The Denver Post reported today that the father of a 4-year-old boy pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on Tuesday, after a heated argument with his ex-girlfriend during which he knocked displays over in the store where she works.  The two were apparently fighting over which gang their baby should join.

According to Sgt. Joe Sandoval, the mother is a "Crip" and the father is a "Westside Baller," and while that once was probably a forbidden romance akin to "Romeo & Juliet" it has since degenerated into an ongoing domestic dispute about the child's upbringing.  "They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised," said Sandoval.  "Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would 'claim.'"  It seems like you have to start the application process earlier every year now if you want to get your baby into the right gang.

Actually, this makes me realize how lucky I was that in my part of town, these kinds of disputes were pretty much limited to the occasional rumble between the Lutherans and the Presbyterians.

Link: Denver Post

Here's a followup to last week's post on the witch-exoneration resolution that was not passed again this year by the Connecticut legislature.  Testimony on that resolution was heard on March 20, and the transcript has just been posted.  The committee heard testimony from descendants of Mary Sanford and Lydia Gilbert, two women who were executed for alleged witchcraft.

I think the transcript tends to support my suggestion last week that the lawmakers are not taking the issue all that seriously.  For example, here's Judiciary Committee chairman Lawlor, after one of the witnesses estimated that at least eleven people, and possibly many more, were wrongly executed in Connecticut:

REP. LAWLOR:  And apparently, Connecticut was the first state to do this [wrongly execute people for witchcraft].

DEBRA AVERY:  This preceded Salem by about 30 years.  Salem was the 1690s.

REP. LAWLOR: But they really got carried away a bit in Salem, once they got started, right?

DEBRA AVERY:  Yes.

Yeah, you guys stopped at a reasonable eleven executions or so, but they totally got carried away with it in Massachusetts.  That was completely uncalled for.  The Lawlor Comedy Hour continued:

REP. LAWLOR: You know . . . this morning, I remembered this great scene from Monty Python, where they grabbed the witch. And if you Google it, if you Google "Monty Python witch trial," you get to see that scene. There's--

DEBRA AVERY: Yes, about the wood and how wood floats, and, yeah, I'm very familiar with that [suggesting she has heard this one before].

REP. LAWLOR: But as funny as it is, it gives you a sense of, you know, looking back, how outrageous it really was because, it's something.

It sure is.  Funny now, though.

A senator then weighed in with his witch-trial knowledge, which he seems to have gained entirely from watching reenactments during family excursions to Salem:

SEN. KISSEL: . . . And they have trials there . . . and for a small fee you can go in there and you see it all acted out in front of you.  And at the end of the presentation . . . you all take a vote.  Is she a witch or isn't she?

According to Sen. Kissel, the accused is almost always exonerated in these votes by today's enlightened citizens, with a couple of notable recent exceptions:

And you're exactly correct . . . that sometimes, you know, the feelings of the public change.  After having done this with my family [visited Salem, presumably] for a number of years, I will tell you, there were a couple of years, after the Trade Tower bombings in 2001, where the crowds actually found her to be a witch.  They weren't in a really good mood, I guess, around that time, and so they were not cutting anybody any slack, even reenactments of ancient history.

On the one hand, given that John Yoo was writing the torture memo right about that same time, it seems like these kind of slight overreactions are unfortunately not "ancient history."  On the other hand, the Salem tourists did not actually hang any actors in retaliation for 9/11, as far as I can tell, so maybe we have made at least some progress.

Link: Judiciary Committee Hearing of March 20, 2008

I have just learned that, last month, the parties reached a settlement in Stan Murmer's wrongful-termination lawsuit against his former employer.  As you may recall from prior reports on his firing and on the denial of the school district's motion to dismiss, Murmer had been fired from his teaching job after the district learned that, in his spare time, Murmer "created paintings by using his posterior and other body parts as a stamp with which to imprint paint onto a canvas."  Murmer, who was represented pro bono by the ACLU, will receive $65,000 under the terms of the settlement.

I apologize for the delay in getting you this important information.

Link: WTOPnews.com

Let's stick with New Zealand, as long as it is going to keep generating stories like these.  Last week: false claim of wombat rape.  Monday: assault with a deadly hedgehog.  Tuesday: opening arguments in the trial, on assault charges, of a man who speared the thief who had broken into his car.

New Zealand sounds interesting enough that I would consider moving there if it weren't so goddamn dangerous.

Sam Spence is on trial in the High Court at Whangarei, charged with recklessly wounding Daniel Hill last January.  The facts: Spence had driven to the coast to go fishing.  Hill, who said he had driven there to go swimming along with his friend Justin and (for reasons not explained) a five-year-old boy, broke into Spence's car and stole his wallet and other items.  (Hill told a reporter he had done this to get money to buy meth, but later denied that.)  Unfortunately for Hill, someone saw the theft and left a note for Spence with the license number and a description of the thief's car.

Even more unfortunately for Hill, Spence had been spear-fishing.

Spence apparently got to his car not long after that, saw the note, and set out to find the thief.  Exactly how they encountered each other is not clear, but they did.  A chase ensued that sounds like something out of "Mad Max" (if "Mad Max" had involved a climactic car chase between a spear-armed fisherman in a Mitsubishi and a meth addict who had gone swimming with a five-year-old boy).  At some point, the cars drew alongside each other, and, according to the prosecutor, "it was during this confrontation that the flounder spear was thrown."

In what frankly seems like a fairly impressive feat, Spence threw the meter-long flounder spear from one moving car through the open window of another moving car and managed to "embed" it in the skull of the man who had robbed him.  ("Man Embedded Flounder Spear in Thief's Skull, Court Told," was the headline.)  In my experience, once one guy has a spear stuck in his head, fight's over.  But amazingly, this did not end the chase.  Hill seems to have kept driving at high speed until the car's engine blew.  He testified on Tuesday, in fact, that at the time he did not know he had a spear embedded in his skull.

"I didn't even really feel it," he told the jury.  "Justin just said, 'You've got an arrow sticking out of your head, bro.'"

When the car broke down, Justin and the mysterious five-year-old fled.  Hill, probably slowed down a bit by the spear, was apprehended and taken to the hospital.  He had surgery to repair a skull fracture and was in rehabilitation for over a month, which is serious but seems much less serious than you would expect.  I am guessing that while the points of the trident went in deep enough to be "embedded," they did not actually penetrate Hill's skull.  The extent of the injury was not very clear, although Hill did take the opportunity to blame it for memory loss when he was on the stand Tuesday.

Crown Prosecutor Anna Patterson said that, while she did not condone Hill's actions, "neither can we condone the actions of the accused, who took the law [and a flounder spear] into his own hands."  She described Hill's decision to steal as "very unfortunate -- not only because it was illegal, but also because of the physical consequences."  Lesson learned: never steal from a guy with a trident.

Not to be outdone in re: stupidity, Spence has already raised a defense that I very much hope to hear more about.  According to the report, "Defence lawyer Arthur Fairley said Mr. Spence admitted throwing the spear at Mr. Hill, but denied doing it with reckless disregard for the safety of others."  Is there another way to throw a spear into the passenger compartment of a moving car?  Unless he is claiming he thought Hill was a flounder, I'm not sure where that argument is going.

Link: New Zealand Herald

In the second animal-assault story from New Zealand in two weeks, police in the North Island town of Whakatane said that William Singalargh, 27, had been arrested for assaulting a boy with a hedgehog.

Many details about the assault remain unclear, including the reason for the altercation, why a hedgehog was used, and whether the hedgehog was alive when thrown or was killed at some point thereafter.  The BBC quoted Senior Sgt. Bruce Jenkins as saying that the hedgehog, propelled by Singalargh, had struck the 15-year-old target in the leg, "causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks."  Jenkins said that the man was arrested for "assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog."

Singalargh will appear in court on April 17, and faces as much as five years in prison for the assault and/or hedgehog murder.

I could not find any other reported incidents of attacks involving hedgehogs, let alone a brutal man-on-hedgehog-on-boy assault like this one.  For the most part, hedgehogs appear to be gentle creatures, although the International Hedgehog Association's "best-in-show" standards note that "[t]emperament of hedgehogs is extremely important [and that] in order to be shown, a hedgehog must be tame and easy to handle with quills laying flat," suggesting that there have been some unfortunate incidents in the past.  (In other news, there is an "International Hedgehog Association.")  The "Temperament" category in fact is 33 of the 100 possible show points, as follows:

• Unrolled:     11 points
• Quills Flat:  11 points
• Personality: 11 points

("Biters" lose 22 points automatically.)  Also, under "Body Shape," the standards note that "obese hedgehogs will be faulted," although I would argue that while obese hedgehogs may be less than perfect, at least they would be harder to throw.

Link: BBC News
Link: International Hedgehog Association

Battle will be joined tomorrow in a British case in which a rebel prop designer will challenge George Lucas, emperor of the Star Wars universe, as to who owns the rights to the stormtrooper costumes used in the films.  Andrew Ainsworth designed the helmets and armor for the original movie in 1977, but ran afoul of LucasFilm after he started to sell replica armor to fans a few years ago.

Apparently, Star Wars fans were paying upwards of $2,000 per suit, despite ample evidence that the armor offers little protection and the helmet limits the wearer's vision, making it impossible to hit a target.

LucasFilm successfully sued Ainsworth in California, and was awarded $20 million for infringement.  The British proceeding is to enforce that judgment against Ainsworth, who lives in England.  Ainsworth, meanwhile, is counter-claiming that LucasFilm is the one that's infringing, so that it has never had the rights to make or sell any toys or costumes that copy the original design.  As the article put it, somewhat conservatively, "The counterclaim is worth more than the $20m LucasFilm is seeking as it is claiming a cut of profits made from Star Wars since 1977."  My research team tells me that the amount of profits therefore at stake is, roughly, a lot.

The trial is expected to last about 10 days.

Link: The Lawyer.com (UK)
Link: TimesOnline

In addition to the continuing War on Low Pants, about which I will report again in the near future, other recent legislative developments in the Midwest are threatening the rights of young people.

In Arkansas, the right of toddlers to marry was eliminated by a bill signed on April 2.  As I reported last October, the legislature intended to create an exception so that (with parental consent) a person under 18 who was pregnant could get married.  But someone, probably Satan, inserted the word "not" into the bill, so that as passed it allowed any person "younger than [18] and who is not pregnant" to be married.  As a result, any minor could get married in Arkansas except a pregnant woman.

State officials noticed and deleted the "not" from the code, but a judge later held that they had no power to make that kind of a change.  The governor declined to call an immediate special session of the legislature in order to delete one word, despite the concerns of one lawmaker that pedophiles would storm into Arkansas "to find parents who are willing to sign a very young child's consent."  (There is no evidence that the delay attracted any pedophiles to Arkansas, though it probably did increase the number of bastards.)

The governor did convene a special session this year, though for a different purpose, and the marriage bill's original sponsor, Rep. Will Bond, jumped at the chance to fix the law.  "[T]hrow me a rope and bail me out here," he asked his colleagues, and they did.

Meanwhile, to the north, Missouri legislators are threatening to ban cage matches for children, citing a recent AP report about youth-league mixed martial arts competitions.

Now I think political correctness has really gone too far.  What is the world coming to when you can't lock two children in a cage and cheer as they beat each other senseless?

Nathan Orand, a trainer hoping to organize a national youth league, argued that the sport is safe, saying that fighters wear pads and that the rules forbid "any strikes to the head of an opponent who is on the ground."  That did not reassure the lawmakers who introduced the anti-child-cage-match bill last week.  "I think it borders on child abuse," said Rep. Bryan Stevenson.  Well, it is child abuse, it's just that the abuse is being inflicted by another child.

Orand said that outlawing the sport would just drive it underground.  (The first rule of Child Fight Club is you do not talk about Child Fight Club.)  He said that his proposed "Freestyle Combat League" would have even more pads and safety rules.  Also, "one of the main concerns I've run into is the fact that it's in a cage.  It can look brutal at first glance," he admitted, which is true, especially the part where they kick the crap out of each other inside it.  Therefore, "[i]n the interests of the youth sport," Orand announced, "we're taking it out of the cage."

Link: "Toddlers Can No Longer Get Hitched in Arkansas," MSNBC.com
Link: "Mo. Asked to Ban 'Cage Fighting' by Kids," AP via FindLaw.com

In other civil-rights news, Connecticut's General Assembly failed again this year to pass a resolution that would have cleared the names of those prosecuted for witchcraft there during the 17th century.

This marks the 361st year in a row that the Connecticut legislature has failed to address the issue.

The Assembly's legislative research service found that about four dozen people were accused (some more than once), convicted (usually just once) and/or executed (once each) during the Connecticut trials.  "In each of the New England colonies," the report states, probably hoping to get you thinking about Massachusetts, "witchcraft was a capital crime that involved having some type of relationship with or entertaining Satan."

First to be convicted of entertaining Satan was Alice Young, accused in 1647 and later hanged, her powers apparently useless against rope.  Others included:

• Elizabeth Goodman, acquitted in 1655 and let off with a "warning";
• Mary Sanford, convicted and hanged in 1662;
• James Wakeley, accused in 1662 and 1665 ("fled both times"); and
• Elizabeth Seager, who was tried, acquitted, tried again, acquitted again, tried again, convicted, and then pardoned by the governor (or possibly Satan in governor's form).

S.J. 26 was requested by some of the accused witches' descendants, a number of whom testified in support of the measure.  Formally titled "Resolution Concerning Certain Convictions in Colonial Connecticut" -- I found it in the legislative index under "Witchcraft," between "Wiretapping" and "Witness Fees" -- the resolution would have noted that:

such accusations were sometimes made simply because a person habitually muttered to himself or herself, or talked to unseen persons, or used vulgar language, or gave evil looks, or was a notorious liar, or was a nonconformist, or caused discord among his or her neighbors . . . .

All of which I think I did on the bus this morning, so I'm glad this doesn't happen anymore.

The resolution then would have declared that the Assembly considers the whole affair "shocking," and -- in the only operative language of the resolution -- that "no disgrace or cause for distress should attach to the descendants of these accused and convicted persons by reason of such proceedings."  There is then a much longer paragraph making absolutely clear that the resolution will have no legal effect whatsoever.

Still, the resolution didn't make it out of committee.  Comments made by Rep. Michael Lawlor, the state judiciary committee co-chairman, suggest that this was partly because time ran short, and partly because they did not really give a sh*t about witch descendants.

"Although that's an interesting bill and important in its own way," said Lawlor, "compared to some of the other things we're having to do, we were trying to prioritize it."  (Translation: eat it, witches.)  "[N]ext year," he continued, "I'm sure the legislature will take it up again and give it some more discussion."  He added, "It's been 350 years.  I don't think another year will hurt."

Lawlor was never seen again.

Link: NBC30.com (Connecticut)
Link: FOXNews.com

There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple of days about the newly released memo written in 2003 to provide legal arguments in support of using torture aggressive interrogation techniques.  And there is probably more to come.  In particular, one of the footnotes of this memo mentions in passing that, in a previous (but still secret) memo, the authors had apparently concluded that the Fourth Amendment -- you remember, the one about unreasonable searches and seizures and blah blah blah -- "had no application to domestic military operations."

Depending on your point of view, I suppose that's either evidence that one of our most important constitutional rights was simply argued out of existence, or yet another demonstration that lawyers should not use so many footnotes.

This memo has been formally withdrawn, but the one mentioned in Footnote 10 has not been.

Still, probably nothing to worry about.  What could happen?  But if you are one of those people who is uncomfortable with torture aggressive interrogation techniques and/or likely to object to a simple domestic military operation(s) that is only designed to make the pie of our freedoms higher, then maybe you will be entertained, or distracted, by participating in the following poll.

Link: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants (Mar. 14, 2003)
Link: "Administration Asserted Terror Exception on Search and Seizure," Wash. Post