There now appears to be a rash of corpse abuse cases — one of the oldest offenses in common law.
Johnny Draper (yes a funeral home director named Draper) found Roderick Jones in his Monessen, Pa., funeral home on July 13 with a women’s corpse. This is not a first for Jones who was convicted in 1999 of abuse of a corpse.
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Sen. Craig emerged today to declare “I am not gay. I never have been gay.” There is now an indication that he is thinking of pursuing efforts to throw out his plea — after finally speaking with lawyers that he failed to find before his plea. The press conference adds a bizarre twist to an already bizarre story.
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In Iowa, a wife is claiming that she did not murder her husband. Rather he walked into a four-inch paring knive that drove deeply into his chest. Found in the bedroom was a book entitled “After the Affair.”
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Orlando media is reporting that Former astronaut Lisa Nowak will pursue an insanity defense. Such notice is required in advance of trial and it was unsealed by the court. It will be a very difficult defense to make for someone with the ability to drive across country and engage in acts of evasion. Since the Reagan shooting, states have made it very difficult to make this defense. For earlier column, click here
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A recent question on the educational system in the United States for a beauty queen may be the greatest argument for increasing immigration in this country to guarantee a small margin of intellectually viable humans to carry on basic institutions.
Caution: this is painful to watch, but click here if you dare.
Belgian diplomats are accused of taking their four-wheel drives for a spin and damaging a 40 million-year-old whale fossil in Egypt.
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The U.S. military is trying to repair the damage of giving out a ball with the Saudi flag and the name of Allah spelled out on it. The idea of kicking Allah’s name succeeded in outraging the locals in Afghanistan.
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According to Roll Call, Sen. Craig’s insistence that he would not have pleaded guilty if he had consulted an attorney is a dubious defense. Craig had days before his guilty plea in June and during that period, documents indicate that he asked for a contact at the airport for his lawyer to call. It is not clear that his lawyer actually made that call, but clearly Craig had the time and inclination to do so.
Ironically, I believe Craig could have benefitted from counsel. Continue reading “Sen. Craig and the Right to Counsel”
Sen. Craig is not viewed as one of the legislators who routinely raises civil liberties and protections for the criminal accused. However, after pleading guilty to criminal charges in Minneapolis, he insists that he should have consulted with an attorney. Continue reading “Sen. Craig Pleads Guilty to Criminal Charge for Disorderly Conduct in an Airport Bathroom”
I once had dinner with a Texas judge who asked me if I knew where Jesus lived. When I answered no, he replied “he lives at Huntsville Prison because all my prisoners tell me they find him there.”
Today, Michael Vick became the latest to find Jesus in the post-plea stage of his life. He appears to have shown “bad judgment” in carrying on the medieval form of entertainment known as dog fighting — simply a matter of “growing up.” I have four kids under nine and, without growing up, they would be physically ill to watch what Vick enjoyed as entertainment.
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It appears that Michael Chertoff may be the replacement for Alberto Gonzales. Chertoff would come with good national security credentials to signal that the administration is not going soft on terror. He is also a former judge. Notably, he once worked Rudolph Giuliani against the mob in New York. One problem for democratic and independent citizens is Chertoff’s role in drafting the Patriot Act. His nomination would also place the Administration’s record on terror in the spotlight.
The New York Times is reporting that Alberto Gonzales will finally resign today as attorney general of the United States. It is a sad end to what should have been a historic term for the first hispanic to hold that office. As one of the critics of Gonzales, it is hard not to feel a sense of relief but that is also tempered by a feeling of tremendous waste. I expect that Gonzales may look back at his controversial tenure in a few years and wonder whether he would have better served the president, the country, and indeed himself but being a voice of independence in the government. Instead, Gonzales made a career as the enabler for George W. Bush. When they wanted to strip citizens of all of the constitutional rights at the whim of the president, Gonzales was there to say it was fine. When they wanted to engage in torture, Gonzales was there with a pen in hand. One can only wonder how much better this president would have fared if he had a lawyer prepared to tell him that he did not have such Caesar like qualities.
Tourists in Japan were able to get more than they bargained for when they went looking for whales in the wild: a front seat view of the Japanese pro-whaling policies in action. While watching a large whale surface off the coast of Japan, a Japanese fishing boat approached an hauled the harpooned whale in for processing. Continue reading “Japanese Version of Whale Watching: Whalers Kill a Whale in Front of Eco-Tourists”
In a startling report, CNN is revealing that the grand jury that declined to indict on second-degree murder charges against a doctor and two nurses for four deaths. Continue reading “Report: New Orleans Grand Jury Never Heard Expert Testimony Supporting Murder Against the Doctors”