There is a tragic story in Texas where a 15-year-old girl was raped and her step grandmother murdered after a judge ordered her to be sent back to a home with a sex offender. The offender, Edward Clinton Lee, was once married to the guardian, the girl’s step-grandmother, Jean Slovacek, at a house in Caldwell, Texas. Retired state District Judge Terrill L. Flenniken is under fire for an order to send the girl back to the home. A lawsuit filed by The Texas Center for Defense of Life against Flenniken as well as three teachers — Bliss Bednar, Vance Skidmore and Bradley Vestal — and the Caldwell Independent School District for allegedly failing to report threats from the sex offender who professed in a plea bargain for a life sentence.
There is a horrific story out of Alabama where Christian Adamek, 15, committed suicide. Unfortunately, teen suicides are not uncommon but this suicide occurred after Adamek was arrested for running naked across the Sparkman High School football field and was told that he faced expulsion and be registered as a sexual offender. That is clearly too much for a 15-year-old kid, particularly after a common prank like streaking.
Three Orthodox rabbis — Mendel Epstein (shown right), Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, and Martin Wolmark — are under arrest this week for allegedly plotting kidnappings and beatings of Jewish men to get them to consent to religious divorces. They allegedly hired out to women who wanted a religious divorce but saw nothing immoral about kidnapping and beating their husbands to achieve it. So far a total of four people have been arrested.
I am in New Mexico today to speak at the first conference of the New Mexico Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. The establishment of the chapter is a significant milestone for the New Mexico bar, which only recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of New Mexico’s statehood. The chapter will finally integrate the New Mexico bar into the national association of lawyers practicing in the federal system.
Continue reading “Federal Bar Association Opens Chapter In New Mexico”
This is Miklos Terrell Dates Jr. who is accused of a heinous crime against a 31-year-old woman who was robbed of her cellphone and then urinated on allegedly by Dates and his friends. The sexual assault charge in the case could prove challenging depending on the actions of the individual defendants.
There is a disturbing video out of Skokie, Illinois where Cassandra Feuerstein is shown being thrown face first into a concrete bench by officers after her arrest for DUI. Feuerstein, 47, is suing for the alleged abuse, which included four deputies stripping her and leaving her in a cell without her clothes. Several bones were broken in her face.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev appears to have taken a lesson from Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen: “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” However, Aliyev has modified it to “victory first, votes second.” The authoritarian regime was slightly embarrassed when the state media released the results of the election showing Aliyev winning with 72.76 percent of the vote. The problem is that the polls had not opened yet.
It seems that restaurants are struggling to find any novel fad to gain recognition but this one has been baffled. People get together with friends for a Friday night dinner and they go to Brooklyn’s “Eat” restaurant where they are promptly told that they must eat their meal in silence. Could be a bit rough on a first date.
Continue reading “Shut Up And Eat: New York Restaurant Bars Conversation By Patrons”
Donald Eugene Miller Jr. is truly a dead man walking. He went to Judge Allan Davis at Hancock County Probate Court to inform the court that he was very much alive despite Davis’ ruling that he was deceased in 1994. He was surprised, however, when Davis said that there was nothing he could do. Miller was dead in the eyes of the law and that was the end of it . . . and him. It is not clear how Miller will rid himself of the first legally recognized status as an undead Zombie life form.
Forbes has a story on the ranking of law school on employment placement and salaries. I am happy to report that George Washington has placed within top ten schools. The dip in the legal market has affected applications at top schools but overall the impact is felt more severely at the lower ranked law schools. While legal education remains expensive, it remains a good investment for many students. The problem occurs at law schools with low bar passage rates and employment placement. We previously discussed how some of the lowest ranked schools report the highest levels of debt for students. There are some law schools which have dubious academic programs and even more dubious claims of placement. Frankly, some paring of law schools would be a benefit in this economic downturn as would more demanding certification standards by the American Bar Association.
Continue reading “GW Makes Top Ten Law Schools on Job Placement”
There is an interesting case out of France this week where four former members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church have been arrested and charged with torture, barbarism, and kidnapping of Antoinette, a 19-year-old Cameroonian. Their defense is novel: consent. Her former boyfriend, Eric Deron, who fashions himself to be something of a prophet, insisted that they were performing an exorcism by tying her to a mattress in a crucifixion position and kept her alive with small amounts of oil and water.
There is an interesting ruling out of the Sixth District Court of Appeal in California where a unanimous state appellate panel ruled that beating a child with a wooden spoon is not child abuse, even if it leaves bruises. The mother, Veronica Gonzalez, was reported for possible child abuse of her 12-year-old daughter. The daughter says that a friend “tricked” her into going to school officials about the beating. The case is Gonzalez v. Santa Clara County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 2013 Cal. App. LEXIS 802.
This dog honestly appears to be grooving on the guitar.
Fayhan al-Ghamdi is a well-known television commentator in Saudi Arabia who, while not recognized as a cleric, commonly instructed people on good Muslim values and lifestyles. We discussed his case earlier when he was released from jail after paying “blood money” for the raping, torture, and killing of his five-year-old daughter. Now, he has been given just eight years in prison and 800 lashes for the unspeakable crime. Ghamdi’s second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes in Saudi Arabia, you can be sentenced to death for adultery, apostasy or blasphemy. However, raping, torturing, and killing a toddler is just a matter of some blood money and an eight year stint. A husband can never be executed for killing one of his children or a wife under religious Sharia law. Continue reading “Saudi Cleric Rapes, Tortures, and Kills Five-Year-Old Child . . . Pays “Blood Money” To Mother And Receives Eight Years In Jail”
Kuwait is reportedly developing a test that it says will be able to “detect” homosexuals to prevent their entry into that country and other Gulf nations. It is perfectly bizarre, but Kuwait believes that it is possible to have some type of anti-gay detection system. It is not clear what type of test it would be since, despite stereotypes, leaving a Barbra Streisand album in the middle of a rope snare on the floor of the terminal may not catch all gay men. (Indeed, as a Broadway show fan, I would be the first hanging upside down in the Kuwait airport clutching a copy of Funny Girl). I have long wondered where all of those phrenologists went after the collapse of their “science” in the detection of criminals from head shapes.