Debris
«chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète.»Archive for crime & punishment
No sex offender registry for sheep shagger
Some news to take your mind off the financial collapse:
The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that a Battle Creek man who pleaded no contest to sodomizing a sheep does not have to register as a sex offender after his release from prison.
Jeffrey Haynes, 45, is serving 2 1/2 to 20 years for sodomy — a “crime against nature” under state law. Haynes was sentenced in 2006 after police said he had sex with a sheep at a Bedford Township farm in 2005.
The animal’s owner caught him on the property and the sheep was found injured. A DNA sample taken from the animal matched Haynes’ genetic material.
Truth really is stranger than fiction
The headline of this news story doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of weirdness:
Dog cloner Joyce McKinney sought over burglary to fund horse’s wooden leg
A police department, a district attorney, and a court with apparently nothing to do
Thanks to my good friend (and loyal Debris reader) Stuart Lichten for bringing this decision to my attention (and also suggesting the post title). It seems like an April Fool’s joke, but it is absolutely real. The case involved a man charged with criminal damage to property, under the most absurd circumstances:
[T]he alleged facts are that the property of the defendant was bordered on two sides by fences “in need of painting and repair.” The defendant painted these two fence sides facing towards his property to improve the appearance of them as well as enhancing his property’s value. That was his stated purpose.
The two fence owners peeved that this was done without permission “called the cops.” As a result the defendant was arrested, handcuffed, transported to police headquarters, booked, fingerprinted, had a mug shot taken and then turned over to Military Police [the defendant serves in the U.S. Army] for further detention after being given an appearance ticket by the Watertown Police Department.
It isn’t clear what motivated the neighbors to pursue criminal charges, but it seems they were vindictive assholes. The motivation of the District Attorney in actually taking the case to trial is more of a mystery. In any event, reasoning that the defendant’s painting the fence did not cause any “damage” as required by the statute, and citing Robert Frost’s dictum that “good fences make good neighbours”, the court dismissed the charges.
Woman faces jail time for cursing at toilet
Her precise words were “oh, shit!”:
A Pennsylvania woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said.
Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300.
“It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” Herb told The Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pa. “The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop.”
Herb does not recall exactly what she said, but she admitted letting more than a few bad words fly near an open bathroom window Thursday night.
Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was off-duty at the time, asked her to keep it down, police said. When she continued, the officer called police.
Is this a common occurrence?
Stein calls attention to a bemusing memorandum posted at Alabama’s Limestone Correctional Facility:
When an attorney arrives intoxicated at the prison for a legal visit, the policy shall be that he shall be escorted out of the facility. If correctional officers assess the attorney as too impaired to drive, the Madison County Sheriff shall be called.
Maaren Choksi — Sex Offender Re-Entry: A Summary and Policy Recommendation on the Current State of the Law in California and How to ‘Safely’ Re-Introduce Sex Offenders into Our Communities
Another interesting paper by another former student:
This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive review of the current and pending sex offender legislation in California, examine their effectiveness or ineffectiveness and any possible loopholes, and conclude with a broad recommendation on where the state of California’s law and policies surrounding the safe release and supervision of sex offenders into the community should be heading. In doing so, the paper will rely on current statistics on sex offenders in California, policy recommendations by various organizations on this topic, media profiles and case histories of recent real-life sex crimes, and actual data from the California online sex offender registry to discover the profile of the “real” sex offender in California. This paper will also examine the roll of public outcry and moral panic in the implementation of these laws and the effect this may have had on their specific provisions and eventual effectiveness in order to provide a more comprehensive review of the impetus behind such regulations and hopefully to inform future legislation of the lessons of the past.
Ben Carrasco: Assessing the CCPOA’s Political Influence and its Impact on Efforts to Reform the California Corrections System
I’m proud to say that the author of this paper (which I haven’t yet read, but am looking forward too) was one of the very first law students I taught. Even a stalwart union supporter like me has no love lost for CCPOA, and, judging from the abstract, it looks like Ben’s got their number.
Abstract:
Over the last twenty years, prison reform has an increasingly vital priority for the state of California. With skyrocketing deficits and a prison population that is growing inexorably, exploring criminal justice solutions outside of the traditional law and order “lock-em up” paradigm is becoming indispensable to the state’s fiscal stability. Reforming three strikes and emphasizing more rehabilitation, for example, are the types of reforms that might hold promise for reducing California’s prison population. This paper examines what many perceive to be an obstacle to reform: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) – the Prison Guard Union. More specifically, it explores how the CCPOA developed into the state’s most formidable labor union, how it uses that power to influence elections, and the implications of its power on the wider corrections debate and prospects for change.
No fair trial for fair-fight defendant
Graeme of Left in East Dakota has called my attention to what appears to be a grave miscarriage of justice.
Mevludin Hidanovic was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail for his alleged role in a brawl at a West Fargo, ND fair last summer. Hidanovic, who was at the fair with his family, has steadfastly denied any involvement in the fight. After the trial, one of the jurors, Becky Rettig, acknowledged that she had pressed for a guilty verdict based on Hidanovic’s Roma Bosnian ethnicity. In a detailed affidavit, Rettig — who says hers was initially the sole vote in favor of a conviction — explained how she influenced the other jurors:
- I used my own experiences with ethnic groups, specifically Bosnians and/or Gypsies, to influence the jury.
- I told the jury that I had personal experience with Bosnians and that they stole from my business and in the same experience lied to me regarding the theft and their conduct. Even though I had never met Mr. Hidanovic, or any of the witnesses, Mr. Hidanovic and the witnesses’ race was discussed in a negative way.
- I interjected into the deliberations the concept that if Mr. Hidanovic wasn’t guilty of this crime he was guilty of something else.
Despite this evidence, a state court judge has denied Hidanovic’s request for a new trial. If the conviction stands, Hidanovic, who fled war-torn Bosnia in 1992 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1999, will face deportation after serving his sentence.
