Legal Commentary

Question of the Day: Who Is The Last Guy You Want As a Character Witness in a Child Molestation Case?

Posted on September 30, 2009
Answer: Woody Allen. That’s right, Woody Allen who became something of a pariah over his relationship with Mia Farrow?s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn is now calling for charges to be dropped against fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski for his sex with a thirteen year old girl in 1977...

Pissed Off: Endangered Shrimp Wiped Out By Urinating Tourists

Posted on September 30, 2009
Many endangered species are threatened by industry and urban sprawl. However, tourists have made something of a statement by going to Australia’s famed Ayers Rock, or Uluru, and pissed away a rare species of shrimp, Branchinella latzi. It appears that tourists see Uluru as something of a urinal...

Free Shooters in Arizona! Friday is Bring Your Gun to Bars Day

Posted on September 30, 2009
It is time to get loaded in Arizona. As we previously discussed, Arizona passed a law protecting the right to bear arms in bars. Well, the day has arrived for those who felt naked in bars with everyone ordering shooters while they left theirs at home...

Nothing to Relish: Massachusetts Man Gets 18 Months for Stealing Hot Dog

Posted on September 29, 2009
Antonio Judd really really wanted a hot dog. He grabbed a dog from a person on the street in Worchester and will now pay his debt to society with eighteen months in jail. Judd has a prior record of assault and was found with a pellet gun — but the hot dog was long gone...

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Sudafed Head: Indiana Women Arrested for Buying Two Over-The-Counter Medicines Within a Week

Posted on September 29, 2009
Sally Harpold is a Sudafed Head . . . or is she an Actifed Head? Well, the important thing is that she has been finally locked away in Clinton, Indiana where she was caught buying two cold medicines with seven days. Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina Alexander (left) racked up the major coup four [...

Teenager Arrested in Duct-Taping of Cat Crime

Posted on September 29, 2009
Police have arrested James Davis, 19, who has reportedly admitted to committing the horrific crime of duct-taping a cat and throwing it away. The gray tabby was rescued and had its fur cut off to get the tape off. The cat was eventually rescued by a Bengal...

Tank Tort: Another Drunk Russian Soldier Takes Armored Vehicle for a Spin

Posted on September 29, 2009
We previously watched the video below of a drunken Russian tank driver careening around a town a. Now we have another incident in Perm, Russia where a drunken instructor took an armored infantry vehicle to go buy more booze. He said it was the only vehicle he could locate at the time...

Seattle Officer Fired Over Videotaped Beating of Teenage Girl in Cell

Posted on September 29, 2009
King County deputy Paul Schene, 31, has been fired over his beating a 15-year-old girl on Nov. 29 incident in a holding cell at SeaTac City Hall. The video below shows a shocking escalation of violence by Schene. Schene and another deputy arrested a pair of 15-year-old girls for investigation of auto theft after they [...

U.N. Report: Israel Committed War Crimes In Gaza

Posted on September 29, 2009
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict will issue a report today accusing Israel of “actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity” during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18...

This Year?s ?Must? in Authoritarian Fashion: The English To Launch Campaign Showing Jealous Fingerprints Begging For National Identification Cards

Posted on September 28, 2009
While France and Italy may claim to lead fashion, the English have spent over £544,000 to show English citizens what is a must in their year’s wear: a fingerprint. The government is trying to convince the English that only a nerd lives without a fingerprinted national identity card in a new campaign featuring [...

Question of the Day: Is This Impersonating a Police Officer?

Posted on September 28, 2009
The Space Hijackers pride themselves on creative and artistic forms of protest — often against police abuse. They were a bit surprised to learn that citizens can easily confuse a person in red high heels, frilly stockings, and a helmet for a police officer...

Kodac and Kevlar Moment: Video Appears to Show Pittsburgh Police During G20 Protests Using an Arrested Citizen as a Prop for a Group Photo

Posted on September 28, 2009
Now this video is a bit difficult to explain. It appears that police took an arrested protester, made him kneel in front of them, and then took a group picture in Pittsburgh. From my own protest cases, I can confirm that police departments will often take a picture with arresting officers for purposes of creating [...

Muggle Rebellion: Bush White House Blocked Award to J.K. Rowling Due To Her Connection to Witchcraft

Posted on September 28, 2009
In this new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, Matt Latimer has an interesting insight into the presidency of George W. Bush. When author J.K. Rowling was proposed as a recipient for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Bush nixed the idea because Rowling’s Harry Potter series “encouraged witchcraft...

Court Orders Disbarred Lawyer Locked Out of His Office After He Allegedly Continues to Practice Law

Posted on September 28, 2009
Allen Feingold had a less than conventional approach to litigation, such as allegedly choking a 74-year-old judge after an adverse arbitration ruling. Now, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court President Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe has ordered that he be locked out of his office to prevent him from continuing to practice law after his disbarment...

Return to Nature: Georgia Probation Officials Send Sex Offenders to Live in the Woods

Posted on September 28, 2009
Over the last decade, legislators have rushed to impose broader and broader restrictions on sex offenders that prohibit them from living within certain distances of churches, schools, and other locations. The result is often effective banishment or homelessness for sex offenders...

Which of These Two Beings Is More Likely to Get You a Date?

Posted on September 28, 2009

Bring home A Nice Jewish Boy . . . or Else: Illinois Supreme Court Upholds ?Jewish Clause?

Posted on September 27, 2009
The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the so-called “Jewish Clause” in a will of a deceased Chicago dentist who wanted to disinherit any children or grandchildren who failed to marry a Jew. Max Feinberg’s will result in four grandchildren being disinherited...

Client Fires Orly Taitz and Threatens Bar Complaint Against Her As Judge Explores Sanctions

Posted on September 27, 2009
Orly Taitz, the lawyer and de facto leader of the “Birther” litigation, has filed a motion to withdraw from further representation of Dr. Connie Rhodes after Rhodes accused her of filing new papers in Rhodes v. MacDonald without her approval and after she agreed to be deployed by the military...

William Safire Dies at 79

Posted on September 27, 2009
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist William Safire died today at 79. Bill was a friend and often encouraged me through the years as a columnist and commentator. He was one of the most interesting men that I have known in my life and, like millions, I will miss him...

Roman Polanski Arrested in Switzerland

Posted on September 27, 2009
While justice delayed may be justice denied, but justice appears to have caught up with Roman Polanski — just 31 years delayed. To the surprise of his family and lawyers, Swiss authorities arrested the seventy-six-year-old famous director on the outstanding international warrant...

Breakfast is Served and Served and Served . . .

Posted on September 27, 2009
And you thought you had too many mouths to feed. I don’t understand why I cannot get four kids to eat breakfast like this. Breakfast in the Turley house is a cross between feeding time on the Serengeti and the Roman games.

Christians Protest Placement of Ganesh (Elephant God) Statue at Calgary Zoo

Posted on September 27, 2009
A Christian group in Calgary has organized a campaign to protest an elephant statue in the zoo that resembles Ganesh, the Hindu God. The group is challenging the three-meter statue as “selective religious partiality.” Ganesh is the remover of obstacles and was placed at the Elephant Crossing exhibit in 2006...

The Menace in Middleville: The Michigan DHS Files Complaint Against Woman Who Watched Neighborhood Kids While They Waited For Their School Bus

Posted on September 26, 2009
Lisa Snyder has been finally stopped. Because some parents in her neighborhood have to go to work before the bus picks up their kids in front of Snyder’s house, Snyder watches three children in Middleville, Michigan for the 15 or so minutes while they wait...

Lost in Translation: Muammar Gaddafi?s Rambling UN Speech Smites Interpreter

Posted on September 26, 2009
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Moamer Kadhafi) shocked many in refusing to use the vaulted United Nations interpreters and instead brought his own. However, in the course of his rambling, stream-of-conscious speech this week, the interpreter was heard saying into a live microphone, “I just can’t take it any more” and reportedly [...

Air Stalker: California Pilot Arrested for Violating Restraining Order With Private Airplane

Posted on September 26, 2009
A California pilot Tom Huey has been arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order by buzzing the neighborhood of a woman and dropping leaflets referring to her from his Beech single-engine plane. The neighborhood issued an alert, here. The police issued a statement that “[t]he leaflets referenced a specific person and contained defamatory language and racial slurs...

Surprise Surrogate: Ohio Mother Gives Birth To Baby in Mistaken Implanted Embryo Case

Posted on September 26, 2009
Carolyn Savage of Sylvania, Ohio has given birth to a baby boy in a bizarre case of negligence by a fertility clinic. Savage, 40, has agreed that the baby is not hers after the clinic implanted the wrong embryo. The Savages have agreed not only to have the baby but to give up [...

Sacrebleu! The French Move Against Air Brushing and Photoshopping of Magazine Pictures

Posted on September 26, 2009
In what may be the most dangerous and potentially explosive act since the storming of the Bastille, French leaders are taking on French models and declaring war on airbrushing. The French Parliament (and members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party) is proposing to force magazines and other publishers to print a warning for photographs [...

Polish Court Awards Damages to Woman Who Was Compared in Article to the Nazis for Trying to Obtain an Abortion for Health Reasons

Posted on September 25, 2009
A Polish court has awarded Alicja Tysiac $11,000 against a Catholic magazine, Gosc Niedzielny, after the magazine compared her to a child killer and a Nazi. While it is impressive to see a court levy such damages against a Catholic publication in this very Catholic nation, the ruling does raise freedom of speech [...

Fastener Fetish: New York Judge Dismisses Motion for ?Negligent Stapling?

Posted on September 25, 2009
New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Markey takes stapling very, very seriously. The New York judge dismissed a motion for default judgment due to “negligent” stapling by the law firm. That’s right, “negligent stapling.” The judge observed that two clerk cut themselves on a staple on the filing and considered that sufficient grounds to [...

Two Men Arrested for Attempting to Kidnap 14-Year-Old Girl to Marry a Boy in Fargo

Posted on September 25, 2009
Dragan Jovanovic, 42, and Elvis Tahirovic, 18, were arrested this week in a bizarre kidnapping conspiracy: they drove from Fargo, North Dakota to to Bowling Green to kidnap a 14-year-old girl so that she could marry a Jovanovic’s 14-year-old son (who met her on the Internet)...

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