Legal Juice

If you or I ever try to pull the shit that Tennessee doctor Robert E. Grindstaff admitted to doing, fuhgeddaboudit. While he was in the hospital, here's what went down, per The Kingsport Times-News:

[from August 3 through September 8] unlicensed personnel at Grindstaff’s Pinecrest Family Practice in Johnson City treated 115 patients by evaluating and questioning them about their needs and calling in refills for prescriptions without consulting a physician.

... during those dates If the patient required a Schedule II controlled substance, a member of Grindstaff’s staff took a note to Grindstaff to have him sign the prescription without his review of the patient’s records.

During the same time period, Grindstaff’s office billed patients for nursing visits despite the fact the doctor was not in the office and there are no nurses or staff members at the practice “with any formal training or experience in any medically related field.”

Really serious shit, right? Apparently not. Dr. Grindstaff did not even have his medical license suspended!

The board placed Grindstaff’s license on probationary status for two years, during which he must complete an educational seminar on prescribing controlled drugs, a comprehensive physician assessment, and a clinical education program.

The board further ordered Grindstaff to pay up to $1,000 of the cost of the health department’s prosecution of his case.

Excuse me, but la-di-fucking-da! This punishment was imposed notwithstanding that ...

According to the board, Grindstaff’s actions violated both state statutes and medical practice acts governing gross malpractice, unprofessional conduct, prescribing and dispensing drugs, and medical record keeping.

Is it just The Juice, or do you folks agree that, absent some incredible mitigating factors, this guy should have had his license revoked?

Yup. Judge John P. Wulle, of the Clark County, Washington Superior Court, was attending a conference entitled "Planning Your Juvenile Drug Court in Los Angeles in July 2006. I know, skip the details - get to the dirt. Here's some of what he said, as set forth in the "Stipulation" entered into by the Judge and the Commission on Judicial Conduct:

During a breakout session, the team's facilitator wrote a star on an assignment the team completed and said jokingly, "Clark County gets a star." Respondent [Judge Wulle] replied, "I don't need a star, I'm not a Jew."

Later in the week, during a break in the conference, other faculty members asked [Judge Wulle] who Clark County's facilitator was, and he answered, "the black gay guy."

A team member asked [Judge Wulle] to lower his voice ... and he acknowledged the request by raising his middle finger at the team member.

During a breakout session ... [Judge Wulle] became frustrated with the pace or direction of discussion, and announced it was time for the group to move on to the next topic. A fellow team member spoke up, "No Judge, this is important, we need to work through this," or words to that effect. In response to this seemingly respectful entreaty, [Judge Wulle] angrily yelled, "F_ _ _ you" and threw his pen down on a table and left the room. [Regular Juice readers know that I don't delete expletives. The Commission does, though.]

Zoinks! Maybe it's me, but it seems like Judge Wulle wasn't real pleased about attending the conference. If you want to read the full "Stipulation, Agreement and Order of Censure," click here. And if you like stories about Judges, you'll find a boatload of them here.

You are not going to believe what this formerly respectable couple did to try and avoid a £60 ($88 US) ticket and three points. And it's not like it would have put the wife over the top - her driving record was spotless. So Mrs. Diane Rodger, a lecturer [professor] was doing 40 mph in a 30mph zone when she was nailed by a speeding camera. Instead of just paying the fine, what did she and her husband Michael (a magistrate!) do? As reported in the Mail Online:

After consulting an internet website for tips on challenging speeding tickets, they altered the car's appearance.

They changed the style of the Skoda's number plate and removed stickers from its windscreen in a bizarre attempt to persuade police it had been 'cloned' and that she was not the driver...

Then they tried to weasel out of it.

Over the next three months Nottinghamshire Central Ticket Office, which deals with speeding fines, received five letters contesting the ticket, all signed by 'Mr Rodger JP'.

They variously claimed he had no knowledge of the offence, that the car was regularly used by others, that the car may have been 'cloned', that the car was parked in Nottingham city centre at the time of the offence and that the captured image was not clear enough to identify the driver.

The letters also claimed that the middle letter on the number plate was indistinct and that his vehicle did not have stickers in the windscreen, unlike the images of the speeding car.

So the cops went to their house to ask them about the letters. What did they say?

Mrs Rodger stated she had, while Mr Rodger claimed he had signed them without reading them. Thomas Elmer, defending Mr Rodger, said: 'It was his wife who wished to evade the penalty but it was their joint idea how to go about it."

Partners in an asinine crime. The Judge agreed.

The couple wept as Judge David Brunning told them they had been 'staggeringly stupid' and that he had 'just been persuaded' not to send them to prison. Instead, they were each given six-month jail sentences, suspended for two years.

They were also ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work each and to pay £5,000 costs between them after admitting intending to pervert the course of justice.

Here's the source.

This is definitely the most bizarre type of "fishing" The Juice has ever read about. As reported in the Strongsville, Ohio police blotter of the Sun Star Courier:

... officers had a chat with a boy because of his unusual fishing methods.

Concerned residents called police because the youngster -- who was at Waterford Lake on Prospect Road -- was catching fish with a bow and arrow that had a suction cup attached.

Sure, that's a little odd. But then ...

He would take the fish out of the water, beat them to death on a rock and throw them back in the pond.

Hmmm. This might be something his parents should know about, no? Apparently not.

Officers told the young fisherman that only catch-and-release fishing is allowed at the pond. The boy left the area.

No! No! No! If you're doing something illegal - like soliciting a prostitute! - don't call the cops to complain when it goes south! As reported by WMUR in New Hampshire:

A man and a woman were charged with prostitution Tuesday after, police said, the man called them to report that the woman didn't have sex with him after he paid for it.

Jeanna Mercure, 22, of Manchester, N.H., and Robert Smith, 32, of Marlborough, were charged with prostitution.

Police said Smith called the Marlborough Police Department on Monday and reported that he had paid Mercure and a third party $150 to have sex with him on Sunday night. Smith called police after Mercure failed to have sex with him, police said.

Doh! Doh! Doh! Here's the source, including mug shots.

I told you not to tell me that, but you just couldn't resist! You had to tell me that, as reported by news.com.au:

A robber wearing a transparent plastic bag over his head has held up a service station on the Gold Coast.

Pure genius.

Police said the man entered the BP service station at Labrador about 3.53pm yesterday wearing the plastic bag, and wielding a large carving knife, according to the Courier-Mail.

He approached the male attendant and demanded cash.

In response, the worker placed the money tray from the register on the counter and the robber helped himself.

At least someone was thinking clearly. (Get it!) Now this may surprise you, given the awesomeness of the disguise:

The worker was able to give police a good description of the bandit. He was described as about 170cm tall in his mid-20s and wearing three-quarter length denim shorts, a white T-shirt and a sky blue baseball cap.

And?

The man handed himself in to police today. Police expect to charge the man over the robbery.

This gent is up there with the wet bandits.

I'm not sure how The Juice missed this one (perhaps he was busy with his daytime gig), because it's not often that an attorney gets busted for doing cocaine, in the courthouse, in the midst of a trial. As reported by the The Wininona Post (Minnesota):

The assault trial for accused murderer Jack Nissalke came to an abrupt and unexpected end Thursday when his Twin Cities-based attorney was arrested for alleged possession of 5 grams of cocaine.

Police believe that the attorney, Charles Alan Ramsay, 41, of New Brighton, Minn., was using the cocaine inside a conference room at the courthouse during breaks in the jury trial. Investigator Jay Rasmussen noticed Ramsay behaving strangely outside the courthouse bathrooms, said Police Chief Frank Pomeroy. He said that Ramsay was touching his face as if he’d just ingested something through his nose.

Then, evidence technician Angela Evans went into a conference room that Ramsay had been using and noticed trace amounts of a white powder on the table. That powder field-tested positive for a controlled substance, which police used as probable cause to arrest and search Ramsay’s belongings.

You can read more (a lot) here. And if you want to read about what happened to Mr. Nissalke (guilty), click here.

So check out these fellas, as reported by The Arkansas Times:

Worst dillweeds:

Several people were arrested in April and charged in a series of burglaries in the Hillcrest section of west Little Rock after they pawned a digital camera that contained pictures of them displaying and bragging about all the loot they'd stolen, including the camera.

Doh! Reminds me of the "wet bandits" from Home Alone.

(Full disclosure: "Hair" is one of The Juice's top ten favorite films.) Even in late 2009, long hair is STILL an issue in some schools. The crazy thing about this story is, we're talking about a 4-year-old boy! (Click on the link at the end of the post to see his picture.) Seems Taylor's long hair violates this Texas schools dress code. As reported by The Dallas Morning News:

It's too long, Mesquite ISD administrators say, and Taylor can't attend class with other students until he gets a haircut.

Since early November, the pre-kindergartner has had lessons with a teacher's aide in the library at Floyd Elementary School, cut off from other students. Neither his parents, who refuse to cut his hair, nor the school district is happy about that, but no one knows when it is likely to end.

A 4-year-old essentially in solitary confinement because of his hair. Brilliant!

"The school cannot give us an honest reason why we should force him to cut his hair. He loves his hair," said Taylor's father, Delton Pugh Jr., on Tuesday. "I'll move out of this school district before I'll force him to cut his hair."

According to Taylor's mother, Elizabeth Taylor, no one complained about her son's hair until October, when the principal told her it needed to be cut. She refused because he likes his hair long, his father has long hair and the family has American Indian heritage.

Even so, she tried to work with the school and this idiotic rule.

She did trim the child's hair along the sides and back, but school officials said it was still too long. She offered to put Taylor's hair in a pony tail and slick back the front so it "will look nice," she said.

Aaaargh! You can read more (a lot) and see a picture of Taylor here.

Regular Juice readers will recall this recent post about a marijuana greenhouse set up just 25 feet from a police station. But what if I told you a gent grew marijuana, in prison, with the permission of the guards! And he did it for at least 5 months before he was busted! What do you think he was in for? Drugs? Yup. As reported by The Sun:

Gold-toothed Mohamed Jalloh, 28, convinced jail staff [at Verne Prison in Portland, Dorset] that his super-powerful skunk crop was really tomato plants.

[They] even [let him] decorate one 4ft plant as a CHRISTMAS TREE.

So how was he caught?

Eventually he was grassed up by a jealous inmate - and guards then identified the plants using Google snaps.

Damn you snitch! Damn you Google! Here's the source.

So you think you're a good multitasker? Could you do all of this simultaneously?

Light up a joint ...

... while holding a beer...

... while speeding down the road?

I didn't think so. Per The Cairns Post (Australia):

A driver lit up a joint while speeding past an unmarked police car with an open can of beer in his clutches, incredulous police have alleged.

The El Arish man, 29, was clocked at 115km/hr [71 mph] when he overtook police on on the El Arish-Mission Beach Rd on Cassowary Drive at Bingil Bay, south of Cairns.

When they pulled him over, police say they detected the smell of cannabis emanating from his vehicle.

A subsequent search located a small quantity of cannabis in the car.

It will be alleged that the man admitted to police that he had just lit up a joint as he overtook the police vehicle.

Hey, at least he wasn't texting ... And if you like multitasking stories, here's a really good one,and here's another.

Yes, folks, this bird is protected by the Constitution, as the City of Pittsburgh learned the hard way. Back in 2006, David Hackbart (of Butler, Pennsylvania) flipped off a cop, and got a disorderly conduct citation. He fought it, hard. Per the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Pittsburgh City Council initially approved today a $50,000 settlement for a lawsuit filed by a Butler County man who gave the middle finger to a motorist and a police officer in 2006.

The officer cited him for disorderly conduct. The county eventually dropped the charge, but Hackbart sued to recover the cost of defending himself. U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone ruled in March that the officer violated Hackbart's First Amendment right to free speech.

You can read more bird-flipping stories here, here, here, and here

Oh no you didn't just cite Ludacris, federal Judge Terence T. Evans. Okay, maybe "cite" is a little misleading, but still ... from footnote 1 in U.S. v. Murphy

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch "hoe." A "hoe," of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty of changing "hoe" to "ho," a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps "You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies."

I like it. Here's the case: U.S. v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857 (7th Cir. 2005).

The Route 66 Kitchen in Toledo is apparently the place to be ... if you like out-of-control gunfights. Check out the security video below. Incredibly with all those people shooting at each other (police believe at least 20 shots were fired), nobody was hurt! You can read more (a lot) in the Toledo Blade article.

What? You've never heard of "kick the kitty?" Perhaps that's because it was only recently invented by Nicola Collinson. To see how it's played, though, you'll need her cell phone because she made a video of herself doing it on her phone! Or, perhaps you know one of the people she sent her video to, one of whom sent it to the RSPCA.

What was in the video? Just Nicole picking up a kitten, throwing it into the air like a ball, and then drop-kicking it. And if that's not bad enough, she chased it down and punched it, and drop-kicked it again! Can you can guess her defense? She said she was drunk (I believe that) and doesn't remember anything (bullshit). Here's how the prosecutor described it:

This is what can only be described as a quite wicked case. It was only a kitten and it came (to her) looking for affection. It was suggested that at some stage it might have scratched (her) and that all this happened is really quite shocking.

This defendant took hold of the kitten and drop-kicked it, as if it were a rugby ball. The kitten got to it's feet and went away and it was chased by the defendant who picked it up again and brought it back and did the same thing again. Not only was it drop-kicked but it was also punched.

It was absolutely deliberate, there can be no suggestion it was accidental. And what makes this all the worse is that someone was making a video on a phone camera. You hear laughing and joking.

The video was then sent round to various friends bragging about what happened. But one person was so incensed that they sent a copy to the RSPCA who were able to track who made it.

Ms. Collinson pleaded guilty, and is awaiting sentencing. She almost ended up in the clink pending sentencing. Here's what the judge said:

Having looked at that video of what you did we seriously considered custody. It is appalling that any human can do such a thing to another animal. It is unthinkable and no excuses can be accepted. But we are going to ask for reports in the community band [? - no clue]. We feel you are desperately in need of help.

Um. Yeah.

If you are among those who can look at a piece of bologna and still eat it, that may change after you read this. As reported by The Columbus Dispatch:

[Ex-deputy] Joseph M. Cantwell, 38, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor health-code violations for giving Joseph Copeland a bologna sandwich that had been rubbed against another prisoner's penis.

What was the evidence that this grade-school prank actually happened?

Cantwell, of Park Point Lane in Lewis Center in Delaware County, and another deputy, Phillip Barnett, photographed the sandwich incident in the Downtown jail. Both were fired by Sheriff Jim Karnes in May.

Photos? Were these guys in a cave when the Abu Ghraib photos were EVERYWHERE? So what was the punishment?

Franklin County Municipal Judge Harland H. Hale fined Cantwell $500 but suspended a 90-day jail sentence, provided that he complete his [5 years of] probation.

What about the sandwich-eater?

Copeland and two other prisoners have sued the county.

Since the Juice has a soft spot for personal injury lawyers, he is really hoping that Mr. Copeland filed this action pro se. You can read more here.

Just how did 2 men in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania avoid the daily maximum withdrawal amount on the ATM at the Delaware County Memorial Hospital? They took the ATM! During visiting hours! Per myfoxfilly.com, it may have had up to $96,000 in it. The security tape above shows most of the heist. Click here to read more.

Not only did this doctor have sex with his patient ... he did so in his office, weekly, and at least one of those times ... her husband was in the waiting room! Per metro.co.uk:

A doctor 'nearly fell off the couch' when a patient told him her husband was in a surgery waiting room outside while they had sex, a disciplinary panel heard.

Dr Michael Rusling indulged in regular sex sessions with the grandmother, the General Medical Council heard. Known as Patient A, the grandmother enjoyed weekly liaisons with him in a seven-month affair at the Sydenham House Group Practice in Hull in 2006-07.

Dr Rusling, of Beverley in East Yorkshire, admits inappropriate conduct and an abuse of power but denies his fitness to practise is impaired. The hearing continues.

Dude. You really don't think your fitness to practice is impaired? One has to question the judgment of a doctor who doesn't question his judgment under these circumstances.

Up his ass! And other places in the vicinity... Although the Juice does not *** expletives, fox12idaho does. Here's a portion of the transcript of a Boise, Idaho man's arrest:

Officer #3: Do you feel this?

Complainant: Yes, sir.

Officer #3: Do you feel that? That's my -

Complainant: okay

Officer #3: Taser up your a**.

Complainant: Okay

Officer #3: So don't move.

Complainant: I'm trying not to. I can't breathe.

Officer #3: Now do you feel this in your balls?

His cajones too?

Complainant: I do, sir. I'm not going to move. I'm not gonna move.

Officer #3: Now I'm gonna tase your balls if you move again.

A minute later, this exchange occurred:

Officer #3: Okay, I'm gonna take this taser out of your a**hole now. Are you going to fight with me?

Complainant: No, not at all, sir.

That there's some mighty fine police work ... The "Complainant" complained and

Last week an ombudsman reported the police officers did use excessive force. That ruling came about because of that second round of tape we played you in which the officer threatened to taser the man's genitalia, and did taser his buttocks.

And yes, the guy is filing suit against Boise. Wouldn't you? (The other side: "The Police were initially called to the man's house in response to a domestic dispute. They say the man pushed against the door to keep them out, and also yelled profanity.") Here's the source.

An interesting question, and not an academic one, for identical twins Gavin and Rhys Higgins, and for the alleged victim, Darryl Churchill. Per the Daily Mail:

Darryl Churchill had claimed that one of the twins set upon him after a dispute over a game of pool which he had refereed.

He told the court he was 'punched and kicked' and needed an operation to fix his nose after the alleged attack, but could not tell which brother was responsible because they look so alike.

And this went to trial why? Was the Cardiff Crown Court Judge supposed to flip a coin? Shockingly, the Higgins brothers ...

... walked free today after a jury took less than a hour to acquit them over [the] rugby club altercation.

The jubilant pair were found not guilty of one charge each of assault causing actual bodily harm at a birthday party at their local rugby club.

What did the brothers have to say after the verdict?

Gavin said: 'Me and my brother always seem to get dragged into trouble because we look alike. People are always mixing us up.

Um, okay. So that would mean one of you gets into trouble, and you both get "dragged" into it because it's uncertain which one of you caused the trouble? Hmmm. That sounds familiar ... Here's the source, with photos of the brothers.