Getting closer to justice...
A jury took less than an hour to declare Chante Mallard guilty of murder. Now all they have to do is run her down in the parking lot and leave her on the windshield to die for justice to be served. Barring that, with any luck she'll spend the rest of her life in prison.

Freudian Slip?
I was scrolling through the latest national news from the AP on the Washington Post's site, and noticed the following:

U.S. Wary About Mideast Truce Reports (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:20 PM)

Dorel Recalls 1.2M Infant Safety Seats (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:19 PM)

Jurist Fights to Save Everglades Legacy (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:19 PM)

Virginia Grower Earning a Hot Reputation (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:14 PM)

N.M. Wildfire Burns Through 700 Acres (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:13 PM)

U.S. Weary About Mideast Truce Reports (AP, June 25, 2003; 1:18 PM)

Given the twisty kitten's ball of yarn that the "Road Map" has been, I personally thought the earlier headline was more accurate.

Maybe we should make the punishment fit the crime...
Chante Mallard is scheduled to go on trial today, charged with murder and tampering with evidence.

Mallard told police that her Chevrolet Cavalier hit Biggs with such force that his head and shoulders jammed into the windshield and his legs were bent over the roof, his pants tearing almost completely off his body.

Instead of stopping, police say, Mallard drove about a mile down a divided six-lane highway, the man still lodged and bleeding in the jagged windshield, then continued through town to her small yellow house in a working-class neighborhood.

She pulled into her garage, lowered the door, then sat in the car and cried, repeatedly apologizing to the man who was moaning, she later told detectives.

"Chante kept going in and out of the garage telling the man she was sorry," the police report states. "She does not know how long it took the man to die; she quit going out into the garage."

At some point after Chante quit apologizing, Gregory Biggs died from the injuries she inflicted, and then she and two accomplices dumped the body.

Her lawyers say this was merely a bad decision on her part, and that because she was distraught, she should only be punished for failing to stop and render aid.

... Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani later said Biggs, whose left leg was nearly amputated, probably lived only a few hours after he was hit the morning of Oct. 26, 2001. He could have survived if he had received medical attention, Peerwani has said.

That is far more than merely failing to 'stop and render aid.' I can't think of any punishment currently in use in the american justice system that is harsh enough to address such a complete lack of humanity. I'm of the opinion that the only way to make this one right, is to have someone do unto Chante what she so callously did to Gregory Biggs.

A Good Anti-Drug Commercial
FreeVibe has actually put out an anti-drug commercial that I think is effective.

The spot opens with a younger teen picking up his older brother's wallet and talking to the camera. As he goes downstairs he says something like, "My brother started smoking pot when he was younger than I am. He didn't get arrested. He didn't turn to harder drugs. He didn't drop out of school." Kid enters a smoky basement to toss the wallet to his red-eyed, stubble-faced, much older, stoner brother sitting on the couch watching TV, and finishes his statement with, "He never really did anything. At all."

And that, in my experience, is the real danger in marijuana.

That was a trustworthy diagnosis...

Michael T. Crane, a convicted sex offender whose case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, has been arrested again, and charged with comitting another rape after his release from custody.

Crane was convicted in 1994 in Johnson County, Kan., for an attack on a video store clerk in suburban Leawood the previous year. Earlier, he got probation in 1987 for attempted forcible rape and two counts of sex abuse in Missouri.

In the 1994 case, he was sentenced to 35 years to life on his convictions for kidnapping, attempted rape and attempted sodomy. ...

As he was approaching release, the state sought to have him kept in confinement, and a jury determined him to be a violent sexual predator. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned that finding, but Crane remained in confinement while the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last year, the court ruled in a 7-2 decision that states must prove that convicted sex offenders can't control themselves if they are to be confined after they finish their prison terms. ...

Crane, who remained in custody for more than three years after finishing his sentence, was released in January last year after doctors concluded his mental condition had changed and that he was no longer a threat.

Sounds to me like Crane simply started saying what the doctors wanted to hear. They decided this predatory animal was safe enough to be released into the wild, and sure enough, he went right back to his raping ways.

I'm sure its a great comfort to his latest victim, to hear that a team of doctors decided he was safe now.

The Kansas law, similar to those in about 20 states, allows indefinite confinement of violent sex offenders beyond their prison term if they suffer from mental abnormalities making them likely to commit similar crimes in the future. (emphasis mine)

Isn't it a given that a rapist is mentally abnormal? And considering this was not his first offense, I'd say it's also a given that he's likely to commit similar crimes in the future. This animal should never have been released.

Ewwwwwwww
From the Associated Press:

PALOMINO VALLEY, Nev. - Swarms of Mormon crickets are marching across the West, destroying rangeland and crops, slickening highways with their carcasses and leaving disgusted residents in their wake.

"It's yucky," said Amy Nisbet of Elko in northeast Nevada, where this year crickets made their first appearance in recent memory. "You drive down the street and they pop like bubble wrap."

DVDs I own - I
Prayer of the Rollerboys - figure I'd better admit this one up front. Futuristic movie set in the United States - what's left of it after foreign companies have bought it all - about a group of rollerblading drug-dealing aryan nation wannabes in trench coats. Starring Corey Haim and Patricia Arquette. Bought it off of the super-off-brand-marked-down-budget DVDs rack at Best Buy after seeing a late showing of it on cable one night. It's awful, but somehow irresistable to me. Guess I have really bad taste...

The Slipper and the Rose - best telling of the Cinderella story I've ever seen. Excellent dialogue, costumes, and I fell in love with the musical numbers the first time I saw it... when I was around 8 years old. Really good changes from the basic story line - Cinderella actually refuses to marry her beloved Prince for the good of the country. And, of value to parents who might like intelligent scripts, but dislike exposing their children to suggestive content - I can't think of a single objectionable thing in the entire movie.

Meet the Feebles - however, is not for kids. Or the weak of stomach. Or the easily offended. If you're interested in seeing the sort of work Peter Jackson was producing before he directed Lord of the Rings, and have a taste for demented movies, this is for you. It's probably the only movie you'll ever see where a walrus has sex with a cat. It's been widely described as "the Muppets on acid." Lower kill count than in Dead Alive, but I'd be hard pressed to decide which movie is grosser.

So no more underage girls... what about unwilling relatives?
The Associated Press reports that David Kingston, imprisoned for felony incest, and unlawful sexual contact with a minor, has been released from prison. Not paroled - released.

The state parole board's decision to release David Ortell Kingston on Tuesday rather than parole him means the prison has no responsibility to follow up on him.

Todd Utzinger, one of Kingston's former attorneys, said the parole board's decision recognizes "he has taken full responsibility and is prepared to go on and live a crime-free life." ...

Kingston's 16-year-old wife was the daughter of his brother John Daniel Kingston, who was sentenced to seven months in jail for beating the girl after she attempted to flee the marriage. Another Kingston brother, Paul, is the church leader.

David Kingston had denied having had sex with his niece until a parole hearing last August. He vowed never again to have sex with an underage girl.

"I recognize the hurt and sorrow I have caused (the victim) and my family," he said.

Great. So Mr. Kingston has vowed to wait until they're 18 years old now. I'd be more reassured if he also vowed not to force his female relatives to marry him any more.

Like a dog returns to its vomit...
This is the sort of news that makes me dislike domestic violence groups:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Even though she had an order of protection filed against her ex-husband, Betty Lucas invited him to a birthday party for one of their children.

The party soon disintegrated into fighting and police were called. But in an unexpected twist, both adults were charged with violating the protection order - her ex-husband for attending and Lucas for inviting him.

Now Lucas' appeal has landed on the docket of the Ohio Supreme Court, which must decide if people who seek a court's protection can be charged with violating their own request.

Seems fair enough to me. If you get a protective order against a guy, you're hardly deserving of sympathy if you invite him to violate it.

Domestic violence groups have sided with Lucas and say abusive people - not their victims - must be held responsible for violating protective orders. Prosecutors say Lucas should be held as accountable as anyone else who helped her husband violate a court order.

Because poor abused women should never have to take responsibility or face consequences for their actions.

Several domestic violence watchdog groups are backing Betty Lucas, saying failure to overturn her conviction sets back the justice system's role in protecting victims of abuse.

"Punishing the victim for contacting or returning to the offender does nothing to deter criminal behavior," the groups, including the Action Ohio Coalition for Battered Women and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, argued in court papers.

Whups... I was being sarcastic, up there, but it appears that the AOCBW wasn't.

"It tells the victim that she is equally responsible for the abuser's violent behavior and it reinforces the abuser's belief that his behavior is the result of factors outside his control," the groups argued.

Well yes, if you deliberately violate a court order, in order to see a man that you claim is abusive, you share the responsibility for the results. I'm of the opinion that protective orders should be worded so that they apply equally to each party. If the police aren't allowed to charge you with violating protective orders you request, there's nothing to stop me from getting a protective order against an ex-boyfriend and then violating it, calling the police, and having him carted off to jail. Once he gets out, if the order is still in effect, I can repeat the process as many times as I like. Sounds unfair? It is. If you think someone is so dangerous to you that you have to get a protective order, then you have a responsibility to stay the hell away from them.

Lucas' attorney, Andrew Sanderson, argued that Ohio law is meant to protect victims of domestic violence even if they make a bad decision about the person who abused them.

He used the analogy of Ohio's sexual assault laws, which protect victims under 18 from prosecution no matter the circumstances. Even if a teenage girl was a seducer, "We've made a societal decision that we're not going to charge that individual," Sanderson said.

There's a difference there in that children under the age of consent are held to be incapable of making their own decisions - that's why its called below the age of consent. Is Sanderson implying that women are incapable of making their own decisions, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible even when they recklessly expose themselves to a known danger? How condescending.