Legal Juice

Sometimes looks can deceive. This is one of those times! As reported at mmafighting.com:

Strawweight fighter Monique Bastos was on the way for her jiu-jitsu training with two friends in Acailandia, Brazil, on Tuesday night, when two men attacked her. They wanted their phones, but they had no idea Bastos was an MMA fighter.

“I was going to my jiu-jitsu training when they arrived on a motorcycle and said they wanted our phones,” Bastos told MMAFighting.com. “I tried to hold my phone, and I realized they were not armed. When they tried to escape, I lifted the rear wheel of the bike and they fell on the ground. The guy who took my phone ran away, but I was able to get the other one.”

If you believe the ends justify the means, stop now. If you think that rules matter – “rules” like the 4th Amendment – read on.

Regardless of your opinion on DUI checkpoints (Where is the probable cause to stop someone when they are just driving down the road, minding their own business?), it’s the law of the land per the Supreme Court. Anyway, in this particular case, they did catch an allegedly drunk driver, but in a most unusual way. As reported by The Belleville News-Democrat:

The village of Caseyville lost a police cruiser in the line of duty Monday when an alleged intoxicated driver crashed into it at a sobriety checkpoint.

In Germany, wasting 1,200 bottles of beer has got to be a felony. Why would anyone do that? You won’t guess, so I’ll tell you, via nbcnews.com:

Thieves who broke into a shop in Muelheim, Germany, opened 1,200 bottles of Koenig Pilsener beer — but left the otherwise untouched containers stacked neatly in their crates and the amber brew inside to spoil.

Investigators were initially surprised to find that all of the opened bottles were of the same brand.

Yes, the current wife almost certainly would have found out anyway. But the new “wife” sure made it easy, thanks to Facebook. As reported by The Capital Journal (Pierre, South Dakota):

To save his months-old marriage, Brian Wright must, a judge said Tuesday, end it and then divorce the wife he married earlier so he can legally re-marry the woman he married in May, who accompanied him to court and watched him plead guilty to bigamy.

She left holding his hand.

Even the best phone scams succeed just a fraction of the time, but that provides a good living for too many people.  What about a scam that has virtually no chance of succeeding? Here’s just such a scam, as reported in The Brooklyn Paper’s Police Blotter:

90th Precinct – Southside–Williamsburg

A manipulative thief tried to get a woman to hand over a large sum of cash by telling her in a phone call to her Keap Street home on May 10 that they had kidnapped her son and were removing his fingers.

So if you get pulled over for a traffic matter, would it ever occur to you that you have a constitutional right not to identify yourself?  Yeah, me either. But this lady? Whoa. You’re not going to believe this. As reported by The Carroll County Times:

Close to a dozen members of a local advocacy group against what they consider to be the misapplication of federal and state law waited outside the Carroll County Detention Center to greet a woman released Tuesday morning who had been arrested after failing to identify herself after a routine traffic stop in June.

During her time at the detention center, the woman continued to refuse to identify herself, claiming it was her Fifth Amendment right.

There are many times when you just say “yes sir” or “yes ma’am” or, and especially “yes, your honor.” And even if you’re not going to be polite, it’s just not a good idea to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, as this gent in New Mexico found out. As reported by krqe.com (Albuquerque, New Mexico):

A man already facing an aggravated assault charge for allegedly attacking a bus driver got himself into even more trouble when he tried to talk tough to a judge Saturday.

So what brought this gent to court?

You’d have to be drunk or stoned to take a cab to a bank robbery and to have it wait for you while you did the deed, right? Right! This gent was drunk!  As reported by The Tallahassee Democrat:

Stanley Geddie arrived by taxicab and was drunk during an attempted heist of a Tallahassee bank Wednesday afternoon, police say.

The 46-year-old was arrested on charges of robbery, petty theft and resisting an officer after demanding $100,000 from a bank manager at the Capital City Bank on Capital Circle Northwest.

Dude, it’s not your money. Was it worth risking your life? Okay, don’t answer that since you look pretty good right now. How good would you have looked with a hole in your head? Seriously, just hand over the money. Even if you get fired, good things will happen! (See yesterday’s Juice post.) Any way, back to the present, as reported by The New Hampshire Union Leader:

Capt. Peter Albert said a person wearing a mask and a hooded sweatshirt — believed to be a man — entered the Gulf gas station at 1 Continental Blvd. shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Albert said a handgun was shown to the store employee.

Forget about the other circumstances surrounding this man’s detention. It must have been obvious to the officers that something was amiss when the man said he was told to leave heaven. As reported by The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, South Carolina):

A 53-year-old Cordova man was taken into custody and transported to the Regional Medical Center just before 3 a.m. Thursday after he was seen running completely naked down Cannon Bridge Road.

The man told a deputy that he had gone to heaven and was hearing people tell him to go back.