decision in Miller v. California the Court uses a standard that is rife with local community bias. Chief Justice Warren Burger crafted the standard:

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Of course, in the Zambian case, the photos may be offensive but they are hardly the most offensive thing in this case.

For the full story, click here.

Here is today’s column from the Washington Post on the benefits of a new type of “good-faith” defense. While “religious convictions” are usually a reference to personal faith, it turns out that it has a distinct and disturbing meaning for criminal sentencing.

“Suffer little children to come to me.” So begins one of the most cited passages in the Bible. Yet, in cases involving the deaths of children in faith-healing families, the second half of Jesus’s admonition from Luke 18:16 is at the heart of legal controversy: “. . . and forbid them not.”

In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. While faithful neglect makes for a poor criminal defense, it is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.

This disparate treatment was evident last month in Wisconsin, a state with an exemption for faith-based neglect under its child abuse laws. Leilani and Dale Neumann were sentenced for allowing their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, to die in 2008 from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. The Neumanns are affiliated with a faith-healing church called Unleavened Bread Ministries and continued to pray with other members while Madeline died. They could have received 25 years in prison. Instead, the court emphasized their religious rationale and gave them each six months in jail (to be served one month a year) and 10 years’ probation.

During their sentencing, Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard said the Neumanns are “very good people raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision.” He then gently encouraged them to remember that “God probably works through other people, some of them doctors.”

Compare the Neumanns’ legal treatment with a couple of other recent cases in which children were injured or killed by nonreligious neglect. Russell J. Wozniak Jr. and Jennifer Ann Wozniak, of Chippewa Falls, Wis., received basically the same sentence as the Neumanns for, the criminal complaint said, allowing their 2-year-old to wander around covered in vomit and wearing a full diaper.

Then there are the parents of Alex Washburn. The 22-month-old died after hitting his head at home in Cross Lanes, W.Va. His parents, Elizabeth Dawn Thornton and Christopher Steven Washburn, said the boy fell a lot and hit his head on the corner of a table and his chin on a toilet. They apologized for not seeking medical help and agreed to terminate their parental rights to their other children, handing over custody to the state. “I wish I did seek medical treatment for my son faster,” Washburn told the court. “That will definitely be with me for the rest of my life.” The court sentenced both parents to three to 15 years in prison.

So the Neumanns got one month in jail for six years and kept custody of their children, and the Washburns got up to 15 years in prison and agreed to give up their kids.

In a nation founded on the free exercise of religion, the legal system struggles with parents who act both criminally and faithfully in the deaths of their children. This paradox has perplexed courts for centuries. One of the earliest prosecutions of such a case occurred in England in the 1800s, when the crown charged followers of a sect known only as the Peculiar People, a name derived from a translation of the phrase “chosen people” from the book of Deuteronomy. They were accused of killing numerous children as a result of faith-healing practices.

Today, the Old Peculiars are largely gone (their faith-healing views thinned their numbers considerably), but many other sects such as Unleavened Bread Ministries have prospered. While the vast majority of fundamentalist and faith-healing parents avail themselves of a doctor’s care when faced with a dire medical condition, some religious parents continue to maintain that belief in God means belief in His power and discretion to heal. They take literally the fact that one of the names of God in the Old Testament, Jehovah-Rapha, means “I am the Lord your Physician,” and point to Exodus 15:26, where God says, “I am the Lord that heals you.”

In the four Gospels, Jesus heals the sick, including in Mark 5:34, where He cures a hemorrhaging girl who was unsuccessfully treated by doctors, saying: “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness.”

Some parents go to incredible lengths to prevent doctors from doing God’s work. Colleen Hauser of Minnesota gained national attention in May when she went into hiding with her 13-year-old son to avoid a court order that he receive chemotherapy for a Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumor growing in his chest. She was eventually forced to yield; this month, her son finished his final radiation treatment and his family says his cancer is gone.

But the Hauser case is an exception. The advocacy group Children’s Health Care Is a Legal Duty estimates that roughly 300 children have died in the United States since 1975 because care was withheld. When such parents appear in court, they often insist that they love their children and their God – an argument that receives a sympathetic hearing from judges and prosecutors.

While defendants generally show contrition for their actions, the Neumanns remained unrepentant about not calling emergency personnel until after Madeline stopped breathing. Leilani Neumann said: “I do not regret trusting truly in the Lord for my daughter’s health.” Dale Neumann told the court: “I am guilty of trusting my Lord’s wisdom completely. . . . Guilty of asking for heavenly intervention. Guilty of following Jesus Christ when the whole world does not understand. Guilty of obeying my God.”

In Oregon, the Followers of Christ church has been cited for injuries and deaths associated with its faith-healing beliefs for decades. In one 10-year period, estimated Larry Lewman, an Oregon state medical examiner, the church experienced 25 child deaths related to faith-based medical neglect. A recent case involved Ava Worthington, a 15-month-old who fell ill in 2008. Rather than call doctors, her parents – Carl Brent Worthington and Raylene Worthington — allowed a simple cyst on her neck to grow to the size of a softball as they anointed her with oil and administered small amounts of wine, according to testimony at the trial. She died of a blood infection and pneumonia.

Judge Steven L. Maurer, a circuit court judge in Clackamas County, Ore., said he would “stand by my assessment that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. This was an unnecessary tragedy.” However, the prosecutor asked for six months in prison, half the maximum sentence for misdemeanor criminal mistreatment. Maurer gave Carl Brent Worthington two months in jail and five years’ probation. Despite the record of deaths and injuries at their church, the Worthingtons were allowed to keep custody of their 5-year-old daughter and a new baby that was coming in a matter of months. They needed only to promise to bring them to a doctor for scheduled checkups.

Now another trial is pending for the family: Raylene Worthington’s parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil Beagley. He died in 2008 from a urinary tract blockage that could have been treated with a minor surgical procedure. In cases such as this, in which courts confront repeated faith-based fatalities in a single religious community, the legal system risks becoming a facilitator, if not an accessory, to the crimes through lenient sentencing.

These cases have thrived in a gray zone left by the Supreme Court decades ago. In 1944, in Prince v. Massachusetts, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease, or the latter to ill health or death.” The court, however, did not expressly forbid the use of faith as a mitigating factor in sentencing – a matter left to the states. Not only does this “good-faith” exception place children at risk, it results in the troubling image of courts favoring religious parents over nonreligious parents in a nation committed to the separation of church and state.

The key to the use of such a defense is that it must involve belief in a divine being, not a particular lifestyle. In 2007, Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas of Atlanta were convicted of malice murder and given life sentences for the death of their 6-week-old child. The defense attorneys cited the couple’s strict vegan lifestyle to explain why they fed their newborn son a diet of soy milk and organic apple juice, though during the trial Sanders said she had also breast-fed her son, who died in an emaciated state at 6 weeks, weighing just 3 1/2 pounds. The prosecutor and court had no qualms in treating this couple’s beliefs as a poor excuse for murder, calling a nutritionist and vegan expert as a witness to show that a vegan diet can be safe for an infant. In a stark contrast with religious cases, the prosecutor told the jury: “They’re not vegans, they’re baby-killers.”

The next test of the faith-based defense will be in Philadelphia, where prosecutors last month charged Herbert and Catherine Schaible in the January death of their son, Kent Schaible, 2, from bacterial pneumonia. His parents and other adults prayed around him, practicing faith-healing for two weeks without seeking medical assistance. Then they called a funeral home. The couple was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other related crimes.

Denying children critical care may be divinely ordained for some parents, but it should not be countenanced by the legal system. Until courts refuse to accept religion as a mitigating factor in sentencing in such cases, children will continue to die, neglected as articles of their parents’ faith.

Washington Post (Sunday: November 15, 2009

First there were the Knights Who Say Ni! (below). Now we have the problem of the lawyers who say Meep! After reading the recent publications over the decision of the principal of Danvers High School banning students from saying the word “Meep,” Entertainment lawyer Theodora Michaels decided to act and wrote a letter using the four-letter word to Principal Thomas Murray, who comes across as a high school version of Dean Vernon Wormer from Animal House. She was immediately reported to the police for investigation by the school.

Murray stumbled on a conspiracy on Facebook where he learned that kids in the Danvers High School in Massachusetts intended to say “Meep!” in school — mimicking the lab assistant to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, of “The Muppet Show.”

Meep is actually in the dictionary which defines it as “whatever you want it to mean.” Murray, however, did not want it in his school and banned it — sending an automated call to parents warning that any student using “Meep!” could be suspended. His minions had uncovered a plot for students to do a “mass meep” in one part of the school.

That is when Michaels decided to nail her letter to the Internet door like a Meepish Martin Luther.

Here is the entire letter:

An open letter to Principal Murray of Danvers High School (MA):

Meep.

Sincerely,
Theodora Michaels

She says that the response was fast and furious: “Yesterday I received a reply email from Assistant Principal Mark Strout, which said (in full) “Your E-mail has been forwarded to the Danvers Police Department.”

I am pretty sure that Meep is not a form of hate speech, even under the Muppet criminal code. Methinks that Murray doth protest too much.

For her account of the controversy, click here.

For the original story, click here and here.

A federal court of appeals has ruled that Melanie Dawn Williams, 24, can sue after she was tackled by Jacksonville, Florida police in a hospital where she was experiencing a premature birth. Once inside the ER and she screamed, “I’m pregnant. Someone help me. I am bleeding.” It took the intervention of a nurse to get the police to release her to deal with her serious medical condition.

Williams was seven months pregnant and a doctor told her to rush to St. Vincent’s Medical Center. When she ran a red light, she was chased by Officers M.H. Sirmons and J.D. Mills who proceeded to tackle her and dragged her outside from the emergency room in handcuffs. Williams was bleeding from the labor and eventually a nurse went outside to force the officers to allow them to give her medical treatment.

Sirmons said that he was told by Williams that she was bleeding but not pregnant. He assumed that she was just trying to get out off a ticket.

By the way, this was not a high-speed chase. Williams actually stopped to speak with the officers and even handed over her identification. She then drove away to the nearby hospital at roughly 40 miles per hour. The entire “chase” took one-minute at 40 mph.

Once again, it is beyond me why this city and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is litigating this case and not settling. The district court rejected their qualified immunity claim and that ruling was upheld by the Eleventh Circuit — allowing her to sue for violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourth Amendment

For the video, click here.

The panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that officers knew she was in medical distress and could be sued even if she did not mention that she was pregnant.

However, they barred her suing over excessive force, holding that reasonable force was used: “Williams was miraculously not harmed,” the court said. “Although we agree … that the deputies’ behavior was reprehensible, we disagree that the evidence supports a finding that the force was excessive.”

The panel noted:

Under Florida law, necessity or duress is an affirmative defense to the crime of fleeing or eluding a police officer, as codified under Fla. Stat. § 316.1935. See Rowley v. State, 939 So. 2d 298, 300 (Fla. Ct. App. 2006). The elements of the defense are (1) the defendant reasonably believed that a danger or emergency existed that she did not intentionally cause; (2) the danger or emergency threatened significant harm to her or a third person; (3) the threatened harm was real, imminent, and impending; (4) the defendant had no reasonable means to avoid the danger or emergency except by committing the crime; (5) the crime was committed out of duress to avoid the danger or emergency; and (6) the harm the defendant avoided outweighs the harm caused by committing the crime. Driggers v. State, 917 So.2d 329, 331 (Fla. Ct. App. 2005).

In this case, the evidence taken in the light most favorable to Williams establishes that the deputies knew from their interview with her during the traffic stop that Williams was pregnant, bleeding, in distress, and on her way to the hospital for emergency treatment. The deputies, however, detained Williams in order to write a traffic citation. . . . A reasonable officer would have known, given this particular set of circumstances, that Williams’ flight from the traffic stop was justified by the affirmative defense of necessity or duress. For this reason, the deputies lacked arguable — much less actual — probable cause to arrest, even though the circumstances established that Williams met all elements of the offense of fleeing or eluding a police officer. The deputies, therefore, are not entitled to the defense of qualified immunity as a matter of law for Williams’ claim that the arrest was unsupported by probable cause and the district court properly denied summary judgment on this ground.

This is not the first time that a pregnant woman has faced an unsympathetic officer intent on enforcing traffic laws, here.

For the story and video, click here and here.

The former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson received a sentence of 13 years today — the longest term ever imposed on a congressman convicted of bribery. However, it was significantly below the 27 years sought by the Justice Department, which also failed in its attempt to have Jefferson immediately incarcerated. Instead, Jefferson, 62, will be allowed to remain free pending his appeals.

It was as good as sentence as Jefferson could expect. His attorneys had asked for 10 years, so he received just three years above the defense recommendation. The decision to allow him to stay outside on bond is a particularly impressive win for his lawyers.

For the full story, click here.

Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered actual trials for five 9/11 suspects rather than military tribunals. The decision places the United States squarely back on the road of the rule of law in giving due process even to our most hated defendants. The five defendants include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The other four are Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. However, this courageous act was diminished by an inexplicable decision of Holder to order five other defendants — including USS Cole suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — be tried in a military tribunal. I discussed this decision on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn condemned the move as putting “political ideology ahead of the safety of the American people just to fulfill an ill-conceived campaign promise.” I am not sure what ideology means but I assume it is a reference to the Constitution. What makes us safer is to offer the world an alternative to these men; to show that we are not the hypocrites that we appeared during the Bush Administration.

The decision to send some detainees to military tribunals, however, is a baffling contradiction. Holder has denied the Administration the high ground in the debate by trying to appease both sides and deny due process to some of these accused individuals. It is a case of snatching hypocrisy out of the jaws of principle.

For the full story, click here.

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was charged by the Army with 13 counts of premeditated murder. To the chagrin of conservative commentators, he is not charged with terrorism, a controversy I discussed last night on this segment of Rachel Maddow.

While many have been calling for a terrorism charge in the military trial, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) does not actually have a terrorism provision. Such a charge would be handled in a military tribunal or more likely by waiving jurisdiction in favor of a federal prosecution.

As discussed previously, we have a growing habit of calling every shocking killing a terrorist act today. Many killers are unstable and kill strangers. Many often associate themselves with religious or ideological views, as with George Tiller. However, this does not make them terrorists. You can intend to make a statement with a crime or “go out in a blaze of glory” without being part of an effort to coerce or intimidate a government or society. The parents of Balloon Boy wanted to scare a nation, but they are not terrorists. There is no question that you have a legitimate concern over terrorism with a mass shooting at a military base. However, motivation is central to such a distinction. At the moment, Hasan looks much like other rage killers in recent years. For a prior column on this issue, click here.

At the moment, there is no evidence that this was an act of terrorism, defined by the U.S. Army manual as the “calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear. It is intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies … [to attain] political, religious, or ideological goals.” At the moment, the crime has many of the same characteristics as a workplace rage shooting. It is true that there is evidence that Hasan was becoming radicalized in his views, but there is even more evidence that he was losing his mind. These killings could easily have more to do with rage than religion. The Army is approaching the case with commendable restraint and not jumping to conclusions. At the moment, it is a murder case.

In the meantime, Obama is calling for an inventory of intelligence on Hasan, as accounts grow of indicators of potential violence, here.

Here is the background facts on Hasan from the Post:

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan

– 39 years old.

– U.S. Army psychiatrist.

– 1997 graduate of Virginia Tech University.

– Received doctorate in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda.

– From 2003 through this summer, was an intern, a resident and then a fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District.

– Army records show his last address in the 11300 block of Connecticut Avenue in Kensington.

– Commissioned as a captain, he was promoted to major in May.

– He is single and has no children, and he showed no sign of physical or mental problems in examinations as recently as September.

– He is listed by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress as a fellow for disaster and preventive psychology.

– As of Oct. 13, he had less than a year of clinical practice.

– He attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and is a devout, according to Faizul Khan, former imam at the center. He attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues, Khan said.

For the full story, click here.

Many of us expressed outrage at the actions of the city leaders of New London, Connecticut when they used eminent domain to seize the property of citizens against their will in order to give it to the Pfizer corporation. This anger grew with the inexplicable decision of the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London to uphold the abusive action. Now, after all of the pain the city caused its own residents and $80 million it spent to buy and bulldoze the property, Pfizer announced this week that it was closing the facility — leaving the city worse off than when it began. For prior testimony on the Kelo decision, click here.

There is an undeniable measure of poetic justice in all of this for a town willing to victimize citizens to benefit themselves with new jobs.

I was appalled by both the decision of the city and the Supreme Court in this controversy. What is most striking is how most citizens of New London stood by and allowed their neighbors to be thrown out of their homes to secure the benefits of a new employer in town.

For the full story, click here.

ACORN is continuing its approach of “the best defense is a good offense.” The group has not only sued the filmmakers who recently disclosed misconduct by the organization, but it is now suing Congress for its ban on federal funding to the organization, alleging a bill of attainder in singling out the non-profit.

I was counsel in the last successful major bill of attainder case in Foretich v. United States, where Congress stripped Dr. Eric Foretich of his parental rights in favor of his well-connected ex-wife Elizabeth Morgan. Here is that opinion: foreitchus121603opn

ACORN has a plausible claim in this legislation. What is surprising is that Congress not only did not wait for a court adjudication of the many allegations of misconduct by the organization but did not take the trouble to create a detailed legislative finding of such misconduct. It is hard to argue that a ban on federal funding is not a form of punishment. I think that this is a strong claim for ACORN.

For the full story, click here.

It appears that opponents of same-sex marriage cannot even tolerate the thought of gay couples being buried together. Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri (R) has vetoed a bill that would have added “domestic partners” to the list of people authorized by law to make joint funeral arrangements. He feels that idea of joint burials smacks too much of a marriage.

What is particularly arbitrary is the fact that these couples can presumably make such arrangements for themselves in life and be buried in the same plot. The governor simply does not want them making arraignments for each other if one is suddenly killed without such preparations.

In his veto statement, Carcieri stated “This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.” Here is the full statement: veto_s0195_funeral_directors

Under the legislation, a domestic partner can make funeral arrangement if they can show “exclusive, intimate and committed relationship” with the deceased and had lived with him or her for at least a year prior to the death.

Carcieri noted that not only does such a power suggest something close to a traditional marriage but such a “partner” could take precedence over “traditional family member.” He also wants to see more of a commitment than a year –despite the fact that a day is sufficient for a heterosexual couple.

With his veto, the governor reaffirms that in Rhode Island they prefer their corpses straight and segregated.

For the full story, click here.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington appears to have learned a few secular lessons from corporate felons in that state. On the eve of the first trial of dozens of sex-abuse cases with hundreds of millions in potential damages, the diocese filed for bankruptcy to try to make any damages more difficult to collect. The decision by Bishop W. Francis Malooly is being attacked as an effort to reduce potential damages in the various cases moving toward trial.

The diocese is facing the cases due to a two-year moratorium on the statute of limitations passed by the legislature in 2007 — resulting in 142 alleged victims filing lawsuits. The church has now responded by filing for Chapter 11 protection. Bishop W. Francis Malooly called bankruptcy a “painful decision” but insisted that it will not only protect the church but allow payment to victims.

Lawyers for the victims, however, denounced the move as a “fraudulent tactic” designed to hide assets and accountability.

For the full story, click here

Educators at the Rosewood Middle School had struggled with raising money. Candy and other traditional items did not generate much money for the Goldsboro, North Carolina school. Then they found a commodity that the public was hankering for: they started to sell grades. Until, that is, a bunch of do gooders stepped in and objected.

That fact is that I have been trying to do this for years. Grading would be so much easier if we simply relied on market forces of supply and demand.

However, the Goldsboro plan did not sit well with the state educational authorities. Here is how it worked. For $20, a student could gain 20 test points – 10 extra points on two tests of the student’s choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.

This is a brilliant “banking credits” system used in environmental law and other areas. What is missing, however, is a trading system to allow students to broker grades and allow the market to fluctuate with demand. This would allow grades to rise with the approach of exams but allow prices to fall during the term.

Wayne County school stopped the fundraiser, stating:

“Yesterday afternoon, the district administration met with [Rosewood Middle School principal] Mrs. Shepherd and directed the the following actions be taken: (1) the fundraiser will be immediately stopped; (2) no extra grade credit will be issued that may have resulted from donations; and (3) beginning Novermber 12, all donations will be returned.”

Killjoys. Susie Shepherd, the principal, complied but she noted “[l]ast year they did chocolates, and it didn’t generate anything.”

Some of us will not be deterred, Ms. Shepherd. My students know that I am open for business at any time of the day or night. “Donations” should be left discretely in paper bags on the lectern. I am also willing to sell “protected status” to students who do not want to be called upon in class. I also have a new offering this month called “genius for a day.” For a mere $500, I will give you only easy questions and exclaim your brilliance regardless of whether your answer is correct or incorrect. This offer only applies only to cash payments and is not good in any of the 50 states beyond the District of Columbia.

For the full story, click here.

A New Jersey judge has ruled at a quadriplegic must be allowed to buy a gun for hunting, which will be mounted on his wheelchair and fired by blowing into a tube. James Cap has been paralyzed for 30 years after an injury in a high school football game.

Manville New Jersey Sheriff Mark Peltack had opposed the purchase on public safety grounds. The shotgun will be mounted on his chair and he will literally blow away deer with an air tube attached to the weapon.

Superior Court Judge John Pursel disagreed and, in signing the order, told Cap “I hope you enjoy the use of your firearm.” The judge did require Cap to have qualified people assist him with weapons.

Gun-rights advocates fought for almost three years to win the case.

Recently, gun advocates made remote hunting available for handicapped hunters, who can shoot deer and other animals on the Internet, here. However, there is a move to ban Internet hunting, here.

For the full story, click here.

Bill O’Reilly made an extraordinary statement last night in addressing the difficult fact that “we can’t kill all the Muslims.” This follows an equally bizarre statement from his interviewee Fox News contributor Col. Ralph Peters that there are no Christian or Jewish terrorists.

Here is what O’Reilly said:

Barack Obama wants to win hearts and minds in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, which is a good thing and you know that. As a soldier, we can’t kill all the Muslims. So we wanna win as many hearts and minds of good moderate Muslims as we can. So he goes out of his way, you’re absolutely right, Colonel, he goes out of his way, to avoid the “Muslim terrorist” label, which clearly applies to Hasan.

Putting aside O’Reilly’s incredible statement, Peters also added to the interview with the question of where all the Christian terrorists are? He apparently was not alive when Timothy McVeigh destroyed the Oklahoma City Federal Building or the recent shootings in churches by Christian gunmen.

It must be wonderfully liberating to be able to speak without an sense of the need for historical or factual accuracy.

The Vatican appears to have gotten over that whole Galileo business when they were willing to put scientists to death for saying that the Earth moved around the Sun. Now, the Pope’s chief astronomer, Father Jose Gabriel Funes, says that intelligent life may exist on other planets and the Holy See is looking to the skies.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, wrote an article entitled “Aliens Are My Brother” and, among other observations, stated that such aliens could be found on Mars. Even more notable is his statement that such aliens may be “free from sin.”

Oh, great. For those of us who grew up as Catholics with original sin, it turns out that the creatures that chased Sigourney Weaver are unburdened by sin? They are bursting out of people’s chests and eating whole crews for God’s sake!

These questions have already been fully answered in Plan 9 from Outer Space:

To its credit, the Vatican is turning a new page in science. In addition to scanning the skies for guiltless aliens, it surprised many by announcing a special conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

For the full story, click here and here.

Glenn Beck has lost a bizarre trademark fight with the founder of glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, Isaac Eiland-Hall. Eiland-Hall created the Internet sensation to mock the style of Beck and Fox News — leading to a challenge over the use of Beck’s name with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

WIPO concluded that the site was a legitimate noncommercial use of Beck’s name as part of a political statement. Frederick M. Abbott stated “appears to the panel to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that [Eiland-Hall] appears genuinely to believe is employed by [Beck] in the provision of political commentary, and for that reason [Eiland-Hall] can be said to be making a political statement.” Abbott noted on the issue of profit off Beck’s trademark that “[w]hile there is some evidence that at some stage third-party vendors of goods and services critical of [Beck] may have earned some income on sales of t-shirts and bumper stickers embodying political slogans based on click-throughs from [Eiland-Hall's] Web site, the panel does not believe this is sufficient ‘commercial activity’ to change the balance of interests already addressed.”

The site states that Beck did not rape and murder the girl. It is based on Beck’s signature interview style, such as this interview with Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim representative in Congress.

“And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview because what I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy. But that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”

Eiland-Hall’s lawyer, Marc Randazza, insisted that “[o[nly an abject imbecile could believe that the domain name would have any connection to the complainant.” It is not clear if that was a reference to Beck, but abject imbeciles around the world are likely to object.

For the full story, click here and here.

Many followed the case (here) of Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota when his fundamentalist Mom fled with him to avoid chemotherapy for his cancer on religious grounds. Few may be aware of the end of the story. He has completed his last chemotherapy sessions and is now cancer-free — thanks to the judge who overrode his mother’s objections.

At 13-years-old, Daniel now has the potential of a full life ahead of him. I have previously written about the need for courts to reject such “good-faith defenses” to the denial of life-sustaining medical care for minors, here.

In February, the family fled with Daniel as a Hodgkins lymphoma tumor grew within his chest.

His mother said “It’s really nice that he’s done. We’re happy, that’s for sure.”

For the full story, click here and here

There is an intriguing case in London where the British courts will decide who is a Jew and who decides such a question. The British have long maintained publicly supported religious schools — an affront to the separation of church and state. Now, inevitably, the state must decide who can be excluded from one of the Jewish schools run by the government. Not surprisingly, at the heart of the controversy is Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, who recently blamed secularism for the decline and potential fall of Western Civilization, here. He insists that only children with Jewish mothers (recognized in Orthodox synagogues) are truly Jewish.

The daughter of David Lightman was one of the children denied entry in the Jews’ Free School, one of the many publicly supported religious schools. She was denied entry because her mother converted to Judaism in a reform synagogue rather than an Orthodox synagogue. The Jews’ Free School was founded in 1732 and is one of roughly 7,000 publicly financed religious schools..

Sacks and others do not recognize kids as Jewish unless they are recognized by the Orthodox sect. This has been a controversy in Israel for many years and has divided the Jewish population, (here). Many Jews reject Orthodox views and belong to conservative or reform synagogues.

The family of a child identified only as M lost in the initial case, but that ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals found the use of Sacks’ definition of Jewish was discriminatory and that ““benign or malignant, theological or supremacist, makes it no less and no more unlawful.” Now, the Supreme Court will decided the question.

The case reaffirms that need for separation of church and state. Such questions should not be answered by the government, which should also not be in the business of subsidizing religious education. However, rather than questioning the state support of religious schools, the court will rule on who decides matters of faith — the religion or the State. Normally, I would be very sympathetic with the religious organizations that this is no question of judges to decide. However, these organizations asked for the intermingling of the state with religion — and may now reap the costs of such a failure of separation.

England seems to be moving aggressively away from separation principles with the incorporation of religious courts (here and schools in the system as well as public officials calling for more religion in society . Lord Sacks is one of those insisting that secularism is the cause of the impending loss of Europe to fundamentalism (a veiled reference to Islam). With the recent move by the Obama Administration to support the principle of blasphemy laws (here), the West appears to be moving in the wrong direction. If Sacks is concerned about Western Civilization, he may want to start with the separation of church and state.

For the full story, click here.

Jeddah police arrested two female professors from King Abdulaziz University this week for the crime of driving themselves to the mall. Police were shocked by the sight of a woman behind the wheel of a car and immediately pulled them over. We have previously followed the struggle of women to enjoy this freedom of movement in the Kingdom (here)

The women claimed that they had no alternative when their driver disappeared a few days earlier and they had no male relative to drive them. The driver in her 20s has been turned over for prosecution.

For an amazing video of a woman driving a car in Saudi Arabia, click here.

For the full story, click here.

Despite the claims of parents about always doing your homework, homework has been the undoing of many a fine criminal. In two cases this week, alleged high school and college felons were implicated when they left homework at the scene of the crime.

The first crime occurred at the University of Arizona where fraternity pledges with Phi Kappa Psi fraternity were allegedly sent by members to take every copy of the university paper, the Daily Wildcat — 10,000 copies in all. The reason, the paper suggests, is that the college reporters had done a story on an alleged fraternity date-rape.

Papers were found dumped in various places outside of the campus.

The article reported that a girl claimed to have been drugged at a Phi Kappa Psi party and thought she may have been raped.

The paper says that the culprits dropped their homework at one dump site — homework belonged to PKP pledges Nick Kovalski and Alex Cornell.

PKP President Keith Peters refused to speak to reporters. What is remarkable is that the city and university police appear to have dropped the case. The newspaper reports that they are not sure that a crime has been committed because the paper is free. That is odd. Just because a paper is free does not mean that it can be wantonly destroyed. Under this theory, paid newspapers in various cities could regularly pick up the copies of free papers like Denver’s Westword and dump them into landfills. This was the destruction of property, not the use of the newspapers. It also fits such crimes as criminal mischief and potentially conversion. It cost the media department about $8,500, and the paper was forced to run free ads for businesses that bought space in the stolen papers.

I have no desire to see these students go to jail, but I believe an investigation is warranted with a plea (and eventual expunging of their records after probation) if they in fact committed these acts. Clearly, the students and the fraternity brothers who sent them on such a mission should also face suspension.

If the campus and city police will not act, the newspaper should sue both the fraternity and the students for conversion.

It is also a shocking attack on free speech and free press at a university, but the campus police seem to be responding with a giant collective yawn. It has become all to common on campuses, here.

For the full story, click here

In the meantime, a high school student in Rhode Island has been charged in a robbery after he left his homework at the home. The police in Woonsocket say that the two 15-year-old boys skipped class Monday and broke into a house near school. The homework fell out as they loaded their school bags with loot like video game systems.

They were charged with breaking and entering — and being late on their homework.

For the high school case, click here.

It is all straight out of the Big Lebowski:

Who says that a math geek cannot become a super hero? Mahmoud Vahidnia is a math student at Tehran’s Sharif Technical University where he recently won the gold medal at the country’s National Math Olympics (yes, geeks have an Olympics of their own). Vahidnia, however, has become a political icon in Iran after he publicly chastised the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the brutal crackdown of protesters.

At first, Vahidnia was blocked by organizers from speaking and then one of the organizers tried repeatedly to cut him off. However, to the surprise of many, Khamenei allowed him to speak in a televised encounter. The government is now using the incident to show that freedom thrives in the Islamic republic, which is being described as “The revolutionary leader’s fatherly response to critical youth.”

The exchange lasted 20-minutes and Khamenei appeared taken aback at first. The criticism followed Khamenei denouncing the questioning of the presidential results as the “biggest crime” since he personally found Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the winner.

Mahmoud then raised his hand and launched into a criticism of the crackdown with such memorable statements as “I don’t know why in this country it’s not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you . . . In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader.”

Khamenei insisted, “We welcome criticism. We never said not to criticize us. … There’s plenty of criticism that I receive.”

Indeed, the jails are filled with such critics.

For the full story, click here.

The Sharia courts of southern Somalia are busy again showing the world the importance of the separation of mosque and state. In the latest outrage, the Sharia court of al-Shabab ordered Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, stoned to death in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the town of Merka. The Islamic judges, however, showed mercy for the woman who is pregnant. She will be allowed to give birth and then immediately stoned to death.

According to witnesses, it took at least seven minutes for the man to die as he screamed in pain from the stoning.

Many in Islam are equally horrified by this extreme interpretation of the Koran — though we have seen similar outrages in Saudi Arabia.

The al-Shabab organization has been regularly stoning people to death, including two men in the same town just last week. They previously stoned a 13-year-old girl to death. She was reportedly raped before her execution.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has accused al-Shabab of corruption as well as brutality. He noted that they “are forcing women to wear very heavy clothes, saying they want them to properly cover their bodies” but they are also selling the women the clothes and making a profit.

For the full story, click here