Legal Juice

18-year-old burglar Jake Ormerod could have called any cab company. But he didn't ... As luck would have it [bad luck, that is], the burglary victim was a cab driver. And one of things Mr. Ormerod stole from his house was a cell phone - the very phone he used to call the cab company. You've probably figured out that the cab company he called was the victim's! Doh! As reported by The Sun:

Don [Smith, age], 53 - whose home was raided by Ormerod - said: "He must be the unluckiest burglar in the world. He could have chosen any cab firm to ring, but he called mine.

"If that wasn't bad enough, he happened to get the one controller on duty who would recognise my mobile number immediately."

Mr. Ormerod pleaded guilty. Here's the source.

You be the judge. Mr. Moyer "was accused of touching the woman's chest and buttocks in the Toontown area of the Magic Kingdom." As reported by clickorlando.com:

"I'm not guilty," Moyer told the judge. "I haven't, as the prosecution says, molested or grabbed -- maybe unintentionally touched, but that's as far as it went.

The defense [said] that there were nine other people in the room, including Moyer's family and other Disney employees who are assigned to watch over the characters, and none of them witnessed anything inappropriate.

"The state wants you to believe this man, in front of all these people, molested this woman. No one saw it. It was never caught on camera," said defense attorney, Zahra Umansky.

For the state of Florida:

Prosecutors said during the trial that photographs show the Disney cast member pushing Moyer's hands away from her after he touched her.

The woman playing Minnie Mouse said she did not yell for help because she feared that she could lose her job for being out of character. She did report the incident after Moyer left the area, according to investigators.

The verdict? Guilty. The time?

... 180 days of probation, 50 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine. [Mr. Moyer] also must undergo a mental health evaluation and write a letter of apology to the victim.

To read more, and see some video, click here.

Clifton Williams could tell you why yawning in Judge Rozak's courtroom is not a good idea. Per the Chicago Tribune:

As Circuit Judge Daniel Rozak handed down [Mr. Williams's] cousin's sentence -- 2 years' probation -- Williams, 33, stretched and let out a very ill-timed yawn.

Williams' sentence? Six months in jail -- the maximum penalty for criminal contempt without a jury trial. The Richton Park man was locked up July 23 and will serve at least 21 days.

Shazam!

"I really can't believe I'm in jail," Williams wrote his family in a letter. "I done set (sic) in this [expletive] a week so far for nothing."

... In the two-story brick home where Williams had been living with his aunt Cheryl Mayfield and caring for his 79-year-old grandmother, family members said they were in shock over the sentence but were unable to afford an attorney to appeal.

"This is ridiculous -- you've got all these people shooting up kids, and here this boy yawns in court [and gets 6 months]. It's crazy," she said. "This could happen to any one of us."

Of course there are 2 sides to every story.

Chuck Pelkie, a spokesman for the state's attorney's office, said the prosecutor in the courtroom that day told him that "it was not a simple yawn -- it was a loud and boisterous attempt to disrupt the proceedings."

... and ...

Observers describe Rozak as running the type of strict courtroom that was common a few decades ago. Defense attorneys say Rozak is "tough but fair" and runs particularly well-managed trials. Rozak has been elected in 2000 and 2006, both times with recommendations from the state bar association.

To read more (a lot), click here.

From the case of Salinero v. Pon, 124 Cal.App.3d 120, 177 Cal. Rptr. 204 (1981):

The owner of a six-story apartment building hired an independent contractor, the plaintiff's employer, to wash the windows of the building. No safety devices - from which window washers could be suspended - had been installed on the building. So the owner and the contractor agreed that the windows would be washed by means of a ladder extended over the edge of the roof from which the workers would be suspended in a boatswain's chair secured to the roof by a weighted sand bag. Brilliant! While the plaintiff was suspended in the chair some 35-40 feet above the ground, a fellow worker mistakenly removed the sand bag anchoring the plaintiff's chair, causing him to fall and suffer injury.

Doh! You can read the entire opinion by clicking here.
[13 pages!] Spoiler alert - Salinero, the falling guy ... [see below]

lost!

If Alexander Yermilov is saying this, you should listen. If not, you might find yourself on the business end of an ax. As reported by UPI:

Prosecutors said a man in the Chita region of Russia killed two friends he found dismembering his pet dog so they could prepare a meal.

The regional branch of the Prosecutor General's Office said Alexander Yermilov took an ax to his friends whom he found butchering his Great Dane when he returned to his home in Natsigun in December, The Moscow Times reported Thursday.

After Yermilov struck Irina Maryasova and Nikolai Sedunov several times, killing them on the spot, he called the police and confessed, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the reason why the two killed the dog or wanted to eat it was unknown.

For 57-year-old truck driver Mohamed Nor of Malaysia, 3 wives and 18 kids (ages 4 to 34) are not enough. So he is seeking the permission of the Syrariah High Court to marry a fourth women. And guess who has consented to the marriage? Wives 1,2 and 3. Said Judge Shaikh Ahmad, per the New Straits Times:

“I find it rather strange because since becoming a (syariah) judge, this is the first time where all three wives not only allow their husband to marry another woman but are very supportive of it,” he said during the hearing of Mohamed Nor’s application.

Do you think the Judge allowed the marriage? Nope. His concern? How can a truck driver making RM 1,500 per month (US $468.75) take on another wife? So Mr. Nor has to answer this question to the court's satisfaction before the marriage will be approved.

Nor would you want to be, because many folks have died with lower blood-alcohol levels. Would it surprise you if a fraternity was involved? Or pledges? Five hours of drinking? Me either. Pledges to Beta Theta Pi at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania kicked off the pledging season with a bang. The brothers made sure of that. As reported in The Brown and White, the school's paper:

After dinner, all members of the pledge class were taken into the party room and offered shots of Old Crow whiskey for about one and a half to two hours. They were then taken into the chapter room and given champagne to drink out of the "loving cup," which is a ritual at the fraternity, according to a police affidavit.

Shots of whiskey for 1.5 - 2 hours? It's no wonder, then, that one of the pledges had a blood-alcohol level of .505, more than 6 times the level of legal impairment (.08) in Pennsylvania! Incredibly, the kid didn't die, though he and another pledge (.31) were in the hospital, unresponsive and breathing through ventilators. (Last year a Rider University student with a .426 blood-alcohol level died.)

What happened to the brothers? Per The Brown and White:

The hospitalizations, along with 14 citations for alcohol-related offenses that night resulted in Beta Theta Pi fraternity being suspended by both the university and its national headquarters. Of the 14 citations, 11 were given to freshmen for underage drinking.

Following the incident, Beta President, Andrew Edmonds, '09, was charged with one count of furnishing alcohol to a person who is under 21. As president, he is responsible for activities that occur at the fraternity.

Here's the link to the article from The Brown and White.

Actually in the United Kingdom, what Americans call potato chips, they call "crisps." The burning question before a UK High Court judge was: Are Pringles "crisps" or not? Why is this important? Because if they are crisps, they get taxed at 17.5%! If not, they are exempt from the tax, as is most other food. So what was the decision?

Judge Justice Warren said Pringles' "unnatural shape", distinctive tube packaging, and non-potato ingredients meant that the snack could not be classified as a crisp.

The ruling yesterday pointed out that Pringles – who are most famous for their irritatingly catch adverts "once you pop, you can't stop" – contain corn flour, wheat starch, maltodextrin, emulsifier, rice flour and dextrose, and just 42 per cent potato content.

I am shocked, shocked I say ... that anyone would argue Pringles are potato chips. You can read more in The Telegraph article here.

So Shelley Gallant was approaching the 12-mile mark of the Chicago Marathon when, out of the blue, a man she didn't know "came out of nowhere" and sucker-punched her in the face! And she crumbled to the ground. She stopped running right? Nope. She sat down, dazed, for about 30 minutes, and then ran another 8 miles before the race was terminated due to the heat. Oh, and she vomited 4 times. Tough lady. Does she want revenge? Nope. Said Ms. Gallant:

I don't want to press charges. I just want to know what happened. Was he out of his mind? Why did he do that to me?

And what did police tell Mr. Gallant, who was at the race but did not see the attack? Only that the attacker "was apparently low on electrolytes." Gee, thanks officer. Here are a few comments from runners who witnessed the attack:

We were running on the left side of the course when, suddenly, a runner on the other side of the course turned around and starting running in a curve towards our side of the course. He was wearing a red top and looked to be in his 20's. He was yelling and screaming, and, without warning, ran up to a young woman, running nearer our side of the course, and punched her in the face. It was a wild hay maker that connected. She had no chance to defend herself and anyone with her would have had no way to protect her. She went down. In the few seconds it took for us to reach her, some runners had grabbed the berserk young man and others were giving aid to the young woman, who was in tears and utterly distraught. We saw no sign that she could have done or said anything to him that would trigger such a violent reaction...Pat Dooley, Cleveland

It was pretty appalling. What I distinctly recall is that he was running against the crowd as if to find someone behind him. He looked angry and was zigzagging around the runners. It seemed like this poor woman got in the way and within a second of crashing into her, he just punched her and she went down. He kept running and was tackled within 10 seconds or so. Once the cops arrived and the guy was restrained, he was crying....Martha-Victoria Diaz, South Loop

It was extremely strange...Either the guy lost his mind because of the heat, was off his meds, or was upset about something this woman did and attacked her. Anyone know what happened to this guy?....Ryan McQueeney, LaGrange Park

To read more, click here.

I'll call him Fuzzy because, well, I don't know his name. Since he's a minor and wasn't charged with a felony, his name has been withheld. Now technically, Fuzzy didn't actually "streak" across the Parkland High School (Pennsylvania) gym [during a basketball game!] because he had a sock on his ... jimmy. You're the school superintendent. What do you do? I would suspend him for a couple days. But nooooooooooooo, not Superintendent Louise Donohue. She booted him, for the rest of the year, to an alternative school (also attended by [former] knife-wielding students) run by a private company. Said Fuzzy of the punishment:

It's just because of the publicity, I think. I'm still sorry for what I did -- I would never do it again -- but that punishment is … out there.

We're with you, Fuzzy.