Here's one of those cases that will have some on my side howling that a criminal got off on a technicality. But if I'm ever suspected of anything, I'd like all those technicalities to be observed:
The Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a woman's cocaine possession conviction because the court says the search of her purse by police was unjust.
Those of us who argue strongly and often that the Constitution is about immutable principles rather than evolving standards are obligated to wince (metaphorically) in public when a case comes along that gives the other side (Supreme Court justices should care about people, not just the law!) some ammunition. This is me wincing:
What I learned on Tuesday and Wednesday while collapsed on the couch with a summer cold:
Only Monday, but this might stand up as quote of the week, from a forensic psychology professor, on Florida teenager Tyler Hayes Weinman, charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body in the Miami serial cat killer case:
"When you kill cats, disembowel them and cut their heads off, that is not a good sign and you do not have to be Sigmund Freud to see that," he said.
A bitter white supremacist has killed a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and we all need to take steps to make sure something like that doesn't happen again. So we have to reach out to the moderates in the white community -- those who think affirmative action is wrong, those misguided souls who still think judging people on merit alone isn't racist, those who pretend to have philosophical arguments against Sonia Sotomayor -- so that the extremists can see no harm is meant to them, and they will come back into the fold.
Paul Helmke, former Fort Wayne mayor and currently head of the Brady Campaign, spoke in Akron, Ohio, and Chad D. Baus of the Buckeye Firearms Association, referencing the story in the Beacon-Journal, takes him to task on the usual charge of using misleading facts and statistics. He also says Helkme inadvertently spoke the truth a couple of times.
Good news -- the Guantanamo problem has been solved; Terre Haute will take all the prisoners:
When the location of Terre Haute's new Wal-Mart Supercenter came under debate three years ago, City Councilman Rich Dunkin received more than 300 phone calls about the issue.
Those of us who have been trying to come up with excuses for not wanting to visit Hobart can stop searching:
An ordinance to ban overnight parking outside Wal-Mart and other local stores passed City Council on a first vote Wednesday.
The proposal was approved on a 5-2 vote and is aimed at truck drivers who in recent months have turned parking lots along U.S. 30 into de facto truck stops.
Generally, job discrimination complaints do little for those who aren't in a protected class. In fact, those non-protected workers even come off sounding like privileged elites who don't care about the downtrodden masses -- beneficiaries as they are of a "disparate impact" that is said to prove discrimination against a minority. But here's one kind of case that can benefit all workers (or at least screw them all equally, depending on the employer):
