Society forgives a lot. Don King killed two people — yes, he really did kill one person, then decide this wasn’t enough so he later killed another — before he pulled his life together and entered that most honorable of professions: boxing promotion. (And in fairness, in the first case he was trying to protect one of his illegal gambling houses and in the second the guy owed him money.) Likewise, Mike Tyson served time for rape, but now most people tend to ignore that in favor of the nobler moments from his life, like when he sang along to “In the Air Tonight” in The Hangover or beat the hell out of Don King. Perhaps the only crime you can’t redeem yourself from over time is child abuse. And this may be why there doesn’t seem to be a measured response to it: it is an offense that seems either to get ignored completely or for which everyone connected in any way must be destroyed immediately, disregarding the possibility that they might actually be innocent. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, sports by Sean Cunningham
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Maybe we shouldn’t have the end of the year during the holidays. Yes, it is one of the holidays itself but maybe they are too concentrated here on the long tail of the annum. Legislative and other periods link to the end of the calendar year causing deadlines to loom just when offices are empty or emptying. Once phones rang unanswered from Thanksgiving Wednesday to January 2nd. Now they roll over to voice. Which is more cruel? There are a few folks still on the job although they eye the clock nervously and jostle their keys. They are trying to “get things done” and whatever that means it apparently means the same thing two days before Christmas as it means on any other day at the Capitol and the White House. [Read more →]

Tags: money, on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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As we withstand the informational deluge from Penn State, we are faced with the possibility of another case of institutional child abuse, in which a whole group of people, a whole structure, contributed to the horrific abuse of children. It is clear that we are just not getting it. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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Tags: on the law, politics & government, terror & war by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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Remarks by The Speaker:

Americans, there is no doubt that we are in dire economic straits. It is sometimes hard to believe that everyone up here at the Capitol, although yes, we still have OUR jobs, for the moment, we all, everyone who sits in these Chambers, all our hearts go out to the nation. That is Republican and Democrat alike. I assume that both of the TEA Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements and of every citizen in between and outside of these groups that represent a very great fraction of the public. Of course this extends to the President as well. I say this to both Right and Left and Center and whatever politics you can imagine, there is no one up here trying to destroy or harm this country. Not me. Not Barney Frank. Not Senator Reid nor McConnell is trying to harm the economy either from spurious actions or malign neglect and most assuredly, no, neither is the President. What we have are different interpretations, different views of what is possible, what is wise and what is legal. Yes, these are wildly divergent views; these are certainly antagonistic views but what we try to avoid, with mixed success, is being antagonistic with each other and above all, antagonistic to the Constitution. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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So, Troy Davis is dead.

Strapped to a gurney in Georgia’s death chamber, Troy Davis lifted his head and declared one last time that he did not kill police officer Mark MacPhail. Just a few feet away behind a glass window, MacPhail’s son and brother watched in silence.

And, despite his claim that he is innocent of a crime for which there is said to be no physical evidence, it seems the witnesses were enough to make it stick. The victim’s mother says:

[Davis has] been telling himself [he's innocent] for 22 years. You know how it is, he can talk himself into anything (same source as above).

As anyone who reads my stuff with any regularity knows, I’m not a current events guy, except when current events raise larger philosophical questions about life. I can’t stay away from this one. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, religion & philosophy by Chris Matarazzo
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If you were not stunned by the verdict in the Casey Anthony case, then you must have a heart of stone, if indeed you have a heart at all. When Casey Anthony was found to be “innocent” of the “crime” of “murdering her own daughter,” I myself was stunned. How could such a terrible crime be allowed to go unpunished?, I thought to myself. The fact that I didn’t do anything about it other than give it a few minutes’ thought and then move on with my life only proves how callous I have become, in the face of injustice and the suffering of others.

But one woman from Oklahoma saw that verdict and actually did something about it, drafting an online petition to encourage “a new federal law created called Caylee’s Law that will make it a federal offense for a parent or guardian to not notify law enforcement of a child going missing in a timely manner.” Here is some of the powerful prose of the proposed law:

I’m writing to propose that a new law be put into effect making it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the death of their child, accidental or otherwise, within 1 hour of said death being discovered. This way there will be no more cases like Casey Anthony’s in the courts, and no more innocent children will have to go without justice.

Also, make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the disappearance of a child within 24 hours, so proper steps can be taken to find that child before it’s too late.

[Read more →]

Tags: on the law, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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I had a little notion for a video project during the primaries. It would be a montage of man-on-the-street questions about McCain with each person invited to call out his name in whatever expressive fashion would strike them. That was with the assumption that mostly, like myself, these Rep primary voters would harbor some desperate exasperation over the contradictions typifying his life, his statements and his long, long career. Think of young military types ruefully but respectfully moaning, “McCain.” Then would there be an agitated old woman in red, white and blue shaking her parasol while croaking, “McCain!” Hardhats would shake their heads in bewilderment, “McCain?” A whole, modest family would cry out plaintively, “McCa-a-a-ain….. ” And of course I would act all these folks out to whomever was willing to listen to my childish fantasy. Because the fact is, if you do ask the man on the street, and he is one of few who recognize the name and is one of the precious few with any inkling of his identity you will almost certainly find that they know him only as a military man of some past accomplishment who ran against Obama for twisted reasons best left obscure. McCain may get the historical berth he has long sought, however. He has proposed a bill that would grant the President the unreviewed power to hold citizens in custody without charge and without trial. Forever. This while he makes a weepy plea not to restore waterboarding, a proposition NO ONE has brought, because squirting market-bombers with the hose is against foundational American principles. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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John Yoo was a rather obscure fellow and perhaps he is still. But he is a creature from another age; an academic jurist. This used to be the sort of person who became Attorney General or a judge at some high level. Much like Kenneth Starr, he is a law geek like the armies of math geeks that launch and recover our rockets. Like Kenneth Starr, Mr Yoo found himself with a controversial task. Mr Starr’s commission would harm a sitting Democratic President. Mr Yoo’s would assist a sitting Republican President so neither controversy is surprising.

Yoo is the drafter of a series of memos from the Bush Justice Department that provided legal guidance for interrogating GWOT prisoners. Famously said memos found waterboarding was a-okay as well as a variety of other menacing actions that fell far short of anything from Hellraiser or even Shawshank. The usual quarters complained about this; the alliance of non-disbarred lawyers, media types with dreams of book deals and  ambitious Democrats that always sees America as Snidely Whiplash, and everyone else as a chick tied to a railroad track. Or they do so until there is a Democrat in office. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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On Sunday, TLC ran two Christmas-themed episodes of the program “Sister Wives,” which follows the polygamist Brown family. The episodes were filmed four months after the Browns “came out,” and were being investigated by the Lehigh County sheriff’s department. It was this investigation that led to the Browns leaving Utah for Nevada, which is presumably less intolerant of polygamy, at least reality television polygamy.

Intercut with a montage of the numerous Brown children dressing their Christmas tree (at a treacherously placed cabin the middle of a forbidding area of snow-covered Utah), father Kody Brown tearfully explains that families convicted of committing the “crime” of polygamy are broken up. Third wife Christine tells us that her grandparents were jailed for polygamy, with the wives separated and children sent off to various foster families, with all contact broken off.

It was about as moving a scene as you can expect from a reality show, but imagine if the Browns lived in Broward County? [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, television by Ricky Sprague
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