NEWSWEEK has obtained a copy of the book’s key chapter from “a source who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing controversy.” Very hard to read O. J.’s “this is how I’d have done it” and not be convinced he “done it.”
Category Archives: Crime & Courts
Do you have your cover story ready?
“The Rev. Ted Haggard, who has resigned as one of the nation’s top evangelical leaders, admitted Friday he had contacted a male prostitute for a massage and bought methamphetamine.
“I was buying it for me, but I never used it,” said Haggard, 50, sitting in the driver’s seat of a car with his wife, Gayle, at his side during an impromptu interview with CNN Denver affiliate KUSA-TV.
“I never kept it very long because it was wrong. I was tempted. I bought it. But I never used it.” Haggard also acknowledged contacting Mike Jones but has denied Jones’ accusation that the two men regularly had sex over three years.” — CNN
I bought the meth but didn’t use it. I knew the gay prostitute but we never had sex. He just gave me a massage.
As all naughty children know, before you do something you shouldn’t, get your “what-if-I-get-caught” story ready. You might want to try in on a friend to see how it flies.
Help me score and I’ll buy your lawn mower
Reply
I maintain a website called Missouri Death Row. No official connection to the Missouri Department of Corrections but it has become the de facto “official” website for capital punishment in Missouri. I struggle to keep the site current and was doing some research on one of the inmates currently sentenced to death:
“On December 9, 2002, Earl Forrest, who had been drinking, and his girlfriend, Angelia Gamblin, drove to Harriett Smith’s home. Forrest and Smith apparently had a falling out over a dishonored agreement with Smith to purchase a lawn mower and a mobile home for Forrest in exchange for Forrest introducing Smith to a source for methamphetamine. Forrest demanded that Smith fulfill her part of the bargain. During the ensuing melee, Forrest shot Michael Wells, a visitor at the Smith residence, in the face killing him. He also killed Smith, shooting her a total of six times.
Forrest removed a lockbox from Smith’s home containing approximately $25,000 worth of methamphetamine and returned to his home with Gamblin, where a shootout with the police ensued. The local sheriff was wounded and a deputy was killed. Forrest sustained a bullet wound to his face. Gamblin was shot twice, once in her shoulder and once in her back. Forrest finally surrendered and was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He was found guilty on all three counts.”
Let me see if I have this right: I’ll introduce you to a source for meth…if you’ll buy my lawn mower and mobile home. How would two people ever come to that agreement?
“Come on, hook a sister up, will ya?”
“Well, I know this guy, but…”
“Look, help me score and I’ll buy your lawn mower AND your mobile home.”
Let’s skip the comments on this one. One of the arresting officers was killed and another wounded. One more sad, white trash story.
Prison Goodies
Corrections Today Magazine (“Official Publican of the American Correctional Association”) is really pretty interesting reading. The copy I browsed included articles such as: “Jail Time Is Learning Time”; “Reducing Risk and Responding to Mental Health Needs”; and “Use of Force: The Correlation Between Law Enforcement and Clinical Care.” But the ads were even more interesting. My favorite was one for Keefe Group (“Everything you need for your commissary!”).
If you can’t hop in the pick-up and run down the the Quick Shop, where do you get the things you need to make a cell a little more liveable? The prison commissary. The coffee and snacks make sense. And if you don’t have AC, an electric fan moves up the appliance ladder. The corrections officers like the idea of see-through TV’s and MP3 players (?)… but what’s the deal on the moisturizing bar? And I seem to recall reading something about status associated with pristine white athletic shoes (stepping on a guys shoes can get you killed).
Right and wrong aside, I don’t do the crime… ’cause I can’t do the time.
Winston Churchill on due process
“The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
— Winston Churchill
Intentional, but not deliberate
The Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday (5/25/06) in the case of State of Missouri vs. Johnny A. Johnson (SC86689). Johnson is appealing a first-degre murder conviction and death sentence. From the court’s docket summary:
After Johnny Johnson stayed with friends one night in July 2002 at their home in Valley Park, the friends’ six-year-old daughter disappeared. A witness saw Johnson walking that morning, carrying a little girl on his back. Although Johnson initially told the girl’s mother that he did not know where the child was, he later surrendered himself to police and agreed to go to the police station. Later in the day, Johnson told police he had killed the girl by accident, that her body was in an old glass factory, and where she could be found. After police recovered the girl’s body, they told Johnson it did not look like an accident. He then told them that he had exposed himself to her, and when she refused his advances, he hit her in the head with a brick and threw a boulder onto her, killing her. He told police he then covered her body with rocks and debris. The state charged Johnson with one count each of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping and attempted forcible rape. While he was in jail awaiting trial, doctors treated Johnson for anxiety, depression and symptoms of psychosis. Following trial, the jury found Johnson guilty of each count and recommended the death penalty. The court sentenced him to consecutive sentences of death for the murder conviction and life in prison for the remaining convictions. Johnson appeals.
We (Missourinet.com) stream the arguments live (to subscribers) so I wind up listening to a lot of these arguments. Arguments before the state supreme court are nothing like the arguments we see in the movies and on TV. Pretty dry stuff. But this question (AUDIO) (of Johnson’s attorney) by one of the judges caught my attention (Warning: His description of the murder is graphic).
In the interest of fairness, you can download and listen to the full argument (runs almost an hour) but it sounds like Johnson’s attorney is trying to explain how the murder could be “intentional” but not “deliberate.”
Death Row Blogger
“Vernon Lee Evans Jr. — amateur advice columnist and convicted murderer — is scheduled to die next month by lethal injection. He is one of the very few death row inmates to have a blog and, activists say, perhaps the only condemned man worldwide to use a blog to take questions from readers.”
— washingtonpost.com:
People Mag does Keown story
In a story titled “Death In A Bottle,” People Magazine (January 6, 2006) gives two pages to the case of James Keown, the Jeff City talk-show host accused of poisoning his wife. Not sure why this case qualifies for the Big Media Treatment but I’m guessing it does/will. Is it the talk radio thing? Poisoned Gatorade? Whatever, I’m guessing it’s not good –from a legal defense perspective– to see your client’s face in People. A bail hearing is set for January 4th.
UPDATE: June 8, 2022 – Not sure how I stumbled upon it but an interesting update (and book review) from 2021.
Learfield Interactive
I have three “pet projects” (for lack of a better description) at work. They make a little money but not much. One could make a good argument that these are things we shouldn’t be messing with. But I am quite proud of them and today seems like a good time to bench-mark them.
Legislature.com (how lucky were we to get that domain?) has to be one of the more expensive subscription services on the net. We charge $750 a year for a live stream of debate audio from the Missouri House and Senate. All the more amazing since those two bodies offer a live stream for free. In addition to the live stream, we archive each day’s debate. We’ve got it all going back to 2002. Don’t ask me “who cares?” because I don’t know. It’s a little bit of history and it seemed dumb to discard it.
UPDATE: We registered Legislature.com on September 16, 1999. Roger Gardner called me the day before and asked if the domain was available. I assured him someone had snapped it up but had our IT guy (Phil Atkinson) check. Lo and behold, it was available. Not many one-word domains still up for grabs in 1999. Post-Dispatch story on Legislature.com 5/14/00 (PDF)
Supreme Court of Missouri Oral Arguments. Very dry stuff. We stream audio of the oral arguments before the court, and then we archive it. 637 cases, dating back to December 14, 1999. The service has been free until just recently, when we started charging an annual subscription of $99. [We started doing this in January of 2000.
So we have the audio of the state legislature making the laws…and the audio of the state supreme court interpreting many of those laws. While I don’t care that much about the process, saving this audio record just seem very cool to me.
Last, but not least… Missouri State Highway Patrol Crash Reports. These are the initial reports filled out by the state troopers and radioed back to the dispatcher. He or she then enters the information into a computer and it gets distributed to various points around the state. Several years ago, Phil did a little hack that put the reports on a website which, today, easily generates 800,000 Page Views a month. There’s a free, “public” version of the site…and a “premium” subscription service which includes a searchable database of reports going back to the beginning of 2004. Two years of crash reports. God (and maybe Andy and Phil) know how many files that might be. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands? A shit load.
A good businessman would tell you these projects are “distractions” that “dilute” our efforts from our “core businesses.” Which, for the most part, is selling 30 and 60 second commercials on radio networks. I think it’s a credit to our company that they let me (and others) explore these murky, digital waters. But I wonder… if I went to that Big Blogging Convention in the sky tomorrow, would anyone keep these projects going?
Anniversary of first “right to die” case
December 26, 2005 marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Nancy Cruzan. Nancy Cruzan was a 25-year old southwest Missouri woman who was thrown from her car in 1983 when it flipped over. Paramedics found and revived her at leat 15 minutes after the crash. She never fully regained consciousness but did achieve a status that came to be called a “Persistent Vegetative State.” Five years after her accident, her family concluded she would never return to full consciousness. Thus began a long legal battle to have her feeding tube removed so she would die. The Cruzan case became the first “right to die” case to reach the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the family.
Missourinet News Director Bob Priddy interviewed Bill Colby, the Cruzan family lawyer during the ordeal. Runs 30 minutes but it’s damned fine radio. Before the web, an in-depth piece like this would simply have been tucked away in a desk drawer.