Last Sunday, I published a column on “The Death of Free Speech”, highlighting the continuing threat of blasphemy prosecutions around the world. This week we have yet another such disturbing case. Well-known Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say appeared in court on Thursday on charges of offending Muslims and insulting Islam in brief Twitter posts. Say is a celebrated artist who has appeared with both the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and will now face 18 months in jail for making a joke on Twitter. Continue reading “Leading Pianist and Secularist Charged With Blasphemy In Turkey”
Category: Criminal law
Gary Raub, 63, can claim that he was arrested by a true “gum shoe” detective by the homeless man was tricked to give up his DNA in a fake chewing gum survey. Raub was arrested in Seattle in the death of Blanche Kimball, a 70-year-old retired dental technician in 1976.
We have another dog shooting by an officer who went to the wrong house on a call. Albert Morales and his brother Hector Serna were awoken by a San Antonio officer banging on a window of their home before dawn. The officer was at the wrong house in responding to a call about a deceased person. As almost an afterthought, according to Morales, the officer said that he might want to check out his dog.
Continue reading “San Antonio Officer Goes To Wrong House On Call And Shoots Family’s Pet Dog”
We have yet another outrage by a devout Muslim who believes that she should not only require others to follow her views of morality but is willing to punish children deemed immoral. In Southern Egypt, a teacher in Luxor forced two 12-year-old girls to hold their hands above their heads for two hours and then cut off some of their hair in front of the class to punish them for not wearing Muslim headscarves or hijab.
Continue reading “Egyptian Teacher Cuts Hair Of Girls Who Failed To Wear Muslim Headscarves”
On Sunday, I ran a column in the Washington Post detailing how free speech is dying in the West. That column featured cases from England prominently as have many stories on this blog. Now we have yet another free speech case to add to our collection from our cousins across the pond. Barry Thew, 39, was arrested after he wore a handmade tee shirt with offensive anti-police words. He was given four months for his exercise of what should be protected free speech.
There is an interesting case out of Mesquite, Texas this week. Melissa Walthall, 30, has been arrested for allegedly posting a picture of an undercover officer in a narcotic case — a picture available on the officer’s Facebook page. Walthall was upset with the officer who testified against a friend in the case and found the picture on the Internet. She has been charged with “retaliation” even though she is not a party to the case and saw the officer in a public hearing. I have serious constitutional reservations about such a charge, even though I understand entirely the concern and anger of the police in a move that could endanger the officer.
The video below shows police officers pummeling a man found drunk and shirtless in a Jewish youth center in Brooklyn. The video shows slight resistance to being cuffed — followed by a virtual beat down by the officer, including one officer who appears to assume a boxing stance. The man has been identified by one site as Ehud Halevi.
Continue reading “Brooklyn Officers Beat Down Drunken Man Found At Synagogue”
Two University of California, Berkeley, law students have been accuse of a disgusting crime in which they tore the head off a 14-year-old Helmeted guinea fowl in the Flamingo’s wildlife habitat and then laughed about it. Security cameras reportedly caught Eric Cuellar, 24, and Justin Teixeir, 24, chasing the bird into the trees and then carrying out its body and severed head as some type of hilarious joke.
The video below shows a disturbing scene where a Cleveland municipal bus driver decked an obnoxious female passenger after a loud and profane shouting match. It is equally disturbing to hear the laughing of some of the other passengers on the bus — a shocking example of a moral abyss in our society.
Continue reading “Cleveland Bus Driver Suspended After Decking Passenger On YouTube Video”
A new study is out that refutes the suggestion of some opponents to the “right to die” that legal suicides results in an increase in suicides. The theory is that, if people are given the lawful opportunity to commit suicide, more will do so under the same theory as finding a parking space in Manhattan (you should park even if you do not need one or your meeting is across town because when will you ever see an open space again in your lifetime?). The new study from Switzerland found no such correlation in terms of increasing the desire to commit suicide.
Continue reading “Study: Availability of Legal Suicide Does Not Increase The Desire For Suicide”
This is not a case that you want to take before a jury. Ronald Eugene Robinson, 35, in Jacksonville, Florida is accused of using enemas and then returning the “pre-packaged CVS Pharmacy Ready-to-Use enemas” to the shelves of a CVS pharmacy. What is most interesting about this case (ok one of the most interesting things) is that this is a federal case since the incident is being treated as product tampering.
Continue reading “Florida Man Arrested For Returning Used Enemas For Refunds”
Springfield attorney Claude M. Kicklighter may not be a pit bull of a lawyer but his client certainly is. Kicklighter’s new client is Kno, a pit bull facing euthanasia after attacking a five year old boy. Judge William E. Woodrum Jr. has enlisted Kicklighter pro bono to represent the dog. In layman’s term, that means it will be all bark and no bones for Kicklighter.
Continue reading “A Pit Bull’s Pit Bull: Court Appoints Attorney To Represent Dog On Death Row”
Below is my column today in the Washington Post on the decline of free speech in Western countries. Speech is being balkanized into prohibited and permitted areas by redefining speech in terms of its social impact. Increasingly, it seems that the West is re-discovering the tranquility that comes with forced silence. What is fascinating is that this trend is based on principles of tolerance and pluralism — once viewed as the values underlying free speech.
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Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
One of the main problems with any legal principle is that we humans are so complex in our interactions that even the most hallowed of legal principles are bound to run into conflict with a real life situation that turns it on its end and leaves even the most principled among us at a loss. This is why the timeless practice of training lawyers to be able to argue both sides of a case arose. Even those who are most respectful of our legal system and our Constitution, recognize that with the variety of human situations, sometimes the legal process leads to results that are far short of the mark of what a person might consider to be justice. Recently, while watching a TV real life murder show called “Unusual Suspects” I came across a case, whose resolution, left me confused as to whether the result was correct in a Constitutional sense. The first ten amendments to our Constitution that are known as “The Bill of Rights” are legal principles that I hold sacrosanct. Historically, the founders put them in place to safeguard the people from the tyrannies that often flowed from autocratic systems of government. These were principle that history and experience had taught them were necessary to protect and preserve the freedom of citizens.
The Fifth Amendment became famous in the 40’s and 50’s when it was invoked at congressional hearings striving to root out “communists”. People in the glaring spotlight of Congressional Hearings, sworn under oath, would be forced to invoke the Fifth Amendment to assert their right not to incriminate themselves. What was unfortunate about these “witch-hunts” was that according to legal procedure, if the person under oath answered any kind of question it was deemed that their Fifth Amendment Rights had been forfeited, since any answer, no matter how innocuous could be considered to have opened up a line of questioning. Thus if one was asked to discuss where they worked they would have to invoke the “Fifth”, or otherwise be opened to questions on who they worked with. The result of this was that by exercising their Constitutional Rights, these witnesses were made to seem guilty of hiding something, merely by asserting their right to remain silent. People’s careers were destroyed having been guilty of nothing more than associating with people who believed in a different economic system, that wasn’t inherently illegal. As the title indicates I’m writing about another aspect of the Fifth Amendment and the result of a particular murder case that left me intellectually and emotionally conflicted. Continue reading “Double Jeopardy”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In the case of Fourtin v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court of Connecticut overturned the conviction of Richard Fourtin. Fourtin was convicted of sexually assailing a twenty-five year old woman with significant mental and physical handicaps including cerebral palsy, mental retardation and hydrocephalus. The Court, in affirming the Appellate Court’s judgement, found that the woman could have used “gestures, biting, kicking and screaming” to indicate “her lack of consent to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged sexual assault.”