One of the first things that my kids did when I got my iPhone with Siri was to ask “how do I get rid of a body.” The question is such a favorite that Siri is programmed to answer. However, police allege that Pedro Bravo, 20, was serious when he asked Siri that question after kidnapping and strangling his friend Christian Aguilar (below), 18, in September 2012. The two were sharing a room at University of Florida. On the day that Aguilar died, police say that records show that Bravo asked “‘I need to hide my roommate.” Siri responded “What kind of place are you looking for? Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal foundries. Dumps.” Aguilar was later found in a shallow grave in a Levy County forest, about 60 miles southwest of Gainesville. The ultimate Generation Z murder case. Siri however was not indicted as an accessory before the fact.
Category: Society
In New Orleans, Armand Bennet, 26, was shot in the forehead during a traffic stop by New Orleans police officer Lisa Lewis. However, the police department did not reveal until much later that Lewis turned off her body camera just before shooting Bennett. Bennett survived and has now been charged under prior warrants for his arrest. It also reviewed that Lewis had had a prior run in with Bennet who escaped about a week earlier.
Nigerian Christian preacher Temitope Joshua is a multi-millionaire wannabe messiah with a devoted following in Africa. Joshua has decided to act to help the desperate situation in Sierra Leone. He sent a private jet to deliver 4,000 bottles of his patented holy anointed water and $50,000 in cash to defeat Ebola. Just what these ebola villages need, holy water from Brother Joshua.
Now here is real progress that we all can rally behind. Sharon Standifird, a mother in New York, was tired of having her teenagers ignore her calls. Rather than continuing the usual threats of punishment, Standifird went “all techno” on her kids. She spent months developing an app, “Ignore No More,” that prevents a kid from making any calls until they return the call from their mother (and presumably their father).
We have been following the controversy surrounding the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, filed complaints and Miller-Young was charged with criminal conduct including Theft From Person; Battery; and Vandalism. To the surprise of some of us, faculty and students rallied behind Miller-Young. She remains employed as a faculty member. Miller-Young initially pleaded not guilty but later entered a guilty plea with an apology. She has now been sentenced to sentenced to three years of probation, 108 hours of community service, 10 hours of anger management, $500 in restitution and a small fine. While her actions (and absence of serious university punishment) remain highly disturbing, some of the letters written on her behalf raise new questions over the commitment of University of California faculty to free speech and core academic principles. Miller-Young has been defended by faculty as the victim of a media campaign to portray her as “an Angry Black Woman” and her seemingly happy demeanor on the videotape has been dismissed as a “mask” that she wears as part of a “cultural legacy of slavery.”
There is a truly horrific story out of South Jordan, Utah where retired teacher Jan Harding is in critical condition after drinking tea accidentally poisoned with an industrial oven cleaner by Dickey’s Barbecue Pit. An employee confused the oven cleaner with sugar in making the sweet tea for customers. The tort liability is obvious in such a case and could involve both negligence and strict liability claims given the involvement of food or drink served at a restaurant. The chemical has been described as Lye in some news accounts.
The Saudi Sharia system has again made headlines with its perverse view of justice. The latest victim is a businesswoman who will receive 50 lashes for merely insulting the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or the Saudi morality police. Of course, the Saudi morality police is widely ridiculed and denounced as a group of religious fanatics upholding a medieval system of religious law.
Continue reading “Saudi Court Orders Woman Flogged For Insulting Morality Police”
Late yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted by a grand jury in Austin on charges of abuse of power. The charges stem from Perry carrying out a threat to veto funding the budget for the Travis County Public Integrity Unit, which handles political corruption investigations.
District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg had been arrested for drunk driving and was widely criticized for her conduct while in custody. She refused to resign even after been sentenced to jail and Perry carried out his threat. I have been critical of Perry in the past and I believe that his veto was wrongheaded. However, I view the indictment as very troubling on a separation of powers basis and the result of the extension of criminal provisions with tangential applicability to this type of dispute.
Continue reading “Texas Rick Perry Indicted On Abuse of Power Charges”
We often use these pages to discuss tragedies and disasters. So it is time to report a happy ending. Unbeknownst to most on this blog, a catastrophe occurred on the return from our family trip to Cape Cod. Upon our return to Virginia, Madie, my youngest learned that she had left “Baa” her lifelong lamb blankey at the hotel in Hyannis, Massachusetts. However, as it turned out, a rescue would be launched.
There is a controversy at the University of Illinois over the right of faculty to express views on social media outside of their positions. Steven Salaita had already been offered a tenured position in the American Indian studies program on the Champaign-Urbana campus and was just waiting for approval by the university’s Board of Trustees, usually a perfunctory stage. However, Salaita posted strongly anti-Israeli sentiments after the start of the recent war in Gaza. After those postings, he was informed that the university was rescinding its offer due to opposition on the board.
Roger Lee Harris, 63, and Bryan Bandes, 43, could have chosen any of the traditional reasons for guys to fight from women to football teams to politics. However, while playing a round of golf in Uniontown, Pa, the two men turned violent over a disagreement on the rules addressing “casual water.” The case was eventually dismissed by the brilliantly named Judge Robert Breakiron.
First there is the record low polls of his popularity. Then there is the growing independent view that there is no chance that the Democrats can retake the House and that the GOP could not only gain seats in the House but retake the Senate. However, nothing likely prepared President Barack Obama for this. His controversial use of unilateral authority has been defended by . . . former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. You may recall Gonzales who was so vilified for his politicalization of the Justice Department and blind support of executive power that he had a difficult time even landing a job. The Gonzales defense is part of a bizarre new world of Democratic politics. Democratic members of Congress recently lined up to quote Associate Justice Antonin Scalia for his restrictive views on standing — a view that has been used to bar public interest organizations in environmental and civil liberties cases. The Obama Administration now routinely pitches appeals to the four most conservative members of the Supreme Court on presidential powers and the most vocal supporters of the President’s use of virtually unchecked power is coming from former Bush officials. Such is the inversive world in which we live. The Democrats have largely abandoned traditional values tied to civil liberties, war powers, privacy, and other core issues in favor of supporting Obama. The result is that you find yourself left with Alberto Gonzales as your pro bono counsel.
Continue reading “Gonzales Defends Obama’s Use Of Executive Power”
We recently discussed the homicidal hunk from ISIS who is all the rage with Muslim women looking for a husband to watch martyred. The extremist Sunni movement has been reaching out to Westerners to join their self-declared caliphate and thousands have reportedly responded. Now even more disturbing pictures have been posted with a father from Australia having his seven-year-old son holding up a severed head in celebration and a former British rapper (right) doing the same. Beheadings are viewed by ISIS as a traditional Islamic form of execution and a type of macabre celebration of their view of Islam. Severed heads feature prominently on ISIS (or Islamic State) social media postings.
Shawna Lynn Palmer, 22, dreamed of being a beauty queen may have ended in jail after she was arrested for alleged worker’s compensation fraud following the posting of video showing her competing in high heels despite her claim of an debilitating foot injury as a grocery clerk at Stater Bros. She appeared in the 2014 Miss Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix pageant. Toyota’s new slogan is “Let’s Go Places” but I think that is not exactly what Palmer had in mind.
We are leaving Cape Cod today (a bit early due to the arrival of thunderstorms) and we had a wonderful time in this extraordinarily beautiful spot. (As usual, I used my iPhone for pictures with varying success but the lighthouse taken from the boat turned out pretty good).