Meredith Lowell, 27,has been arrested in a rather bizarre alleged murder plot: to randomly kill a fur wearer. Lowell was charged with soliciting a hit man to shoot a stranger — justifying the hit was akin to liberating people from Nazi concentration camps.
Category: Society
Ever get up for Ash Wednesday and just hate to have to get out of your car and walk into a church? Now, getting your ashes is as easy as a McDonald’s cup of coffee. Just pull up to Mt. Healthy United Methodist Church in suburban Cincinnati and Rev. Patricia Anderson Cook will appear at your window for ashes on the run.
Continue reading “Ashes To Go: Ohio Church Offers Drive-Thru Service For Ash Wednesday”
Albert Einstein is not such a dummy after all. As we previously discussed, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in making a subatomic particle go faster than the speed of light for the first time. The scientists used neutrinos, which were observed smashing past the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second). It now turns out that it was just a loose wire that delayed the reading by a few nanoseconds — that was enough to disprove the faster than the speed of light finding. It also means the loss of a good joke
Continue reading “Loose Wire Blamed For Faster-Than-Light Mistaken Finding”
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Chapman Law Professor Mary Katherine Baird Darmer, 47, a leading proponent for protections of gay and lesbian citizens. Darmer died in a six-story fall from a parking garage that was believed to be a suicide. She leaves a husband and at least one child.
Continue reading “Law Professor And Leading Gay Rights Advocate Dies In Apparent Suicide”
We have previously discussed the problems of lawyers with being attacked by ex-girlfriends for their alleged bad relationships. The latest such story involves attorney Matthew Couloute Jr. who sued a former roller derby queen Stacey Blitsch and another ex for their posts about him at liarscheatersrus.com. The site still has a place for Couloute comments. Now, federal Judge Harold Baer has tossed out the defamation lawsuit as improperly based on protected opinion. In this case, the opinion that Couloute is a collossal loser. [Just for the record, I want to note that I have not dated Couloute and that I am merely repeating the opinion of those who have dated Couloute].
James Privett, 26, believes in love . . . and its power to heal all wounds . . . including cleaver scars. Privett took a cleaver to his wife but has told police that he hopes “loves conquers all” and hopes to reconcile with his wife Erica.
The debate over Virginia’s new abortion bill is raging. While there are good-faith debates over the scope of state authority vis-a-vis women in cases of abortion, the legislation would appear to require an invasive ultrasound procedure for women in the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy — tipping the scales in terms of the burden on women. However, conservative CNN Contributor Dana Loesch went on the air this week to make the rather astonishing claim that such an involuntary procedure is no different from voluntary sex.
Mitt Romney is out another supporter. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu (who is also running for Congress) has resigned from the campaign after the Phoenix New Times reported that Babeu not only has a male lover but a Mexican immigrant lover who Babeu allegedly threatened to deport if he revealed their relationship. Babeu denies the allegation of threatening to deport the man and insists that it was the former campaign worker named as Jose who threatened him. While some are focusing on the political, I am wondering about the libel in these rivaling statements.
Continue reading “Babeu in Arms: Will The Sheriff Sue [Or Be Sued] For Defamation?”
Holly Grigsby is obviously cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. The murder suspect has challenged jail conditions that deny her access to the cereal and other items in the commissary of the Snohomish County Jail.
Continue reading “Cereal KIller? Murder Suspect Challenges Jail’s Denial Of Favorite Cereal”
We have previously discussed the growing number of stories of young children raised in the opposite gender (here) or without a gender (here and here). The children raised in the opposite gender are often found to have Gender Identity Disorder (GID). Now, a four-year old boy named Zach has been diagnosed with GID and he is being raised as a girl. He began to evidence GID, according to his doctors and parents, when he was three.
Continue reading “Four-Year-Old Boy Diagnosed With Gender Identity Disorder And Raised A Girl”
California prosecutors have brought a rare manslaughter charged against an architect for the substandard construction and design of a $11 million mansion. Albert Becker, 48, was arrested after a firefighter died in a blaze at the home, which was going to be the backdrop for a reality show called “Germany’s Next Model.”
Continue reading “Architect Charged With Manslaughter Over Poorly Built $11 Million Mansion”
It came without warning. Innocent citizens were going about their lives when Vikings suddenly appeared from nowhere and took everything of value. It is a common tale that was repeated too many times in history, but the most recent raid reportedly comes from last week in Minnesota where citizens learned that they will have to foot the bill for much of a new stadium — despite the belief of most citizens that they had blocked such an effort.
Continue reading “Viking Raid: Minnesota Citizens Balk At Stadium Deal”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Reasonable people tend to agree there is both a right to privacy and that it is necessary. But what exactly is the right to privacy? Justice Brandeis famously said in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928), “The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect, that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.” Plainly put, at its heart a right to privacy is simply a right to be let alone.
However, do we need to specifically protect it or generally protect it? Is that right absolute? Laws, by definition and the nature of entering a social compact, are restrictions on absolute liberty found in the state of nature. One of the larger disagreements at the Constitutional Convention was about whether enumerated rights would serve to unjustly limit those rights versus a failure to enumerate rights would result in rights not being properly protected. This is a valid question surrounding this issue, especially since some would advocate enumerating the right to privacy by Constitutional amendment. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. While specifically defining/enumerating a right creates a foundation for arguments surrounding said right, leaving a right’s definition nebulous allows jurisprudence greater leeway to evolve around fact specific instance and questions that in the long run can result in a more nuanced understanding and application of the right without the constraints a foundational definition might impose. In this light, consider the right to privacy.
Continue reading “Privacy Rights – To Enumerate or Not to Enumerate, That is the Question”
Below is my column today in the Washington Post (Sunday) Outlook Section. The column concerns the Alvarez case to be heard on Wednesday before the Supreme Court. I have been a long critic of the Stolen Valor Act — not because I am not highly sympathetic to its purpose but because I am concerned about the means of achieving that purpose. I share the anger over people who falsely claim to be war heroes. However, the government often selects popular causes for expanding its power over speech or conduct of its citizens. The question before the Court is really not about this specific form of lying, but the legal basis for criminalizing lies generally. The Act is different in that it seeks to criminalize lies simply because they are lies as opposed to lies that are used to commit a specific crime like larceny or fraud or perjury. I also spoke to NPR on Talk To The Nation on this subject.
Continue reading “The Better Part of Valor: Should Lying About Medals Be A Crime?”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I am the last person that should be defending Pat Buchanan and objecting to his recent termination as a political analyst for MSNBC. However, after thinking about it for a while, I have come to the conclusion that Uncle Pat’s firing is an attack on Free Speech and a continuation of the Fox News type mentality on our cable news stations. Let me first make it clear that most of what Buchanan says on the air is offensive and in some cases, outright disgusting. However, if we cannot say what is on our mind without limits, do any of us really have the freedom to speak our minds? Continue reading “The First Amendment Versus Pat Buchanan?”