There is an interesting case out of Pennsylvania where a dog groomer has been convicted of animal cruelty for ear and neck piercings. It is the defense of Holly Crawford that makes the case particularly notable.
Continue reading “Goth Cats: Woman Convicted of Animal Cruelty for Piercings”
Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh seem to be vying for which country is the most repressive in the application of Islamic Sharia law. The Saudi courts have ordered a Filipino woman to be lashed 100 times after she was raped. The Bangladesh courts outdid their Saudi counterparts and ordered a girl lashed 101 times for being raped. At what point does the Obama Administration publicly denounce these countries for systemic human rights violations against women?
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas appeared to take on President Obama this week in discussing the ruling in Citizens United — contradicting the President’s portrayal in the State of the Union. In my view, the President did overstate the holding (not unheard of in the halls of Congress), but I continue to despair over the increasing public role played by justices (here). In my view, Thomas should not be engaging in such a public debate and should allow these decisions to speak for themselves.
Continue reading “Clarence Thomas Defends Recent Ruling on Campaign Finance”
Harris County criminal Court-at-Law Judge Reagan Helm has resigned after protests over his allegedly taunting remarks to victims of domestic violence. Helm, 68, reportedly admitted to suffering from dementia and having “medical issues.” He was accused of extreme bias against women in these cases. In one instance, Helm told men accused of domestic abuse that these women have them “by the balls.”
Continue reading “Houston Judge Resigns After Claims of Bias Against Domestic Abuse Victims”
Police in Florida have been dealing with the long-ignored menace of trolls. While we are all taught how to trick trolls in the “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” the victim forgot the “rob-me-when-I’m-fatter” trick when Jimmy Lee Morris (27), Dylan Patrick O’Shea (18), and Christopher L. Johnson (24) demanded that he “pay a toll to the troll.”
There is an interesting investigation in Brooklyn where Internal Affairs is looking into allegations that Brooklyn police officers refused to take criminal complaints and downgraded crimes to lower crime statistics. It brings a new meaning to officers warning people not to become a statistic.
Continue reading “Fighting Crime . . . One Statistic A Time: Brooklyn Police Accused of Fixing the Books”
Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg does not appear quite ready to accept gays serving the country in the military. On Hardball, he not only opposed the elimination of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy but argued that all gays should be arrested as criminals.
A church in Oregon has the infamous reputation of killing children in the name of faith. Now, two parents — Jeff and Marci Beagley — have been found guilty of negligent homicide. Their case was discussed in this prior column. It is a welcomed charge (often religious parents are given lesser charges in the death of their children due to faith-healing), but the likely sentence is likely to be relatively low given the history of this church and the loss of life.
Continue reading “Faith-Healing Parents in Oregon Convicted of Negligent Homicide”
In a disgusting pornographic collection called “the Misty series,” a little girl named Amy was photographed by her uncle who then distributed the pictures worldwide on the Internet. As discussed earlier, now an adult, Amy has succeeded to securing restitution not from her uncle but from a man who was found in possession of the pictures. As reported by John Schwartz in the New York Times article below, it has raised serious questions from lawyers and law professors (including myself) but the Obama Administration is now supporting such claims.
Continue reading “Pay Misty for Me: Courts Mull Over Restitution Payments to Victims of Child Pornography From Possessors”
It appears that a Turkish company has perfected the invention of “liquid glass” in a breakthrough that will likely make it and its German patent holder fantastically wealthy. With the United States pouring billions into these wars (while cutting educational budgets) and countries like China spending equally on new research (here), we will increasingly be the consumers rather than the inventors of such new technology.
France has been stepping up its opposition to the Muslim tradition of women wearing full veils. It has not only moved toward a ban in public places, but it has now denied citizenship to a Moroccan man for his attitude toward women, including forcing his wife to wear a veil.
Continue reading “France Refuses Citizenship to Moroccan Man Who Forces Wife To Wear Veil”
This video shows the ugly face of the goose peril being ignored by our leaders.
Continue reading “Goose, Goose, . . . Duck!”
Lorianne Updike Toler, lawyer and head of the Constitutional Sources Project in Pennsylvania, has found a rare early draft of the United States Constitution in the hand of James Wilson. It is a major historical and legal find at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Continue reading “Early Draft of Constitution Found”
Yes, it is time for the world’s most famous rodent to fixate the nation with his shadow-phobic response. It appears that good people of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania have rejected the demand of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to free Phil into the wild and get a robotic groundhog (which presumably would detect a shadow through sensors).
Ever wonder what those guys at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission were doing during the financial market meltdown. A recent investigation uncovered more than two dozen SEC employees and contractors were surfing for porn on their computers, including one supervisor who made more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span.