The Ontario Superior Court is hearing an interesting religious claim this week from the Church of the Universe. The Church is claiming the need to smoke marijuana to commune with God.
Category: Criminal law
Charlie Vandergaw has discovered the perils of fame. Vandergaw was featured on Animal Planet in a segment called “Stranger Among Bears.” He has now pleaded guilty to eight counts of intentionally feeding game and given a suspended sentence and large fine.
The West Virginia coal mine that exploded this week and killed 25 workers has a less than pleasing legal back story. Upper Big Branch mine, operated by the Performance Coal Company, is a subsidiary of Massey Energy. That should ring a bell for lawyers and academics as the company owned by Don Blankenship, who was at the heart of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Caperton v. Massey — a case involving Blakenship’s alleged control of the West Virginia bench through massive campaign contributions.
Continue reading “West Virginia Mine Involved in Deadly Blast is a Massey Subsidiary”
Three Massachusetts teenagers have pleaded not guilty in the bullying of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after what prosecutors call months of threats and harassment. Sean Mulveyhill, 17, (shown here) with the victim Phoebe Prince is one of those charged and reportedly had a brief relationship with Prince before turning against her. Also charged are Kayla Narey, 17, and Austin Renaud, 18. They are among six teens (also including Ashley Longe, Flannery Mullins and Sharon Chanon Velazquez) charged in the bullying of Prince that led to her hanging herself on Jan. 14.
Continue reading “Six Teens Charged After Bullied Girl Hangs Herself”
Many civil libertarians and liberals were critical of President Barack Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter. Sotomayor voted with conservatives on the Second Circuit in key police abuse and free speech cases. (here and here and here and here. At the time, many of us opined that Obama would not dare appoint such a nominee to replace liberal icon John Paul Stevens. If the three candidates leaked by the White House on the short list is any indication, there is a two out of three chance that he will do precisely that.
Continue reading “An Uneasy Feeling: Obama’s Short List Reportedly Includes Two Controversial Possible Nominees”
Police in in the Liverpool John Lennon Airport have arrested two women aged 41 and 66 for the crime of trying to sneak the body of a dead relative on a flight to Berlin. They face the relatively low charge of failing to give notification of death.
Continue reading “Dead Weight: Women Try to Check in Corpse on Flight to Berlin”
Evelyn Burgess, 42, in Columbus, Ohio appears to enforce a strict dress code for Easter dinner. Police say that Burgess shot her cousin, Danielle Pickens, 19, (shown left) in the head when she showed up for Easter dinner in a T-shirt and jeans.
Police have been looking for Frank Dryman for 38 years — a hitchhiker accused of murdering a man who picked him up during a blizzard. They found him last week running a wedding chapel in Arizona.
Continue reading “Murderer Arrested After 38 Years On the Lam — Running a Wedding Chapel”
The police department of South Glendale California has stopped their use of a man dressed in a bunny outfit to ticket drivers failing to yield to pedestrians. Glendale Police Officer Tom Broadway ended his performance as a street bunny after complaints from a city council member on the expense and necessity of the operation.
Continue reading “Doing the Bunny Cop: Police Cease Use of Easter Bunny for Sting”
And you thought the Giraffe in the trash in New Mexico was bad, here. Bio Care owner Paul Montano was arrested after a human head and torso were inside the red biohazard tub that was shipped from his New Mexico business.
After that discovery, six more heads and torsos were reportedly found — allegedly dismembered with a chain saw or another cutting device and sent by the Albuquerque company Bio Care Southwest.
It now appears that families who donated their loved ones for medical research may not have received the actual ashes of their relatives.
This obviously raises both criminal and tort liability questions in the mishandling of human body parts.
For the full story, click here.
George Jolicur in England has succeeded in avoiding jail by emphasizing not the weight of the evidence but the weight of the culprit. Jolicur is listed as weighing “42 stone” — for yanks, a stone is 14 pounds. That would make Jolicur 588 pounds.
Continue reading ““The Beef Jerky Got Me”: Man Avoids Jail With Weighty Argument”
Ricky Flowers, 20, discovered the meaning of the adage of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The Ohio man took police on a high-speed chase and then jumped over a wall . . . only to find himself in a prison.
Continue reading “Planting Flowers: Ohio Man Flees Police By Jumping Fence Into Prison”
Giuseppe dalla Torre, head of the Vatican’s tribunal, has reportedly declared that efforts to question Pope Benedict on the widening abuse scandal would be refused on the grounds of diplomatic immunity.
Continue reading “Vatican Invokes Diplomatic Immunity to Bar Questioning of Pope On Abuse Scandal”
Bill Donohue, the controversial head of the Catholic League, was recently denounced for appearing to suggest that the parents were at fault in some way in cases of child abuse against the church. Now, he has argued that coverage of claims in Wisonsin referring to “child abuse” are wrong since “the vast majority of the victims [were] post-pubescent.”
Continue reading “Catholic League President Insists Scandal Involves Homosexuals Not Children”
Two Martinsville, Indiana police officers have been suspended after they were accused of using a Taser to subdue a 10-year-old at Tender Teddies Day Care.
Continue reading “Taser Tots: Officers Suspended After Tasering Ten-Year-Old Child”