The times are a changing, so jury rules have to as well:
The Indiana Supreme Court earlier this month issued new rules that, in greater detail, address technology and quick, easy access to outside information via the Internet.
For instance, computers, laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices will be banned from the courtroom and jury room. Jurors also will be prohibited from using the Internet to do independent research at home.
A French TV experiment has duplicated the findings of psychologist Stanley Milgram, who in the 1960s demonstrated that, when encouraged by an authority figure, people would willing administer lethally dangerous electic shocks to hapless victims. In the French version, people didn't even need that -- a shouting TV audience merely had to egg them on:
I think making love with Michelle McGee, the woman with whom Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock, would be like having an LSD flashback.
I had wondered whether Gov. Mitch Daniels was going to show himself more business-friendly or more Second Amendment-friendly regarding HEA 1065, the legislation allowing employees to keep guns in their locked cars at work. Now we know. He signed the bill today and made a few remarks about it. His statements are in an-email, so I'll just cut and paste the whole thing:
Technology benefiting the employee; the company, not so much:
It used to be if you wanted to catch the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, you would need to come down with the "basketball flu" or take an extended lunch hour.
Well, ain't we special?
Mississippi, which has built much of its marketing for more than a decade around being the third largest gaming destination in the country, lost that title in 2009 to Indiana.
The state slipped to fourth place in terms of adjusted gross revenues from commercial gaming. In 2009, Mississippi reported $2.46 billion to Indiana's $2.58 billion.
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Chief Justice and Hoosier native John Roberts might be too controversial for Butler University, but he's apparently just fine for Indiana University. On April 7, he'll become the third justice -- but the first chief justice -- to give the annual James P. White Lecture on Legal Education:
From Hot Air, no elaboration needed.
From Salon, via Reason, a report on a wave of "pretentious, talentless, ironic, beard-wearing 'artists' charing their stupid and expensive began diets to the taxpayer."
She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she's used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away."...
I've disagreed with Kathleen Parker a few times in the last year, but it's hard to argue with this:
Deem and pass -- or sneak and sprint -- may be legal, but is it right?
It's right only if your goal is to beat a deadline and pass something -- anything -- regardless of how imperfect the result. Even the majority of Americans who oppose the bill don't know the half of it, because almost no one does.
There is at least one trend Indiana is bucking. The number of inmates in U.S. prisons has dropped for the first time since 1972. There were 1,403,091 prisoners as of Jan. 1, down 5,739 or .4 percent from a year ago. The number of prisoners decreased in 27 states and increased in 23. Guess which group we're in:
In 23 states, the number of prisoners increased in 2009 — notably in Indiana by 5.3 percent and in Pennsylvania by 4.3 percent.
[. . .]
At least there's one day a year when I don't mind going green.
So, if I say this health care reform plan, as big and monstrous as it is, is just a foot in the door for the statists who want to rule our lives, that it will just be the beginning of what they intend to do, I'm probably just a rightwing paranoid crank, right? But what if Nancy Pelosi says it?
Teacher salaries are believed to be a major sticking point in Fort Wayne Community Schools efforts to cut $15 million from the budget, even if giving up raises and step increases would save a certain number of teachers' jobs. But they seem to have gotten over that hump in Kokomo:
This ought to raise a few eyebrows.
Chief Justice John Roberts might attend the Butler University commencement ceremonies as a relative -- his niece is graduating -- but he is apparently too controversial to be invited to speak at the occasion:
University faculty members scuttled a student-led drive to invite Roberts to speak at the May 8 ceremony, a decision that has disappointed the students and some conservatives on the Indianapolis campus.
Could it be that Indianapolis is even more prudish than Fort Wayne? The Marion County Alcoholic Beverage Board unanimously voted against a permit for the Show-Me restaurant and sports bar:
In the 1970s, many U.S. colleges moved from having only single-sex dormitories to providing coed residence halls, with male and female students typically housed on alternating floors or wings. Then came coed hallways and bathrooms, further shocking traditionalists. Now, some colleges allow undergraduates of opposite sexes to share a room.
Lot of people in the news lately because they feel their rights aren't being respected. In Fort Wayne, some Burmese are mad because a laundromat put a sign on the door telling them to keep out, and a city councilwoman is upset because she can't get her proposal introduced to add the transgendered to the city's anti-disctrimination ordinance. Elsewhere in Indiana, a high school valedictorian wants to stop a student-led prayer at graduation because it would violate his First Amendment right to be free from religion.
Somebody apparently forgot to tell Judge Jennifer Evans-Koethe of LaPorte about the need for dignity and decorum and that "I'm sorry" doesn't cover everything.
Evans-Koethe's troubles began in December 2008, shortly before she was to be sworn in as judge.
After a night of drinking, Evans-Koethe and her husband, Stephan Koethe, got into an argument.
She said she accidently shot herself after retrieving a gun to make her husband think she was contemplating suicide.
