The law and the jungle

I try not to pay to much atention to sensational trials, but I confess to getting a little caught up in the Conrad Murray case. Even granting that Michael Jackson bore the primary responsibility for Michael Jackson's behavior, Murray comes across as an incredible sleazeball (or "person of low character" as I heard one commentator call him). He was paid more than $1 million a year to look after just one patient, and he was so busy using Jackson to impress bedable women that he couldn't even handle that:

Secretary of State Charlie White is kind of flailing around in his efforts to defend himself against charges he committed voter fraud by using his ex-wife's address to vote in the May 2010 primary. He seems to have settled on a strategy of "Everybody's doing it, so why are you picking on me?" First, he tried unsuccessfully to get Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards to investigate Dan Sigler, one of the two special prosecutors in White's case, for vote fraud.

Finally, a serious issue we can argue passionately about: Set our drunken spring-breaker dwarf-tossing people free!

Calming down the askeert Californians:

California Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that he signed into law a measure that bans handgun owners from openly carrying their weapons in public.

Previous regulations had allowed the open carrying of unloaded handguns in public, but police chiefs and sheriffs objected to the rule because people felt frightened when they saw handguns in public places.

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Amanda Knox is back home in Seattle after her four years in an Italian prison, and a scholar from New York University waxes eloquent for CNN: "There is something about pretty white girls, bloody knives and the slightest whiff of sex that gets the international news machine humming like nothing else." Gee, who knew? Apparently, the Knox saga has caused some in the media to go through one of their periodic bouts of pretend intrspection:

Yes, I know, drawing conclusions from a one-time event can be dangerous; it could be a statistical blip. But at the very least, this should earn us a moment of silence or two from the people who always predict a bloodbath when gun laws are relaxed:

Hoosier criminal genius of the week:

A Rensselaer man walked into the Lowell Indiana State Police post and told a sergeant he believed he was wanted on a warrant.

When police asked why he thought he was wanted last Thursday, the man allegedly rolled up his sleeves to reveal handcuffs on both wrists with the chain cut in the middle, officials said.

Oh, swell, this will instill faith in the criminal justice system, won't it?

The government mental hospital where John Hinckley Jr. has spent most of the last 30 years since he shot and tried to kill President Ronald Reagan is asking a federal court to allow Hinckley's eventual release to live with or near his aging mother in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Stay outta here, hippie scum, and putcher maryjuaaana where the sun don't shine:

Indianapolis airport police say they'll destroy medical marijuana seized from a breast cancer patient from California who was boarding a flight.

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Here's an odd one. It's common for legislators to not read proposals carefully enough to know exactly what they're passing (note, for example, the recent law that ordered noncompetitive races taken off the ballot, apparently to everyone's surprise). But here's a legislator dismayed to discover that a bill he authored resulted in exactly the kind of activity his bill made possible. The legislation in question is the law that allows Hoosiers to carry firearms in public locations such as parks, libraries and some municipal buildings, written by State Sen.