Articles Posted in Best Of

Actually, Maryland resident Erin Alban has a raised middle finger sticking up from her mailbox support. As reported by The Baltimore Sun, her neighbors aren’t real happy about that, or the …

used-car-lot-style pennants [that] run between trees;

plastic reindeer;

smiley faces painted on the driveway;

lampshades tied to bushes, and …

the stuffed animals and signs, some with religious slogans, [that] cover virtually the entire yard, the house and the carport.

So what have the neighbors done?

[They] have complained repeatedly over the past year, leading to visits by police officers, firefighters, elected officials, and representatives from several county agencies. Residents aired their objections recently at a public forum held by County Executive Ken Ulman.

The results?

… inspectors have uncovered no violations of county codes. In a county where many newer neighborhoods follow Columbia’s example of controlling appearances through stringent private covenants, Alban’s yard seems beyond the reach of government regulation.

Squadoosh. Zippy. Nada.

“We don’t do pretty,” said county zoning enforcement chief George Beisser. “What’s one person’s junk is another person’s art.”

I’m with Cato Institute “expert on private property rights” Roger Pilon who suggested that the neighbors should “lighten up.”

I sure didn’t. I was reading through the Idaho Code (couldn’t sleep – and was almost there when I got to the definition of “mayhem”)

Every person who unlawfully and maliciously deprives a human being of a member of his body, or disables, disfigures or renders it useless, or cuts out or disables the tongue, puts out an eye, slits the nose, ear or lip, is guilty of mayhem. (Idaho Code, Section 18-5001)

Now wide awake, I read on:

CANNIBALISM DEFINED — PUNISHMENT. (1) Any person who willfully ingests the flesh or blood of a human being is guilty of cannibalism. (2) It shall be an affirmative defense to a violation of the provisions of this section that the action was taken under extreme life-threatening conditions as the only apparent means of survival. (3) Cannibalism is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding fourteen (14) years. (Idaho Code, Section 18-5003).

So, if you’re ever in Idaho, (1) watch your back, because someone can legally eat you if the cupboard is bare, (2) don’t drink anything red, and (3) if you’re not sure what it is, don’t eat it!

If your dog is looking over your shoulder, be warned that this story may really disturb her. Hell, it really disturbs me. As reported by Kansas station KAKE:

Police make an unusual arrest Tuesday evening. A woman in the 3700 block of E. Clark heard someone break into her garage. When she went to check on the noise, she says she found a man sexually assaulting her four year old female rottweiler.

Police arrested Josh Coman, 20, for aggravated burglary of a home and criminal sodomy. Coman pleaded guilty last year to a similar crime involving a dog in Reno County. Police say the state’s new Magnum’s Law, designed to protect animals from abuse, does not cover sexual assaults. However, state law prohibits sexual contact between humans and animals.

People often ask how I find the stories for Legal Juice. I found this one on the back page of the “A” section of yesterday’s Washington Post. I was skimming a full-page ad for a new allergy drug called “Xyzal.” Ignore, if you can, the idiotic name “Xyzal.” In the not-so-fine print, I read the following:

Do not take Xyzal if you are allergic to Xyzal …

I had to read it again, and again, because it was SO STUPID. I’m trying to think of an equally stupid analogy, but … my … head … is … about … to … explode …

But there’s more. The “don’t operate heavy machinery while taking this drug” warning is very common. But what about driving your car?

“Patients taking Xyzal should avoid operating machinery or driving a motor vehicle.”

You can’t take this allergy drug and safely drive a car? Doesn’t this eliminate MOST PEOPLE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD? And just to be sure it wasn’t a misprint, I checked the company’s website, and found the same warning! Brilliant!

As reported in The Huffington Post, Patrick Syring, a former State Department foreign service officer, really, really dislikes Arabs and the Arab American Institute. (He’s been indicted for threatening the staff at the Arab American Institute.) Here are a few voice-mails and e-mails:

[Voice mail to the Institute:] Hello, I’m Patrick I’m in Arlington VA, and I think James Zogby is worse than Osama bin Laden. Since he supports Hezballah, he’s an anti-Semitic motherfucker, and the only good Arab is a dead Arab.

[Voice mail to an Institute employee:] Hello Valerie, you fucking Arab American shit. James Zogby and you are all Hezballah supporters. The only good Arab is a dead Arab… You God [inaudible] bitch.

[E-mail to two Institute employees; all e-mails sent to work addresses:] Zogby’s anti-Semitic, anti-American statements (and those of the AAI in general) are abhorrent, repulsive and disgusting. The only good Lebanese is a dead Lebanese (as the IDF knows and is carrying out in its security operations, God bless them.) Fuck the Arabs and Fuck James Zogby and his wicked Hizbollah brothers. They will burn in hellfire on this earth and in the hereafter.

Oh, and there’s plenty more here.

P.S. What happened to Mr. Syring? He pleaded guilty to federal civil rights violations. You can read more here.

Englishman Elliot Carnell caught one hell of a break. After drinking 15 pints of beer at a Christmas party, Carnell punched his ex-wife’s Sri Lankan boyfriend in the head – 6 times! Oh, and he hit his ex-wife and her daughter when they tried to stop him. Carnell copped to the racially aggravated assault, and was sentenced to 150 hours community service and alcohol counseling. But wait …

As if that sentence wasn’t light enough, it gets worse. When Carnell showed up to begin his community service (picking up litter), he was ordered to stop! Why? Because he’s a truck driver, and officials were concerned that, with the additional work [the community service], he would exceed the maximum of 48 hours per week for a truck driver! And he might be tired and get in an accident. Said Mr. Carnell:

I was a bit bewildered by what happened but I’m happy. I was willing to do the punishment.

Said Ms. Carnell:

I’m really upset. It’s not right. Now he’s free to go to the pub drinking with his friends and causing trouble. He should have gone to jail. It’s not a strong enough punishment. He must be laughing.

Probably. And this is not Mr. Carnell’s first racially related assault. His prior conviction was for popping a German dude wearing an England football shirt. You can read more (just a bit) in the Daily Mail article.

In this post-9/11 world, we ask a lot of airport security personnel – they are, after all, our first line of defense against airborne terrorist attacks. We expect them to be vigilant watchdogs, keeping their eyes and ears open for signs of anything unusual in our nation’s airports.

But this is ridiculous.

Ms. Renee Koutsouradis had boarded her flight from Las Vegas to Tampa, and was waiting for the plane to leave the gate, when she was summoned to the front by flight attendants. She was escorted off the plane and down onto the tarmac, where she was informed that “something was vibrating” in her bag (guess what it was). The court explains what happened next:

On the tarmac, in the presence of three Delta male employees, and apparently in view of some of the other passengers still seated on the plane, the gate agent asked Koutsouradis to open her bag and take the batteries out of the vibrator. Koutsouradis alleges that, at this time, one of the Delta male employees . . . made sexually explicit statements toward her, causing the other men to laugh. She claims [he] licked his lips and said “What do [you] need that for?”, “Doesn’t your husband satisfy you?”, and “Come on Baby, let me satisfy you.”

Surprisingly, this smooth-talking luggage-handling lothario failed to win the heart of our heroine. In fact, she found his comments inappropriate and offensive. And so – this is a legal blog, after all – she sued the airline for infliction of emotional distress (among other things), claiming that its boorish bagman had caused her to suffer “panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Why me?” the 64-year New York homeowner had to be thinking after burglar Luis Hidalgo broke into his home and bit his ear off! So badly that it couldn’t be reattached! And Hidalgo punched and kicked the homeowner, and whacked him in the head with a karaoke machine. Okay, so why this house? Mr. policeman?

“This guy just randomly picked this house,” said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a police spokesman. “There were no proceeds and there’s no connection between the victim and the subject. Obviously, his behavior was such that there may have been some drug involvement.”

Ya think?

If he wanted to kill himself before, just imagine how he must feel now. Joe Clapper of Lincoln, Nebraska shot himself in the head, with his girlfriend in the room. He must have wanted to send her some kind of message, doing it with her right there in the room. Well he did, with a bullet. When Mr. Clapper shot himself in the head, the bullet ricocheted off his skull and hit his girlfriend in the chest!

Mr. Clapper pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to one year in jail. The Judge also ordered him to pay $18,862.72 in restitution for his girlfriend’s medical bills. Clapper’s lawyer argued that, because of a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case, the amount of the award had to be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Clapper won! at the appellate level. The Nebraska Supreme court said otherwise, ruling 6-1 that a criminal defendant has no right to a jury trial on the amount of restitution.