Legal Juice

Okay, The Juice ran out of material, so he just flat-out made this up. Ha! No, loyal readers, sadly this is a true story. From The Toronto Star, we have this story of a tremendous waste of government resources.

On a Monday evening in October 2011, 62-year-old Kathryn David returned to her home near Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Eglinton Ave. She pulled into the shared driveway between her home and that of her neighbour, Kevin Cooper. According to the judge’s decision, she got out of her car to move Cooper’s hose that went along the side of Cooper’s house and under a tall wooden gate to the backyard. Eventually, she tugged on the hose, causing it to catch on a patio chair in Cooper’s backyard and tear.

No big thing, you might think? What if The Juice told you this, this awful act was caught on videotape? Right, still no big thing, or ... was it?

The incident was caught on video surveillance cameras set up by Cooper and he called the police to report property damage. David was then handcuffed and taken to a police station in the back of police car, says her lawyer, Erec Rolfe.

What? Why?

That is standard procedure, says Toronto Police spokesperson Victor Kwong, adding that “if the public wants us to be police and not be judge and jury, we go ahead with the charge regardless of dollar amount. And then it’s up to the courts to decide whether to mediate this or go to trial with it.”

The Juice isn't blaming the cops, just the geniuses who set up this ridiculous, overly-inclusive procedure.

“The criminal charges were laid against our neighbour following a detailed police investigation and an independent decision by the Crown prosecutor to pursue those charges,” said Cooper and his wife Sylvia by email late Tuesday night.

So what happened?

“Fortunately for the Toronto Police Service, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that stupidity in relation to the law and negligence is not a case for malicious prosecution.” said Provincial Court Justice William Wolski before dismissing the charge, according to a transcript. “Why these charges were laid is still a mystery to me.”

Next case! Here's the source, including a photo of the scene of the crime.

A pack of cigarettes! She stole a pack of cigarettes! 22 years ago! People! Where is your sense of proportionality? As reported by wesh.com:

A mother of two sits in jail Monday unable to post bail after being put behind bars for the 1991 theft of a pack of cigarettes.

Jail? You couldn't release her on her own recognizance for this?

"Back in 1991, I shoplifted cigarettes from Walmart," Hall said.

So how'd they catch her now?

That 22-year-old crime followed her to Port Canaveral Thursday, where she was wrapping up a dream vacation with her husband and two kids.

The family had cruised aboard the Disney Dream, and authorities were waiting for her when they got back. "I was pulled to the side and told I had a warrant," Hall said.

Authorities said Hall had failed to pay the $85 in court costs when she was 18; and when authorities checked the ship's passenger list for terrorists, they found a warrant for Hall.

And to this even more ridiculous, check out the exemplary life Ms. Hall has led since her days as a career criminal ...

Since the theft, she had put herself through college, receiving a degree in architecture, and now she helps design jet engines for Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut.

Clearly she's a flight risk, right? What is wrong with these people? Here's the official explanation:

The Brevard County Jail will not let her post bail because it's an Orange County charge and she has to be transferred. However, because of the weekend and holiday, that might not be until Thursday.

That's a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit. The Juice is not pleased with this "case." Here's the source, including a video news story.

Please, save your apologies, especially the ones that were part of the judge's sentence! As reported by The Sun Chronicle (Attleboro & North Attleboro, Massachusetts):

A Plainville resident, a former municipal water superintendent, must write an apology to the town where he was once employed and pay to have apologies printed in a major regional newspaper and a trade magazine as part of the sentence for falsifying municipal water safety records.

John Tetreault, a Plainville resident and the former water superintendent for the town of Avon was sentenced by a federal judge Thursday to apologize to the town's residents by having to write an apology for falsifying water safety records, and placing that apology in the Boston Globe and in a local and regional trade publications, the Boston Globe reported Saturday.

Is this a joke? The Juice is all for creative sentencing, but how does this help anyone? What a total waste of money. Well, at least he'll be doing some jail time. Wait, no jail time?

He must also pay a $15,000 fine and was placed on probation for a year.

No, not probation! Oh the humanity! As for what specifically Mr. Tetreault did:

According to the published report, Tetreault, 55, pleaded guilty to two counts of knowingly submitting federally required reports with false information about disinfectant levels at the town's two water treatment facilities, saying they met safety standards when they didn't.

Hmm. Sounds like a pretty serious infraction. In fairness to the judge, perhaps it was a factor that ...

Officials said public health was not threatened because Avon's water was clean and safe without the disinfectant. It was reported that the records were tampered with on four occasions in 2010, according to investigators who worked on the case.

Why cut the guy a break because he apparently lucked out on the water not being dangerous in spite of his fraud. Surely the disinfectants serve some purpose? Not cool judge. Not cool at all. Dude should have seen the inside of a cell, at least for a few months. Here's the source.

If you are convicted of driving under the influence SIX times, you should be doing a hell of a lot more time than this bloke. As reported by phillyburbs.com:

A Warrington man will have to spend 11½ to 23 months in the Montgomery County prison for his sixth drunken driving offense.

Robert Cuthbert, 47, of the 1200 block of Folly Road, also will have to serve an additional three-year probation sentence after he completes his parole time.

Assistant District Attorney Nathan Schadler on Friday explained that the reason for the stiff sentence is because this is Cuthbert’s sixth driving under the influence conviction.

"Stiff sentence" my arse. And check out how drunk he was. “He had way too many,” said Schadler, noting that Cuthbert had a blood alcohol percentage of at least 0.243 percent. That is three times the state’s legal driving limit of 0.08 percent.

That, Juice readers, is shitfaced.

“Hopefully this sentence sends a strong message to the public and to him that we will do what has to be done to protect our highways from drunken drivers,” said Schadler.

Strong message? More like, you can turn your car into a death machine over and over and over and over and over again, and still get just 1-2 years. You can read more (a little bit) here.

People do need to have private lives, though at least one school superintendent feels otherwise. He suspended Kimberly Hester, a teacher's aide, because she wouldn't show him her Facebook page. Here's the story, as reported by wsbt.com:

“It was very mild, no pornography,” she said of the picture she posted in April 2011. The picture shows that co-worker’s pants around her ankles, and a pair of shoes. “It wasn't at work, it was off work time,” Hester added.

Wait, naked ankles? And pants around those naked ankles? No wonder she was suspended! Think of the children!

At the time, Hester was a teacher's aide at Frank Squires Elementary in Cassopolis. According to a letter from the Cassopolis schools superintendent to the Lewis Cass Intermediate superintendent, a parent who was friends with Hester on Facebook notified the school about the picture.

The Juice feels for that parent's kids.

A few days later, Lewis Cass ISD superintendent Robert Colby called her into his office.

“He asked me three times if he could view my Facebook and I repeatedly said I was not OK with that,” Hester told WSBT.

In all seriousness, The Juice applauds Ms. Hester's principled stand.

In a letter to Hester from the Lewis Cass ISD Special Education Director, he wrote “…in the absence of you voluntarily granting Lewis Cass ISD administration access to you[r] Facebook page, we will assume the worst and act accordingly."

It's kind of funny that the fired teacher's aide is doing the real teaching, while the idiotic superintendent is teaching kids that personal privacy and boundaries are essentially nonexistent. So what's Ms. Hester doing now?

Hester said Colby put her on paid administrative leave and eventually suspended her.

Much to her credit, she's fighting it.

“I stand by it,” Hester said. “I did nothing wrong. And I would not, still to this day, let them in my Facebook. And I don’t think it’s OK for an employer to ask you.”

But what about the legality of the superintendent's actions?

... University of Notre Dame labor law professor Barbara Frick said the school didn’t break any laws by asking for Hester’s Facebook information.

Right now there are no state or federal laws protecting social media privacy in the workplace, Frick said.

This needs to be remedied. Good luck to Ms. Hester, who goes to arbitration on this in May. Here's the source, including a video news story.

This is an example of a ridiculously over-the-top reaction to a totally harmless "event." As reported by wdam.com:

Bond has been set for a JCJC student who was arrested for a hand written note claiming there was a bomb on campus.

Sounds serious, right? Nope, as you'll see below.

Judge Billie Graham set a $20,000 bond for Harold Wayne Hadley Jr., 19. Hadley was arrested at his home in Seminary on Tuesday after the note was found in a bathroom at the industrial services building on the JCJC campus. In all, 11 agencies responded to the threat, but no bomb was found. Officials said Hadley was arrested after they matched his handwriting to the note, which was written on toilet paper. His family says the word "bomb" is often used by Hadley in reference to a bodily function and not an explosive device.

In case you haven't figured it out, "bomb" = "fart".

"He was in the restroom doodling on some toilet paper and I am going to just let modesty go and tell you we are from the country, and so he calls passing gas, bombs," said Hadley's Aunt. "So, he was doodling on the toilet paper and put I passed a bomb in the library, talking about passing gas and somebody come in and found it, give it to the teacher that recognized his hand writing and it blow all out of proportion."

He was doodling on toilet paper, people, about farting!

While investigators will not reveal exactly what was written down by Hadley, they tell News Seven that the written bomb threat was more explicit than "I passed a bomb in the library"

Sure. Probably can't say because of "national security." It couldn't be that they were just embarrassed.

Hadley's family says he was an all "A" student who was scheduled to graduate in May. Meanwhile, he remains in the Jones County jail.

Well, we can all rest safely now... Here's the source.

A 13-year-old kid was busted for burping, so says the lawsuit!

If you don't like the maid, why not just fire her? And if you guessed that this didn't happen in the US, you're right. It was in Kuwait. Per the Arab Times:

Police have arrested an Asian housemaid for allegedly ‘ruining’ the family of her sponsor through black magic, reports Al-Shahed daily.

The arrest came when a Kuwaiti in his 40s filed a complaint with the police that seven days after hiring the housemaid there was a high degree of confusion in his home and he suspected the maid of doing black magic.


The man added he children complained of suffering from illusions and they looked terrified. He added he kept a watch on the maid and heard her uttering strange words while practicing magic in the kitchen. On the day of the incident he interrupted her and seized magic charms from her possession.


During interrogation the maid is said to have admitted to the act.

She added the family was treating her bad and wanted to take revenge.


Now that's the first thing that has made any sense.

The maid has been referred to the General Immigration Department to prepare her deportation from the country.

Well, as long as she got a fair hearing ...

Before you jump all over 19-year-old Calvin Morett [not pictured above - that dude is a "model"], remember that you were once 19 too. It seems Mr. Morett was not content to throw his cap in the air. Instead, he came to graduation dressed as a 6-foot penis, and sprayed students and school administrators with silly string (per The Albany Times Union). It didn't go over well. He was apprehended when he tripped on his, um, costume. He was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, disorderly conduct. The punishment for this "crime?" Three apologies (one of which will be published in the local paper), $95 in court costs, and 24 hours community service. What did Mr. Morett have to say for himself?

... he recently told a local television station that he thought the prank was worth whatever punishment he would face because he made people happy.

The Juice is most definitely a fan.

What name could be so bad that a Chicago Alderman held up the sign permit for 2 1/2 years? "Felony Franks". Yes, The Juice is scratching his head too. As reported by The Chicago Sun-Times:

After a 2½-year battle that culminated in a First Amendment lawsuit, the City Council’s Transportation Committee will meet on June 6 to issue the sign permit local Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) has been blocking on grounds that the name sends a “bad message” to area students.

Sorry Bob, but you're the one sending the wrong message: censorship because YOU don't like the message.

The agreement hammered out in federal court this week stipulates that Fioretti and three other aldermen named in the lawsuit will no longer “oppose, interfere or obstruct” the permit application process for Felony Franks, 229 S. Western.

What does the owner of Felony Franks think?

“We live in the greatest country in the world. We have freedom of speech. If I cannot be allowed to call my business what I want, then we’re living in a dictatorship, not a democracy,” said owner Jim Andrews, who hires ex-offenders. “If you fight hard enough for what you believe in, the system works. The only thing wrong with the system is the consumer shouldn’t have to fight as hard as I had to fight for what’s right.”

And Bob, since when is helping to reintegrate ex-cons into society a bad thing? Oh, and about that lawsuit ...

[It's] still pending and Andrews is still demanding $293,000 in damages for business lost during the 2½-year sign battle.

Here's hoping Mr. Andrews is victorious. You can read more (a fair amount) here.

If you don't have a huge problem with this truly outrageous pat-down of a 6-year-old child, which includes "sensitive areas," ask someone to check your pulse. ENOUGH!

Without Johnny Law, there would be chaos, right? In this situation, Johnny Law needs to step off. In the Australian city of Whitehorse, little children drawing with chalk in front of a cafe have been deemed to be ... taggers! As reported by The Whitehorse Leader:

Children drawing with chalk on a Nunawading footpath have been labeled graffiti artists.

THEY MUST BE STOPPED.

Whitehorse Council has drawn the line over pre-schooler’s scribbles outside White’s Cafe in the Mt Pleasant Rd shopping strip.

Sally White, who runs the family-friendly cafe with husband PJ, said she was told by a council officer that the children’s drawings were graffiti and had to stop, after a complaint from a resident.

A single complaint? Was it the nature of the drawings?

Mrs White, who has boys aged three and four, said the cafe had allowed children to draw on the footpath of the quiet shopping strip for the past 12 months.

She said the drawings were usually stick figures, scribbles, fish or pirates.

Nunawading artist and author Lucienne Noontil, a cafe regular, said she could not believe anyone would find them offensive. ``I love the drawings and seeing the kids be creative,’’ she said.

First Tunisia, then Egypt, Wisconsin, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and now ... Nunawading!

Ms Noontil said stopping the drawings would dampen the strong community spirit of the cafe.

Mrs White said she and the children were all in tears when told the drawing had to stop so they had decided to still allow it.

HELL NO, WE WON'T ... stop letting the children create art that enriches their lives, enriches the community, and harms nobody... But wait! What about the mess?

Mrs White said they would be willing to wash the drawings off each afternoon when they shut or apply for a permit from council if that was relevant.

Curse you, reasonable lady! But Johnny Law is unmoved by any of this.

Council’s general manager corporate services Peter Smith said the drawings were in contravention of council’s Local Law No. 1 2006 and the state government’s Graffiti Act 2007.

``No matter the age of the person, drawing on public property is considered graffiti,’’ he said.

Let it go, Pete. Let it go. That appears unlikely.

Mr Smith said the council would be obliged to issue a compliance notice if the drawing continued or if a further complaint was received.

Silly complainer. Silly Council. If you're ever in Whitehorse, make sure you patronize White's Cafe, because Mrs. White is certainly deserving of your support for her pro-children, pro-art, anit-stupidity stance. Here's the source, which includes a photo of some of the artists.

Does it really matter how many tolls we're talking about? [2,362!] Or how much money is involved? [$558,000]. Apparently it does, per a court in China, which is now reconsidering its life sentence. As reported by xinhuanet.com:

A court in central China's Henan Province said Friday it would retry a farmer convicted of fraud and sentenced to life imprisonment for evading millions of yuan in expressway tolls.

The verdict may change because the defendant has indicated he had accomplices, said Liu Penghua, director of the political department of the Pingdingshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court.

Shi Jianfeng was convicted of fraud Tuesday for evading 3.68 million yuan (558,000 U.S. dollars) of expressway tolls.

"Shi said during an inquiry Thursday night he was manipulated by a relative," said Liu.

Shi, you're losing The Juice. "Manipulated?" Please.

Shi used fabricated military drivers licenses and mounted fake military license plates on his two trucks, the Pingdingshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court said.

The case drew attention and controversy on the Internet, with some saying the life-imprisonment sentence was too harsh and that expressway tolls are exorbitant. Tollgate records show Shi's two trucks used to transport sand and gravel avoided tolls 2,362 times in the nine months between May 2008 and Jan. 2009. The average toll each time would have been 1,558 yuan (236 dollars).

$236? Does that come with a massage? Here's the source.

It was a bad day for Hamilton County, Ohio's finest, but not nearly as bad as it was for John Harmon. Mr. Harmon, a diabetic, was suffering from low blood sugar when a police officer noticed he was driving erratically. So, after the police pulled him over, officers smashed Mr. Harmon's window, dragged him out of the car, tased him seven times, and just basically shit-stomped him. As reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer:

John Harmon was coming off a late night at work when he left his downtown marketing firm for his Anderson Township home just after midnight in October 2009.

The 52-year-old longtime diabetic's blood sugar levels had dipped to a dangerously low level causing him to weave into another lane.

A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy spotted him on Clough Pike and suspected drunken driving. What happened over the next two minutes and 20 seconds should never happen to anyone, Harmon said.

Deputies broke the window of Harmon's SUV, shocked him seven times with a Taser, cut him out of his seatbelt and wrestled him to the ground, severely dislocating his elbow, and causing trauma to his shoulder and thumb.

You can read a lot more, and see a video from one of the police cars, here.

Sadly, it's often not the case that "as ye sew, so shall ye reap." The latest case involves a Canterbury, New Zealand doctor. He began treating a 13-year-old girl, who then began babysitting his children. When the girl was 16, she was raped. Not surprisingly, the girl's mother took her to this doctor after the rape. As reported in The New Zealand Herald:

A sexual relationship developed with the doctor and lasted for about three months in 1985.

So this man preys on his patient, a 16-year-old rape victim whose mother placed her trust in him. Surely this man had his medical license revoked? Nope. After being found guilty of "disgraceful conduct," his license wasn't even suspended! And, his name will remain a secret! Here's his "punishment":

... he has been censured by the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal which fined him the maximum $1000.

The GP was also required to be mentored by a health professional for three years and ordered to pay $62,666.86 in costs.

How could he get off with a slap on the wrist for this abominable conduct?

The tribunal in its decision said there was no evidence the doctor had behaved inappropriately before or since.

It said the "proved conduct of the charge (was) entirely out of character" and granted the doctor permanent name suppression.

The victim, Ms. A, has it exactly right:

"The argument seems to be that seeing as he got away with it for so long, he might as well get away with it forever."

May fate serve up a dose of justice for the doctor. Here's the source.

Yes, death for a weed dealer. Regular Juice readers know that certain countries, like Malaysia, dole out harsh sentences for drug dealers Case in point: M. Jegatheswaran, age 32, had just over 2 pounds of marijuana in his motorcycle basket. Per the New Straits Times:

A traditional medicine seller was yesterday sentenced to death by the High Court for trafficking in 958g of cannabis ...at a car park area of a public housing flat in Ampang Jajar, Jalan Permatang Pauh, about 10pm on May 8, 2007.

High Court judicial commissioner Nurmala Salim ruled that the defence had failed to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case.

Earlier in his defence, Jegatheswaran had said that he had gone to the flats to massage one of his customers. He claimed that the motorcycle he had used to get to his customer's place did not belong to him.

In her decision yesterday, Nurmala said Jegatheswaran's defence was one of mere denial.

A little too harsh for The Juice. Here's the source.

Lock the doors! Batten down the hatches! Man the battle stations! Why? The homosexuals are coming! Nooooooooo! As reported by The Arab Times:

KUWAIT CITY, April 29: Capital Governorate securitymen have arrested seven homosexuals for wearing indecent clothes while sea swimming in Sharq.
After receiving information on a group of homosexuals clad in indecent clothes, the securitymen rushed to the location and found some of the homosexuals swimming and others on the seashore. They were referred to the authorities for the necessary legal action.

Certainly the United States has a ways to go, but it ain't Kuwait.

So maybe wearing this particular shirt to court was not the best decision Jennifer LaPenta, 19, of Round Lake Park, Illinois ever made. But did it warrant two days in jail? As reported by the Lake County News-Sun:

Associate Judge Helen Rozenburg charged LaPenta with contempt of court for wearing the garment in her courtroom Monday. LaPenta was sitting in the gallery waiting for a friend's case to be called when the judge called her forward.

What did the shirt say?

"I own the [pussy], so I make the rules."

So what happened?

Rozenburg asked LaPenta if she thought her shirt was appropriate.

LaPenta said she told the judge that it would have been inapprorpriate had she been the defendant.

Rozenburg immediately sentenced her to 48 hours in jail and had her cuffed, LaPenta said.

Why wear that shirt?

LaPenta said that she had been at a gym Monday when her friend asked her for a ride to the courthouse. She was wearing sweat pants and that T-shirt when she was cuffed and jailed.

LaPenta said she bought the shirt in the gay section of Spencer's. She said she is openly homosexual and said the judge was a "homophobe" for putting her in custody for wearing the shirt.

"I'm shocked that the judge took the actions she did. She could have asked her to remove her shirt or leave the courtroom," said Peter Kalagis, LaPenta's attorney. "To me, that was an extreme action."

LaPenta said the judge did not give her an opportunity to turn her shirt inside out or exit the courtroom.

Here's the source.

A Good Samaritan in New York intervenes in a mugging and gets stabbed. As he is lying on the sidewalk bleeding to death, more than 20 people pass by him, and do nothing. Strike that. One guy did take pictures with his cell phone. It's just wrong that the one person who did care about his fellow man, and acted on it, died.

There is no substitute for proofreading. And to all you kids out there (don't hate The Juice for saying this) "spell check" is not proofreading. Heresy! But as for the importance of proofreading, check out this story from the Jakarta Globe:

A single clerical error can change the course of one’s life. Just ask Kamjai Khong Thavorn, 53, a Thai national who spent nearly three extra years in the maximum-security Pasir Putih Penitentiary in Nusakambangan, West Java, because of a typing error.

Kamjai was due for release in 2007 after a 20-year sentence he received in 1987 for heroin possession, but up until Wednesday, he was still behind bars. 

Having spent an extra three years in jail for no fault of his own, Kamjai was promptly released on Thursday after a chance meeting with Justice Minister Patrialis Akbar, who happened to be visiting the prison for an inspection. 



“Kamjai was released this morning and taken by immigration officials from Cilacap to the Thai Embassy in Jakarta,” Pasir Putih’s warden, Sutrisman, told the Jakarta Globe. 

Kamjai was arrested in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, on Aug. 20, 1987, for possession of 17.76 kilograms of heroin and sentenced to life in prison. His sentence was reduced to 20 years by a presidential decree. However, the decree mistakenly stated his first year in prison as 1997, instead of 1987.

Sutrisman said no relatives came to pick the inmate up from prison, so the nearest immigration office, in Cilacap, transported him to his embassy. 

“We realized the mistake that was made. So he was released unconditionally and immigration officials accompanied him to Jakarta without waiting for further response from the Thai Embassy,” Sutrisman said. Kamjai was “happy and enthusiastic” as he left the prison, the warden said. 

When Patrialis visited his maximum-security cell on Wednesday, Kamjai used the occasion to complain that he should have been released in 2007. 

Kompas newspaper reported that the minister assured the inmate he would be released the next day, causing Kamjai to burst into tears.

So he would still be in jail if not for this chance encounter. Damn! Here's the source.