Legal Juice

When you gotta go, you gotta go, right? No. No. No. No. No. Especially “no” if your “target” is … the police station! What, you don’t believe The Juice? Do you believe The Detroit Free Press?

… in Royal Oak … at 4:39 p.m. Monday — in broad daylight on a weekday afternoon — [a man] was seen by several witnesses urinating on the side of the Royal Oak police station, according to Lt. Gordon Young. It gets better.

“After urinating, the suspect entered the station in an attempt to file a police report on an undisclosed matter,” Young said today.

But witnesses had quickly informed the police at the front desk, Deputy City Attorney Mark Liss said. The man was issued a citation, and likely will serve no jail time but pay a fine and court costs of $250; the maximum would have been $500 and up to 90 days in jail for public urination, Liss said today.

Wow. Click here for the source.

If you need a reminder of just how different cultures (and their customs and laws) can be, this ought to do it. As reported by The Times of India:

The incident took place in the tribal dominated Masinda village in Debagarh’s Barkote police station area. It houses more than 40 tribal families. Surrounded by thick forests, the village is cut off from main land because of poor communication. The victim, identified as Mani Hanaga (50) became the lone bread earner of the family after her husband Sibio Hanaga became invalid last year.

“She had sown paddy seeds in her filed last month. But in tribal community, sowing seeds is considered a sin for women. It is against their custom. So they warned her and imposed a fine on her as they felt her act could displease the village deity. They asked her to pay Rs.10,000 along with a goat and 10 chickens to appease the village deity,” a social activist from Barkote Surendra Guru said on Thursday.

A deity who is appeased by cash?

Guru, who visited the village after the incident, informed that the village body outcast her whole family after she refused to obey their direction. “When women take part in farming everywhere, why should I be stopped from sowing the seeds?”, she asked.

Meanwhile, the district collector has taken the matter seriously. He has asked officials to look into the matter and submit a report for further action. “The incident has come to my notice and I have asked the local BDO to prepare a report on the issue. I will take action once I receive the report,” Deogarh collector B B Jena said on Thursday.

You go Mr. Jena. Here’s the source.

The Juice is a believer in some old-fashioned notions, like men holding the elevator door open for women. Too bad a fellow in Boston, Mohammed Warsame, is not like-minded. Here’s why, as reported by The Boston Herald:

A Roxbury man was slopped with a plate of pasta, punched, kicked, spit on and beaten with handbags by two women who told investigators they needed to “teach him a lesson” for not holding an elevator door for them, police said.

Holy crap!

When Boston police arrived at 1050 Tremont St. late Saturday night to break up the lift tiff, they said they found noodles dripping off the back of Mohammed Warsame.

Kenyana McQuay, 27, and Waltia Funches, 28, told officers Warsame “was rude to them” because he didn’t hold the elevator door open as they walked into the building, and so “they had to use their fists, their bags and their feet to teach him a lesson.”

Warsame said he threw water bottles at the two women to try and fend them off.

Certainly etiquette sticklers like these ladies would treat the police with respect, right? Wrong.

Police, who described McQuay and Funches as “extremely agitated,” “uncooperative” and “verbally abusive toward officers,” summonsed both women to Roxbury District Court on assault and battery charges.

Here’s the source.

So says Green Tree [Pennsylvania] Council President Mark Sampogna. As reported in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Green Tree officials said they will not pursue any disciplinary action against police Chief Andrew Lisiecki for his conduct while on prostitution detail last month.

In the letter to Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper and the Allegheny County Chiefs of Police Association, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said the Pennsylvania court determined that it is not necessarily inappropriate for police officers to take off their clothes during such investigations.

Media reports and a criminal complaint revealed that the chief allegedly took off his clothes during an undercover investigation during a sting operation on Sept. 9 at the Radisson Green Tree.

Oh the humanity! The poor man had to get naked in bed with a woman! We already know who to blame for this.

“The fact is that the prostitutes are extremely aware of the laws and know precisely how to avoid arrest” [said Mr. Sampogna].

“What is required for an arrest and conviction is an overt act that unfortunately may require the officer to disrobe. As distasteful as this may seem, the judicial system has created these levels of proof,” he said.

What’s distasteful is the imposition of one’s morals on others. (Yes, of course it should be regulated, for everyone’s protection.) But hey, it’s the law. So violate it at your peril. The more relevant law though? The law of supply and demand. Here’s the source.

Everyone – okay almost everyone – knows that Chinese food comes in those little cardboard containers with the little wire handle. So what was Mr. Edward Ridley of Cordele, Georgia thinking when he tried to smuggle some pot to an inmate in Chinese food in a styrofoam container? Needless to say, the guards were suspicious. As reported by the Dothan Eagle (Alabama):

Court records show deputies arrested Edward Ridley, 41, of Cordele, Ga., and charged him Saturday with felony promoting prison contraband. Records show Ridley apparently entered the Pike County Jail with a styrofoam container with Chinese food inside, including rice and shrimp, for inmate Vincent Thomas. A jailer at the facility used a fork to search the food and found a bag of marijuana.

Things went south from there.

If convicted of the class C felony charge, promoting prison contraband, Ridley faces one to 10 years in prison. He was being held in the Pike County Jail on a $7,500 bond.

Doh!

Sure, there have been mistakes made in the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror.” But exactly how Australian customs could make such a colossal mistake is hard to fathom. As reported at news.com.au:

Neil Parry was arrested in June last year at Darwin Airport and charged with trafficking 1.6kg of liquid ecstasy in two bottles of Pantene.

After spending three days in jail last year, and having friends’ homes searched, Mr Parry was granted bail.

There was just one teeny, tiny problem with the case against Mr. Parry.

Customs later admitted the toiletries contained no illegal drugs and all charges against Mr Parry were dropped.

NO DRUGS!

Today, Mr Parry told ABC Radio he had been given $100,000 in compensation for his ordeal and an apology.

Wow, so it worked out well for him after all? Not exactly.

“It is not worth it, no,” Mr Parry said.”I would rather it never happened,” he said.

He said most of the money would go towards his legal expenses.

Here’s the source.