Here is the new game: find the defendant.

You may have read or heard before about the serious injustice often created by "bad" or "dishonest" lineups, or the way they are presented to witnesses. Certain states have started addressing the issue in drafting new guidelines for lineups. I have started collecting bad lineups, and if anyone of you has any bad lineup, please make sure to forward them to me.

Now, to prove the point, here is the game.

1.      You look at the lineup. (note: YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION about anything concerning the case)

2.      Without any supporting evidence, you naturally pick the defendant.

In this case, if you picked number two, you got it right.

So next time you sit on a jury panel, make sure you remember this little game when the identification of the accused is based only on a lineup.

What happened to the lawsuit involving the negative feedback left on EBay?

Remember Elliot L. Miller, the scumbag attorney from Miami Beach who filed a lawsuit against Michael Steadman? Miller had sold on EBay a time clock alleged to be defective. When he refused to refund Steadman, Steadman left a negative comment on EBay to the effect that Miller was a “Bad seller; he has the ethics of a used car salesman,” which is, in fact, insulting to used car salesmen.

I find this type of lawsuit so very offensive and would love to see a jury award a large amount to the defendant in the suit, had a valid counterclaim been filed. I bet that any jury would very much dislike the abject plaintiff, Miller, and punish him for what I find to be a clear abuse of process.

Miller probably knows that, and the purpose of his suit was likely solely to punish financially Steadman in forcing him into an expensive legal battle he could not afford. He somewhat succeeded, until a Brevard attorney, Tony Hernandez decided to help Steadman pro-bono. (I would have helped him if the case was in Brevard).

Now, since Tony filed his notice of appearance, in May, 7 months ago, it appears that the case has not evolved much, which seems to confirm my belief that Miller’s purpose is now defeated.

I really wish that this case would result in some serious financial penalty to the despicable lawyer; it would have been the cherry on top of all the bad publicity Miller has already received by a rightly incensed public.

Professional courtesy… or double standard?

A few days ago, Deputy Bobby Jones was caught committing a crime of dating violence in downtown Melbourne. Scott Damsgaard, a witness who had heard the victim screaming from a block away, approached and observed the battery in progress. When he tried to intervene, Bobby Jones allegedly told him: “You need to stand back or I'll kill you. I'll fuck you up."

No charge has been filed, and Jones was not even arrested. Melbourne police allegedly said they have not arrested Jones because the State Attorney's Office needs to look at the evidence first. When did that new policy come about? Or is it a policy which only applies to coppers? With this evidence at hand, any regular citizen would have been arrested immediately and brought to Sharpes with no bond prior to his first court appearance. What’s going on? What is with the double standard?

Now, five days later, another Cocoa off duty cop, Roney M. Daniel, was observed by third party witnesses assaulting another driver with a firearm in Palm Bay. He then crashed his car. The crash investigation resulted in his arrest for two counts of misdemeanor DUI. However, the Palm Bay police never charged him with the serious felony witnesses observed him committing when he was (while off duty and allegedly drunk) chasing another motorist, and pointing his personal gun out of the window. Will the State Attorney's Office correct that wrong? I doubt it.

He was released from the jail on $1,000.00 bond. Any other regular schmuck would have been charged with a second degree felony; aggravated assault with a firearm, which carries a minimum mandatory sentence of three years in prison.

What the fuck is going on? I am sure the honest cops I know are wondering, as I do, how these things can happen. Twice in a week, two large police departments, Melbourne and Palm Bay are blatantly showing they can’t be trusted, because they failed their mandate to equally apply the law when the defendant is a colleague from a neighboring department. 

The public should demand some explanation as to how these departments can apply different standards with impunity when it comes to make charging decisions against other law enforcement officers. The public should also be told who, in both cases, were the highest in the chain of command that made these decisions.

If Obama can do it, you should too!

Long before the last elections, I watched in amazement how some Republicans, could not keep their foot out of their mouth… Amazingly, all of these champs lost. There was one hanging chad who had not lost quite yet; Alaska’s wannabe senator Joe Miller. Well, the Alaska’s Supremes (sounds like a desert or a soul band) finally told him to give it up. They said Joe, you’re the loser. I bet 5 out of 5! Lesson learned for politicians and criminal: the more you keep your mouth shut, the better you’ll do!

Censure! What should be censured? Who should do it?

I realize that it is often difficult to intellectualize concepts, rather than emotionally react to them.

I will try to explain what I am suggesting when it comes to finding the real issue in the case where a Colorado writer was arrested on a Florida warrant because of the content of his prose; Phillip Greaves was arrested for selling his book entitled “Pedophiles’ Guide to Love and Pleasure” to a Florida buyer (a law enforcement officer) who specifically requested to buy it.

Tough the behavior might have been acceptable in ancient Greece; the sexual perversion is unacceptable in our society today, a society where pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder.

Let’s first agree that “normal” people are nauseated by the act (of pedophilia). Let’s further agree that to assure the safety of the children, to lesser their exposure to the deviants, and to protect them from this vile perversion, we must expose and discuss the topic rather than hide it or avoid it, contrary to the ways our society dealt with such problems a few years back.

Now, let’s look at the written words. They are used to express people’s thoughts, ideas, research, and views. Sometimes these ideas and views are unbearable to some, but we must let them flow, as once the manipulators are in a position to decide what can and cannot flow; we’ll start sliding on a very dangerous slope.

Let’s go back to Greaves' Book, and let’s imagine for a moment that the title was instead “A journey in the mind of a sick pervert, or how to understand the way pedophiles think, to better hunt them down.” Let’s go further and consider that it is written by a doctoral student with a master in criminal justice, who is presenting his thesis. In his thesis, the author would introduce, with warnings and connotations of disgust, the detailed description of what some pedophiles' fantasies are, for the very specific purpose of understanding the sick functioning of a pervert’s criminal mind, to better investigate their crimes, to set them up, to arrest them, to prosecute them, and ideally, to send them to the electric chair, or to a far away island.

The substance of the text would be exactly the same as is the text in Greaves' book, but for the warnings and the added writer’s opinions reflecting the “normal” societal feelings, and reactions towards the topic. His book containing the exact same content as Greaves', but presented in a different light, would then be completely acceptable, or even praised. Suddenly, in a different frame, the same exact picture loses its lewdness; same exact stories and opposite reaction from the “normal public.”

What if the book was written by one who had been abused for years as a child, and writes it to ask active pedophiles who escape arrest and prosecution, not to hurt their other victims…

The issue here is not with the written words, but with the presentation; not the substance, but the form.

The deadly danger of such censure is twofold: first, who will decide what must be censured? The Ayatollahs, the Nazis, the Chavezs, the Castros, the Klansmans, the McCarthys, the Kim Jong Hills, or the Hitlers? And second, what must be censored?
The only certain way to completely avoid this problem, is to let all ideas flow; these we like, these we dislike, and these we can't stand, in banning any kind of censure.

This case is not about pedophilia. The real issue is that when we accept the government’s censorship of one person’s freedom of expression, sooner or later, we’ll all be suffering similar censorship.

Could we get some more government censure pretty please!

After I started analyzing and researching the likely impact caused by the primal actions taken by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, I just came across the following link. I was hungry for some food for thoughts… on a topic that will not die quickly… 

If you let anyone's freedom of expression be muzzled, be certain that yours will be next. 

The debate will be difficult because the mob will try to manipulate it in making "pedophilia" the issue, and pedophilia is a disturbing subject. When in fact, only small minds or political manipulative pricks like Judd, will argue that pedophilia is the issue, when it is not. The only issue in this new debate is “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION,” and the government's attempt to muzzle it.

If the people reject the mob's attempt to misguide them away from the actual subject, and can focus on the real topic: “the freedom to express oneself,” we may have a chance. The problem is that some folks, unintelligent or easily manipulated, won’t have the ability to grasp this very simple and easy concept.

Now, the link:

“As long as humans have sought to communicate, others have sought to prevent them. Every day someone tries to restrict or control what can be said, written, sung, or broadcast. Almost every idea ever thought has proved objectionable to one person or another, and almost everyone has sometimes felt the world would be a better place if only "so and so" would go away.

Perhaps because of their ubiquity, books, especially public and school library books are among the most visible targets. Books are hardly the only target of would-be censors, however. Free expression is constantly challenged in the arts, in broadcast media, and on the Internet.”

http://georgesuttle.com/censorship/index.shtml

Behind Assange's Arrest: Sweden's Sex-Crime Problem? One of many.

“But despite having the freedom to dictate their sexual encounters, Swedish women face a troubling fact: Sweden has by far the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe, and one of the lowest conviction rates in the developed world…. Each year, Sweden records 46 cases of reported rape per 100,000 people, roughly twice the rate in the U.S. or the U.K. Yet the conviction rate is a measly 10%, one of the lowest in the developed world.”

A troubling fact?  No, it is just a logical response to the distorted coaching by a handful of feminists of what is sexual criminal behavior in the name of gender equality achievement at all cost.

Eben Harrell who wrote the article for the Times (below), seems to have missed the real causes of the alleged problems.

Sweden has been trying for decades to achieve gender equality. There is no such thing as gender equality. There is gender understanding, and gender respect. In fact it is the complementarity of the genders which makes life what it is, and which makes societies who recognize that simple fact, thrive.

Now, if some Swedish insecure manipulators, attempt to convince its people that if a condom brakes during love making, or if a woman fails to say “yes” loud enough, or if both parties are having sex while under the influence of alcohol, or else that if one party falls asleep during the act, these are rapes which should be reported presto to the Swedish police, then, it explains why Swedes report twice as many rape cases as the U.K. or the U.S.; Swedes don’t have the highest incidence of rapes; they devised the loosest and most deceptive description of what a rape really is.

The second issue is the apparent concern that conviction rate in "Swedish rapes" is at 10%, the lowest in the developed world. Guess what? The manipulators can formulate their sex laws as wackily as they want, the public is not completely stupid, and the jurors must know better than the Swedish legislators what a rape is... and is not.

We are facing the same false problem here in the U.S. with what’s some label “child abuse.” The government has removed from its people the ability to properly raise their children. (Hence, the myriad of delinquents). Even though the law does not preclude it, parents get regularly arrested in Florida for felony child abuse, when spanking their kids; even when the latter definitely deserved it. I did not find any statistics showing the conviction rate in these type of cases, but in my opinion, much less that 10% of those arrested get convicted, with a large portion of these arrests not even being filed by the prosecutors.

In both cases, the result of the manipulations and over-dramatization of these actions into criminal acts result in desensitizing the public. This desensitization harms the victims of real rape cases in Sweden, and of real child abuse victims in the US. The collateral damage is that when law enforcement and prosecutors thinly spread their resources to deal with these bullshit cases, it limits the resource which should be used to deal with the real cases.

Finally, if politicians had the balls to deal honestly (instead of polically) with these issues, in a way broadly supported by a great majority, their actions would result in a better protection of the real victims of these intolerable crimes.

And by the way, if Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd does not like what I write, please have him take his dislikes, and shove it up his arse.

Here is the Times article:

Foreign visitors to Stockholm's lively bar scene might be struck by the assertiveness of the nation's women — the typical Swedish female seems to have no qualms about approaching men to start a conversation or initiate a romantic encounter. To Swedish feminists, that confidence is just one part of the country's wider effort to promote women's rights. "The whole society now expects women to be as forward with their sexual will as men. That, after all, is part of achieving gender equality," explains Karine Arakelian, chairwoman of Terrafem, a shelter organization for abused women.

But despite having the freedom to dictate their sexual encounters, Swedish women face a troubling fact: Sweden has by far the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe, and one of the lowest conviction rates in the developed world. Various international bodies — from the U.N. to Amnesty International — have slammed the country for the prevalence of sex crimes committed by its citizens. In response, the Swedish government has in recent years undertaken aggressive measures to toughen up its sex-crime laws.

And it's in this context that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, currently under police watch in London, finds himself awaiting possible extradition to Sweden to face questioning related to five different sex-crime allegations. The claims, which include rape, stem from sexual encounters Assange had with two women in August that began as consensual but, according to his accusers, became nonconsensual. Assange and his attorneys have claimed that Sweden's public prosecutor is pursuing the former hacker at the behest of the U.S. government, as retribution for the embarrassing diplomatic cables published recently by WikiLeaks. But it's much more likely that political pressure of a different sort has landed Assange under police watch: Sweden's campaign to aggressively pursue all accusations of sex crimes.

On Thursday, a British judge released Assange on conditional bail. Assange had been granted bail on Tuesday but spent the next two days in prison while Swedish prosecutors appealed the decision. Assange has not been charged with a crime, and he denies any wrongdoing. But his arrest is another piece of Sweden's internal dialogue about how the country can counter its sex-crime crisis.

(See "TIME's Julian Assange Interview: Full Transcript/Audio.")

Each year, Sweden records 46 cases of reported rape per 100,000 people, roughly twice the rate in the U.S. or the U.K. Yet the conviction rate is a measly 10%, one of the lowest in the developed world. And the problem seems to be getting worse: the rate of reported sex crimes has increased by 60% in the past decade, according to government statistics. Some commentators suggest that the high rates of reported rape could, paradoxically, be a sign of Sweden's success in promoting gender equality, as women who have a greater awareness of their rights are more likely to speak out if those rights are violated. "Rape is not more common in Sweden [than elsewhere]," says Karin Sandell of Uppsala University's National Centre for Knowledge of Men's Violence Against Women, echoing a sentiment expressed by many Swedish rape experts. "It's just that Swedish women are more empowered to report it to police."

But no one knows that for sure. Some observers worry that there is a subterranean current of sexual violence running beneath Sweden's seemingly placid public image. (Swedish crime fiction, for example, is famous for its lurid descriptions of sexual violence — the literal translation of the Swedish title for the first book in Stieg Larsson's popular Millennium trilogy is Men Who Hate Women.) In a report in 2007, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on violence against women wrote, "While the equal opportunity agenda has paved the way for significant advances in the public representation of women ... the Swedish experience is less effective in countering the unequal power relations between women and men in the private sphere, thus resulting in the normalization of violence." Indeed, it's not just police reports that paint a troubling picture. A government survey in 2001 found that almost half of the women who responded said they had been the victim of a violent or sexual assault by a man since their 15th birthday.

Concerned particularly about the low rates of conviction following rape reports, the government launched a three-year program in 2007 designed to educate elements in the criminal-justice system on how to more aggressively pursue rape claims, since victims often drop their charges out of fear, shame or loyalty to the accused. And in 1998 and 2005, the definition of rape in Sweden was broadened to include, for instance, forcing sex through the threat of violence and having sex with a sleeping or unconscious woman.

It is under this wider definition of the word that police wish to question Assange. Police reports state that the allegations against Assange center around claims by two Swedish women who say that on separate occasions each had consented to have sex with Assange, but that sometime during or after the encounter, he engaged in sexual behavior against their will. According to the Swedish branch of Interpol, a recent arrest warrant for Assange states that the rape accusation stems from a sexual encounter in which the woman "was asleep and in a helpless state." There is also a sexual-molestation allegation based on claims that in a different incident, "the pair [were] sleeping naked together and the suspect [pushed] his naked erect penis into her body." And prosecutors also want to question Assange in relation to the suspicion that he sexually coerced one of the women by "lying on top of [her], using his weight to prevent her from moving, and forcefully spreading her legs," and that he sexually molested both women by "having sex without the use of a condom, without the woman's knowledge."

No one could have predicted that Assange would become one of Sweden's most wanted when he traveled to the country in August to hold a series of lectures on WikiLeaks and received a rapturous welcome. According to Thomas Mattsson, editor of the Swedish daily Expressen, the nation's affinity for Assange came naturally: Swedes share his love of technology and his belief in open government. But Mattsson says Swedes have another passion that is equally important. "We are very moral in terms of how well-known and powerful men may behave with women in all kinds of situations, romantically or professionally," he says.

And for the Swedes who are grappling with the disturbingly high rates of sexual crimes against women, when it comes to nonconsensual sex, what happens behind closed doors should never remain a secret. If anyone can understand that compulsion to expose injustice, it's Assange.