Betimes it came to pass that Morton Thiokol Managers did lawyereth and lobbyeth their Engineers mightily. This did they say unto their Engineers. If thou canst not prove that thy rings-of-O shall fail, thou must then giveth thy blessing to the Launch that it may proceed. Verily, the Engineers, not able to giveth such proof, did giveth instead their blessing. Even though it sateth not well among them. And lo, it did come to pass that their Space Shuttle did climbeth partway unto Heaven. And then did falleth all the way back down. And then some. Then did the Engineers beat their breasts and give up a great wailing unto the Heavens. For those lives they had lost without need. When their Space Shuttle did falleth from the sky. Deep into the bottomless Sea. For they had been Fools, lawyereth by Fools. Verily, Verily, I say unto thee. Thou canst and mayest and shall not lawyereth the Natural Law which was made by God. In the mere Appearance of that which seemeth Good to thee. For then thy Dams shall they fail, and thy Bridges and thy Buildings shall they fall. And those that dependeth upon thee shall they die. And thus, in the peril of thy Soul, thou wilt gnash thy teeth and cry great tears of sorrow unto the Heavens. For thou art and shalt be known a Fool.
Extract from the draft of an appeal to the Tenth Circuit
41. Considering that people with mental illnesses have long been treated with fear and loathing out of all rational proportion to their actual and minimal threat, even before the Salem witch trials, the Plaintiff intends to challenge the entire manner how people with mental illnesses have been treated within and without the law, legally and extra-legally. Despite over 30 years of medical and legal research to the contrary, our legal system has based its treatment of people with mental illnesses on the presumed basis of a higher level of “dangerousness”, pretending that this is not the same as a presumption of guilt, even though the consequences to and deprivations of civil liberties are much the same. Even though the rate of violence among people with mental illness is only slightly higher than the general population, limited mostly to those with a prior history of violence and substance abuse, and even though research has shown 30 years ago that clinical prediction of violent behavior is less accurate than one in two, more often like one in three, our legal system has allowed such “expert testimony” to destroy the civil liberties of any person with any mental illness, no matter the lack of any significant history of violence, both temporarily and permanently.
42. See “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior”, John Monahan, circa 1979-1980, National Institute of Mental Health and Jason Aronson, Inc., 134 p (amazon.com). See “Psychiatric Disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the New Workplace Violence Account”, Vicki A. Laden and Gregory Schwartz, Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, Vol 21(246-270), circa 2000, available on the Internet. See The MacArthur Foundation Risk Assessment Study, circa 2001-2005, on the Internet. See Chapter 5, Psychiatric Disabilities and the ADA, of “Sharing the Dream: Is the ADA Accommodating All?”, a report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights which was product of a two-day hearing conducted by the Commission on November 12–13, 1998, was available at http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/ada/ch5.htm). See “Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit” by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, circa 1996 (amazon.com).
If nothing else, these sources will demonstrate that the only consistently and truly violent people with mental illnesses are those that have already been violent, especially those who abuse drink and drugs.
43. For example, in ADDINGTON V. TEXAS, 441 U. S. 418 (1979) the High Court stated, “The reasonable doubt standard is inappropriate in civil commitment proceedings because, given the uncertainties of psychiatric diagnosis, it may impose a burden the state cannot meet, and thereby erect an unreasonable barrier to needed medical treatment. The state should not be required to employ a standard of proof that may completely undercut its efforts to further the legitimate interests of both the state and the patient that are served by civil commitments.” It did so without consideration of the 228 references, from 1922 to 1980, cited by Monahan in “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior”. And without consideration Prof. Monahan’s finding of the terrible inaccuracy of such predictions, that would wrongly condemn as many as two out of every three persons found “guilty” of the likelihood of future violence due to mental illness, by the use of the standard of “clear and convincing evidence” in actual psychiatric practice. It may not be quite as bad as throwing an alleged and tied up witch into a pond to see if the water rejects her, but if this Court of Appeals cannot reconsider such matters at its level, it may at least pass them on to the Supreme Court.
44. There is also the matter of who actually needs and benefits from the “treatment”, the captive, involuntary patients, or the doctors and facilities who find it necessary for their continued profit and employment. The High Court has not adequately addressed the matter of how many and badly innocent people are damaged by these presumptions, processes and “treatments”. This, despite many cases and decades of scandal, abuse and outright abduction of vulnerable people for profit.
45. Even though some mental illnesses cannot often be reliably distinguished from traumatic brain injury (http://www.npr.org/2012/02/20/147058173/army-moves-to-act-fast-on-battlefield-brain-injuries; Note: Oklahoma Mental Health Code, OSC Title 43A, specifically excludes the effects of traumatic brain injury from considerations for involuntary commitment.), our legal system has treated people with mental illness to a double standard: lower standards of evidence and higher standards of scrutiny than even for murderers, gang-bangers, drug dealers and child molesters. Where it is said in criminal law that ten guilty men should go free lest one innocent man be convicted, the practice in mental health law effectively commits two innocent people to get the third, on the basis of what they are thinking and are suspected of being capable of doing in the future. Or because they have few advocates, and those involved in their “treatment” are often frightened of lawsuits after future violence. Even the Supreme Court has indicated that it is permissible to coerce people with mental illnesses into incriminating themselves without counsel, despite the fact that many innocent people in serious criminal investigations do the same thing, without the extra trauma and stress to which people with mental illnesses are subject and vulnerable.
46. Our legal system has long treated mental illness as if it was all one thing, like a surgeon performing the same radical excision on every cancer from benign prostate tumors to raging incurable melanoma. Despite all scandals and forcible commitments for insurance scams, it has pretended that “treatment” is not the same as punishment. Even when that “treatment” is no better than Harry Potter being locked under his relatives’ stairs, or similar to micro-management by an evil mother-in-law. Such double standards, depicting people with mental illnesses as those who don’t deserve the same legal rights and protections as others, have encouraged such agencies as the Tulsa Police Department to refrain from full and fair investigations, in order to achieve an arrest, and jurists such as Tulsa City and County Mental Health Court Judge Theresa Dreiling, in concert with the mental health section of the Public Defender’s Office, the District Attorney and such facilities as the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health, to short-circuit the due process protections of even a prejudiced Mental Health Code to achieve and maintain a commitment.
47. These issues, as was the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, need to be reviewed at all levels up to the Highest Court.
What can you say for the Assistant District Attorney and her friend, the senior-hating, habitually lying landlady? They can write their names in the snow, and then punctuate them from across the courtroom.
*******
Anyone can have a “reasonable fear” of some thing or person. Self-righteous bigots do it all the time. In the 1980’s there were medical professionals in Springdale, Arkansas who presumably had a reasonable fear that giving someone narcotics for pain would get them hooked, and corrupt not only their morals, but those of the community. That’s likely why they made my Aunt Lucy die of excruciating ovarian cancer without painkillers, and maybe even a man in our church back around the ‘60s with bone cancer just as painful. It was their standard of care. Those people with titles before and letters after their names, just like the professionals the State of Oklahoma grants the right to decide who needs to be locked up, “for their own good”, in the same mental institutions that employ those professionals.
After all, “reasonable fear” is why many people if not most agree that no one with a mental illness should have a gun. As if mental illnesses are somehow all cause the same disabilities. As if no one can ever live with mental illness and not have any moral discipline about how it affects their actions. Like soldiers coming back from a war with PTSD. As if all the violent, paranoid, raging bullies who have never been formally diagnosed with a mental illness are somehow more safe and trustworthy. As if it is not easy and reliable to tell who is likely to commit future violence from their history of past violence.
Speaking as someone who grew up in a military family and went to grade school across the fence from Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese aircraft cannon shell pockmarks were still fresh after 12 years, I intend to challenge the Constitutionality of the Federal law, if I can, that says that anyone who has ever been committed to a mental facility, at any time for any reason, may never own firearms or ammunition again. No matter what the mental illness or its severity and effects; no matter the length of stay; no matter the falsehood of the accusations or diagnosis used against that person. As if mental institutions have not had a history for hundreds of years of abuse and scandal, including outright abducting people off the street for insurance profit in the U.S. as late as the 1990s, even children. As if anyone now can truly understand the human mind. As if the standards and methods of diagnosing it are based upon reliable physical tests, and not shot full of holes.
Those people that create a separate law and legal system, with lesser standards of evidence and proof for those with mental illnesses, make those they fear in their ignorance and intolerance into second-class citizens, creating a double standard of stupidity. It only forces people to hide their difficulties and leave them untreated. Until naivety or desperation impels them to take a chance on being labeled as forever unfit to have normal human reactions and emotions, much less allowed defend themselves against criminal attack, even another attack like one that may have started their difficulties. Leaving them with even lower social acceptance than the felons who would attack them.
Because I like irony, I just hope I get to do it while President Obama is still in office. Remember that his Administration has already tried to claim that all Veterans coming back from the Middle-East are mentally ill and should be banned from owning firearms. A political shot below the belt in my opinion, against those who are mostly Republicans. He will almost certainly have to send his Solicitor General to the Supreme Court to argue that there really is a minority that is so justly feared that its members cannot be allowed to defend themselves. And my response would be:
Oh, you mean like the Kluxers and Massas before them feared that people just like Mr. Obama would rise up and murder them in their beds, and called those people “crazy N-words”?
Which brings to mind a justifiable response to the question that most psychiatrists ask at the start of almost every session, “Are you thinking of hurting yourself or anyone else?”
“Oh, no, Massa – Ah never thinks of white women at all!”
Sunday, February 26th, Nelson Mandela appeared on NPR to talk about his life, including his experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa after Aparthied. It occurs to me that we could use some of that in our court system. But lawyer-authors like John Grisham tell us that lawyers are almost if not proud that truth and justice are the first casualties in a trial. We are told that the object of a trial is not to find the truth, but to convince the jury by whatever means possible, while preserving the appearance of justice, so that the general public will be deceived into having faith in our justice system.
So in our adversarial (or confrontational) system of justice, the job of a lawyer is then to deny and distract from the truth at all costs. If for example, you say you have a disability and present doctor and hospital x-rays, CAT scans and MRIs of necrotic (dying) bone that looks like Swiss cheese, the opposing lawyer (in one case a U.S. Attorney, yet) will deny over and over again that this proves anything. And the Judge will let that lawyer go on like that for some time, without saying whether or not it is sufficient proof. If the local loony bin got a hold of you and you insisted on making those kinds of denial, in the face of that kind of evidence, you would likely get forced medication and a much longer stay, just for “losing touch” with reality.
We are also told, even if we can’t find a lawyer to stand with us, that we should speak to the court in legalese (whether we understand it or not) and not present to the court any “personal” information. Hold on a second. Isn’t that like saying that you can tell the court someone pushed you down the stairs, but not how much it hurt and terrified you to be ejected from your wheelchair. Or that the terror was so much the worse because someone had put you in that wheelchair by pushing you down some stairs before. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like an admission by the courts and legal community that injecting any amount of humanity into their process would corrupt their idea of justice.
Then there’s the practice of massive off-topic citations. If you file a suit and you are not a lawyer, the opposing lawyer is sure to demand that the case be dismissed, on grounds referring to a dozen or more citations of law and case law, that may be perfectly true but don’t honestly address your complaint. On the hope, of course, that you will utterly confused and intimidated by his or her superior expertise. For example, if you are suing a government official for violations of your civil rights under the color of law (42 U.S.C. Section 1983), the government’s lawyer will make a claim that government officials have “absolute immunity”. Namely, that no government official can be sued in the good-faith performance of that official’s duties. Which is perfectly true in that situation, but utterly irrelevant when that official does something stupid or corrupt that denies you the due process of law. Not to mention the fact that it is tough going for a layman to wade through all that legalese, and the Judge will not help by exposing the deception.
So in other words, it’s your fault if you present personal information in your arguments, but a lawyer is perfectly free to throw in all the garbage he or she can think of, so long as the lawyer puts it into “legalese”.
Then they go into an offended huff if we look at them like they’re crazy.
The MacArthur Study on the risk assessment of violence among people with mental illnesses
One should read this study (done over time in the 2000s, and freely available on the Internet) to understand the harm done to people with mental illnesses by a bias in society against them so deep, irrational and pervasive that it has even been enshrined into law. Otherwise, it might be too easy to dismiss a complaint by a person with a mental illness unexamined. As did Judge Kern, who was presented with copies of this study, repeatedly.
In short, this study finds that the risk of violence covers a wide range, with predictable extremes and a very large middle range where no prediction can be statistically accurate. One can compare it to predictions of which people who drink will commit violence under the influence, or maim and/or kill in drunk driving incidents. One can easily predict that teetotalers won’t, and that severe alcoholics, especially those with previous convictions, arrests, wrecks and damages to others, will. In between, the vast majority of social drinkers cannot be predicted with any reliability to become drunk drivers who cause injury and death. In other words, it's easy to characterize the tails of a bell curve and use them to tar all the rest. Like Rush Limbaugh with "sluts".
Now imagine a society of Christian and other Fundamentalists, where drinking alcohol is so feared and loathed that any who drink at any level are subject to lower standards of evidence, proof and justice - "For the protection of society". Where anyone who is merely accused of thinking about drinking and driving can be locked up. Where, in consideration of society's interest in public safety, it's not too much of an imposition on civil liberties to lock up any person so accused, until that person can prove to "expert examiners", known in the past as inquisitors, that he or she is not a danger to others. One might guess that a member of the Court might not like that shoe on his or her foot. If so, then living among the Taliban or Iranians or Saudis might not be advisable. They seem to be a bit prejudiced that way.
Or one might imagine a society where women who read trashy romantic novels might be locked up, just to satisfy the mullahs and rushlimbites, who fear “the corruption of our precious young!” Until those women can prove they are in no danger of becoming prostitutes and pole dancers. As some church lady might say, “You know Those People read that kind of trash!” One understands from the newspaper that even Judge Dreiling might be a tad inconvenienced by that standard of justice. A lot of people wouldn’t like those shoes on their feet, but find it perfectly acceptable to bind the feet of those less able to fight back.
It must feel very satisfying to have such an impact on “improving” society.
This wide range of inaccurate prediction has been shown by Monahan in “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior” to cause the wrongful confinement of as many as 2 out of every 3 people judged by “expert opinion” to be dangerous (pp 44-47 re: Baxstrom v Herold, SCOTUS, 1966). See also FOUCHA v. LOUISIANA, 504 U.S. 71 (1992) regarding proof beyond a reasonable doubt at, “Its effect is at once both symbolic and practical, as a statement of values about respect and confidence in the criminal law”. On page 35, Monahan cites an example showing that even if the test for a marginal danger is 95% accurate, then 54 people will be incarcerated for every dangerous person set free. So much the worse at 33%. Thus, a rational examination of current judicial practices and standards of law for mental health shows that they have no credibility and deserve no respect or confidence. The fact that society and some Judges may not wish to know that their fear and loathing of people with mental illnesses has espoused and caused such a horrible result, does not make such bigotry and injustice any less monstrous or grievous.
We have a medical and legal name for serial monsters with a clear conscience – sociopaths.
Hate crimes against disability, even mental illness
Just thinking out loud here. What would constitute a Federal hate or civil rights crime against someone with a mental illness? Let’s look at some of the laws described on the FBI web site as “Federal Civil Rights Statutes”. Some require force or violence, others just conspiracy or intimidation. Which ones might apply to forcing into a detaining a person with mental illness in a mental institution under false pretenses?
Title 18, U.S.C. Section 241 – Conspiracy against rights “This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”
So, if a person with a mental illness engaged in free speech, even sharp and painful satire regarding some social condition, it might be a Federal crime to lie about the content of that speech, alleging a non-existent, non-spoken threat, so as to get that person committed to a mental institution. One might argue that it is a Federal crime to harass a resident in Federally-subsidized housing with legal service and eviction notices, based upon false testimony about free speech. Or, that it is a Federal crime for local authorities to fail to fully and impartially investigate false allegations leading to arrest and incarceration, merely because they are made against someone with a disability, even mental illness. Or a Federal crime to deprive such a person of due process, and arrange things such that the only sworn “witnesses”, “mental health evaluators”, and petitioners allowed came from the facility benefiting from the commitment. Or a Federal crime to fake evidence of outside medical history so as to justify a commitment and deprivation of civil rights.
There is no qualification here allowing Government officials at the local, state or federal level to hide behind “sovereign immunity” or “good faith performance of duties” if those officials in any way distorted facts or due process in order to achieve a commitment to a mental institution. Or, as the Oklahoma mental health code puts it, through “negligence or deficient professional skill”.
Title 18, U.S.C. Section 242 – Deprivation of rights under the color of law “This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.” … “Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.”
One can argue that this would make the unjust commitment to a mental institution a separate Federal crime, including such acts as false testimony and mental health evaluations to achieve that commitment. Again, there is no qualification here exempting even Federal Judges. One can even argue that 241 and 242 make illegal the Supreme Court’s 1979 decision allowing civil commitment on the basis of “clear and convincing evidence”, merely because it was just too hard for psychiatrists to distinguish between the few people who could be accurately predicted to commit violence and the rest of the bell curve. Not to mention any Federal Judge who would throw a case because one side had mental illness and was outspoken about it, while the other appeared to be “normal”.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 245 – Federally Protected Activities This act prohibits the use of force or threat of force to discourage participation in a number of Federally protected activities and benefits. The definition of force here is not clear to me. Whether to not it includes misused of the courts, which are covered above.
Title 42, U.S.C., Section 3631 – Criminal Interference with Right to Fair Housing This act also refers to the use of force or threat of force in getting a place to live, and specifically mentions “handicap” as a basis for the crime.
So where are the lawyers, FBI and U.S. Department of Justice when all this is going on? Hiding in the woodwork, perhaps. Because, why waste time and energy on people few care about, when doing the right thing would go against the current norms of societal prejudice, and even upset some Federal Judges. Better that hundreds and thousands should be unjustly incarcerated than for such heroes to face that kind of music.
Well, Mizz Mental Facility Psychiatric Counselor, if they ever bring back witchburnin, which side a the fire you gonna be on? *****
You’re right – your God knows better than to like anyone you despise. Especially if He knows what’s good for Him. You can just go start Your own Church. *****
How is a court of law like a basketball court? The team with the best-paid players most often wins. *****
How is a court of law not like a basketball court? So long as the one side doesn’t know enough to object, the other side can commit all the fouls they want – in full view of the Ref. *****
In legal terms, Pro Se usually means that you have to represent yourself because you can’t afford a lawyer. Of which the lawyers like to say that you have a fool for a client. May be. Sure enough, if you step over some invisible line that only they and the Judges can see, you might get your case thrown out of court. But knowing where those invisible lines are, they get to be as outrageous and obnoxious as they please. And proud of it. *****
If you are representing yourself in court, Pro Se, and a lawyer from the other side compliments you on knowing all about the law, don’t agree or say nothing. It’s a trap where somewhere down the line, the lawyer will pick out some aspect of law that you didn’t know or weren’t clear about, and claim that you should lose because you knew better.
So instead stick your hand out and say, “Counselor, I would be honored to defend you against the death penalty! And I gaa-rone-tee you that by the end of the trial, you will get the all verdict you deserve! Now, that’ll be 500 dollars an hour. Up front.” *****
If the Judge accuses you of mocking the court, gaze around at the ceiling and walls and say, “Wow, they’re a tough audience, aren’t they?” *****
If he had recused himself because the gunman had shot some of us seniors who live on fixed incomes, and get into disputes with potential contributors to his campaigns, it wouldn’t have been about a conflict of interest. It would have been professional courtesy.
If I read this correctly, that bill leaves something out - fingerprints for the employees of non-nursing government-supported senior and disabled housing. If you look at the HUD requirements, for example, all of the residents have to have at least background checks. But not, when I last looked, the management or staff or contractors.
Many people in that kind of housing are every bit as vulnerable to abuse as those in nursing homes. Not a few have used such housing for hospice. It is not that hard to cause an elder on oxygen or with a heart condition to die from stress if abused. Partly as a result of lax oversight of that housing, drug theft is rampant, especially of prescription narcotics.
If employees and contractors of semi-private and public housing had to be fingerprinted and checked out, maybe even the Tulsa Police Department, which has claimed to be uninterested in senior deaths unless beaten and bloody, would start to take notice.
I don't believe that corporations are people, either. But issue-oriented organizations, of whatever stripe or wing, supported by millions of small contributors, give those contributors a bigger voice in the political process than they would otherwise have. It allows them to compete on a level playing field with much larger entities. These entities, like corporations, labor unions and national news and entertainment media interests, already exist and operate on the money of those smaller contributors, through profits or compulsory dues or advertising dollars from profits.
The left wing shot itself in the foot. Just because it didn't like the politics of some of the small contributor organizations, it lumped politics by free speech and contribution in with politics by leverage of unaccountable profits, This justifiably outraged those smaller contributors who wanted a voice as well. Contributors who wrote to their Congressional representatives about it.
Anyone who wants campaign reform should try it while supporting free political expression by ordinary people who would band and raise their voices together under the First Amendment. No matter what their cause.
At 3 PM today, April 1, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court released its 8-1 decision in the Oklahoma v. Mario Brothers case. Citing its 1979 Addington v. Texas case, it extended its conviction standard of “clear and convincing evidence” to anyone with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man. Since no one can tell whether or not someone with an Italian surname is or is not a Mob hit man, if anyone feels “a reasonable threat” when a person with an Italian surname says, “Badda-bing badda-boom”, then the person with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man can be civilly incarcerated until the person with an Italian surname can prove that he or she is no longer a danger to society.
NPR legal correspondent, Ninny Totalbarge, explained it this way. “It’s just like gun control. It’s worth it if it can save just one life!” The lone dissenter on the High Court, Justice David Sutler, voted against the decision to protest the alleged threatening language. According to Justice Sutler, “Saying badda-bing-badda is sufficient to constitute a reasonable threat. There is no need to utter the redundant ‘boom’.”
Since the standard of reasonable threat is based Oklahoma mental health law, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health will take custody of any person with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man. Ms. Lee Rachett, the Director of a facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma said, “We’re ready for them. We’re opening a new facility out in the stockyards for housing mental patients, or as we like to call them, consumers. This will open up our more secure facilities in town for suspected Mob hit men.”
The local District Attorney, Harvey Bent, swore, “We’ll keep them there, too. Enough of this namby-pamby “clear and convincing evidence” tripe. All we need is a preponderance of the evidence. If anyone even heard anyone else say a person with an Italian surname said even a little badda, that’s good enough for us! I’ve got a two-headed quarter that proves it.”
Trayvon Martin’s death was tragic and unnecessary.
Florida State Legislator Dennis Baxley, Representative of the 24th District, a prime author of Florida’s “stand your ground law”, perhaps said it best in an open statement published by Fox News March 21, 2012, and carried on this anti-bullying site: http://bullybuzz.org/2012/03/21/trayvon-martins-attacker-covered-stand-ground-law/ Neither “Stand your ground” nor the Castle Doctrine were meant to cover people who aggressively pursue and confront others. It was meant for those who suddenly face criminal threats and need to defend themselves, without having to second-guess whether or not they will be persecuted or prosecuted for doing so. It’s not the fault of the law, as some would have it, but as the Representaive said, the interpretation of the law. It can be summed up in one sentence:
Stand your ground doesn’t mean chase ‘em down.
The only possible exception to that I can see is in a case of abduction, especially of a child. Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, was instructed by Police not to follow Martin, and ignored the advice. It should be a warning to anyone who wants to be El Zorro. Even if Zimmerman is prosecuted and gets acquitted, he still faces civil suits brought by the Federal government as well as Martin’s family. He can be charged or sued under hate crime laws listed on the FBI’s civil web page on Federal statues covering civil rights: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/federal-statutes
Martin’s family can bring a civil suit against him under 42 U.S.C. 1983. See http://www.constitution.org/brief/forsythe_42-1983.htm http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983 http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/42C21.txt
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, … subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, …”
One might argue that under the color of the stand your ground law, Zimmerman deprived Martin of the civil right to walk a public street peaceably, unarmed and unmolested. Anyone who feels they are being stalked has the right to turn around and ask why someone is following them. If Zimmerman had not been so suspicious and aggressive, he could simply have approached Martin peacefully, told him that he was a neighborhood watch captain, and politely asked if he could do anything to help Martin, perhaps even walk him home. If Martin had actually been a criminal and attacked Zimmerman, then the stand your ground law would likely have applied. But as a practical matter, Zimmerman would still have been under a cloud, unless he took the trouble to record the confrontation on audio or video tape.
At the very least, if Zimmerman was determined to follow and observe Martin, he should have done so from a distance and never approached him. He would then have seen Martin enter a home through the front door, and would have had no further cause of action, other than to report his observations to the police, if that.
These are my own opinions, not professional legal advice. Anyone who would carry a gun for self defense would be well-advised to read an authoritative book on it, like Massad F. Ayoob’s “In Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection”. It seems unlikely that Zimmerman bothered to do so.
Question for Woodward and Bernstein, please to: mona-chamberlin@utulsa.edu
Ma'am,
I've been ill and don't think I can drive this evening, but I have a question for Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein.
Recently, information has been coming out about the Obama Administration's "Fast and Furious" gun-running operation, strongly suggesting that a U.S. District Attorney and gun control advocate in Arizona set it up to create the impression that American guns fuel the Mexican drug wars. Gun dealers in border states were apparently pressured by the BATF to let suspicious purchases happen, and gun-runners to Mexico may even have been funded by the U.S. Government. Neither Mexican nor American law enforcement authorities stationed there were informed of the operation. As a result, untold numbers of Mexicans have died, and one U.S. Border Patrol Agent was murdered with one of the "Fast and Furious" guns. We don't know yet just how far up in the Obama Administration culpability goes, but the Justice Department under Eric Holder has been stonewalling Congressional inquiry and requests for records, to the point that AG Holder may face a charge of contempt of Congress.
Considering that no one died in the Watergate scandal, or in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, how do you think the Obama administration's "Fast and Furious" gun-running scheme will stack up against them? Will we see as much critical press coverage for it as we did for the Nixon and Clinton scandals? Or does the mainstream news media consider President Obama "too liberal to fail"?
Just be glad that our medical institutions don’t work like our justice system. Otherwise, trying to get a broken bone set by a surgeon would be like getting justice for yourself in court. The surgeon would refuse to set it unless you could tell him where it was broken – precisely. If you couldn’t, he would dismiss your complaint of agonizing pain as frivolous. And if you had words to say about that, and those who broke your bone, who might be his friends or colleagues, he would dismiss your case as frivolous and malicious – with prejudice. A lot more of us would be walking around, if we could, with bent and missing limbs.
Perhaps the Babylonian King Hammurabi, said to be the inventor of written law, should have included in his Code an oath for judges, as Hippocrates’ did for physicians – “First, do no harm.”
There's one fact missing from this article - Dr. Hendrickson's verifiable estimate of just what percentage of the world's oil reserves the U.S. does have. And what would be the "significantly higher" figure of U.S. oil production if President Obama's alleged obstruction had not taken place. Nor is the fact of government subsidy sufficient rationale for saying that a program is no good. We have computers largely because of the government's funding of the defense and space programs back when.
No politician has much actual control over gas prices and the economy. Enough of phony politics. Instead of these inflated, overwrought and illogical attacks, hit the President on things he does control. Like foreign policy, his legislative agenda and vetoes, his duplicity in "support" of the Second Amendment, and the actions of his administration in programs like the BATF "Fast and Furious" scam and scandal.
The standard for committing people with mental illnesses into mental health jails in this State, and perhaps many others, is the confirming opinions of “two licensed professionals” that the person with a mental illness needs treatment. No trial or jury in most cases, just “experts” in deciding whether or not a person will be a danger to himself or others. Apparently in Tulsa County, the idea of a jury trial is kept from the prospective inmate, even by the Public Defender’s Office, just to avoid taking the time and trouble of a jury trial for this kind of person. After all, people with mental illnesses rarely have the energy or focus or resources to dispute the matter, and even vampires come off better in the movies.
Many people are perfectly happy with this arrangement, secure in the knowledge that they are not “that kind of person” and that this will never happen to them. They cannot imagine that they will ever have to face jail on the opinions of two licensed professionals. Or that applying this standard to an unpopular minority is any kind of slippery slope that will some day blow back on them.
But what about terrorism? Most people are more afraid of terrorists even than those with mental illnesses. What if everyone had to face the scrutiny of licensed experts to decide whether or not they could be terrorists, and, like the mentally ill, incarceration until they could prove to those same experts that they are not a danger to themselves (suicide bombers) or society. If you think that’s a good idea, as many in the Republican legislature might during the current silly season, you may not have thought it all the way through.
Oh, Grandma got strip searched at the airport. She fit the profile to a tee. She said something suspicious to the agent. Jus be glad that it weren’t you or me.
Because that’s just what “mental health evaluations” are, profiling. If in the last 200 years, for example, we had weeded out every leader who had a history of major depression, we would have lost Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. We might be doing Nazi salutes and still have slavery.
No one can predict just what someone will do in the future, if anything. Even the recent research into the relationship between mental illness and violent behavior can only produce relative certainties for the extreme violent and non-violent tails of the bell curve. Everything in between is a gray area, where no prediction has any statistical validity. You can only say that people with certain factors, like being abused as children or major depression, are more likely that those that don’t to be violent. But not that they are destined to that fate, and unable to escape or overcome it. As FBI Special Agent John Douglas said near the end of his book, Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, there is no psychological that can predict violence. Only past violence can predict future violence. See also http://www.physorg.com/news152819983.html
Locking people up for what an expert or bigot is afraid or says they might do in the future is not mental health or public safety. It looks, walks and quacks just like a jail for those who are deemed to be undesirable, but cannot be convicted of any crime in a regular court of law. And in the history of Psychiatry, this kind of profiling is less accurate than flipping a coin, condemning as many as two harmless and innocent people to incarceration out of every three who are profiled.
And if you think that this kind of profiling is such a good idea, tell me again why you don’t want to do it to Black Americans. What did you say? It’s immoral, bigoted and wrong? Oh. I’m so glad you cleared that up for me.
Many people if not most are willing to approve or do some morally repugnant or evil thing to some innocent person who never hurt them, in the name of some favorite principle. For example, the Tuskegee Experiment, where poor black men with syphilis in Tuskegee, Alabama, were offered “free health care” but left untreated so the Doctor(s) involved could study the progression of the disease. Then there was the Eugenic Sterilization Law of North Carolina, where poor women, especially blacks, were sterilized after the second birth out of wedlock, as means to restrict the numbers of both welfare babies and black children.
There is our own military’s concept of “acceptable collateral damage” in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. During the war in Viet Nam, a woman where I lived stated that it was good to kill Vietnamese babies because they would just grow up to kill our soldiers. The U.S. Calvary did just that with Native American babies at Wounded Knee. The Irish Sisters of the Magdalene Order enslaved about 30,000 young girls who were raped, illegitimate, orphaned, pregnant out of wedlock, or just simple-minded, in chastisement for their “sins”. The girls’ families often agreed.
The last place I worked in Stillwater, a couple of coworkers would get together and mutter imprecations about homosexuals until the air turned black and blue. I don’t think they could tell the difference between homosexuals and child molesters. There are any number of liberals who want to throw in jail anyone who disagrees with their gun control politics. There are court decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court that left innocent people languishing in jails or on death row because of some technical objection to accepting new evidence and letting them go.
And the list goes on.
What if there was some way to tell if a woman was at a higher than normal risk of birthing a child with either Down’s Syndrome or a child likely to die of SIDS. Now suppose that Oklahoma passes a law stating that this woman can be denounced by her doctor and forced by court order to have her tubes tied until she agrees to abort any unborn child that could be shown to be likely to experience either Down’s or SIDS. In other words, until she proves that she is in no danger of having and raising that kind of child, and thus “inflicting” it on the rest of society. The old Spartans, after all, were said to kill any baby that wasn’t perfect. The White Power skinheads might like it, but I think that most decent people on both the right and the left would agree that such a law would be evil and morally repugnant.
I say that there’s not much moral difference between that kind of law and the Oklahoma Mental Health Code, by which anyone with a mental illness can be denounced, even by just hearsay, and sent off to the local loony bin, without any full and impartial investigation by local authorities. And kept there until that person can prove the negative, that he or she is not a danger, to mental health “professionals” who have nothing but their own prejudices and self-interest to decide who is and is not a danger.
I got a text message on my TracFone cell, time stamped THU 5:10 pm 04/05/12, alleging to be from AT&T at 1-732-604-1359. It says:
AT&T MSG: As part of AT&T’s loyalty program You may register for a FREE Apple Ipad3 Go To AppleOffers.com To CLAIM yours today!
Well, TracFone is not part of AT&T, as of the time of this writing the web site doesn’t exist, and the number does not have any listing in the reverse phone lookup of YellowPages.com. Be warned. Calling the text message number would do two things: 1) Let the scammers know that they found a live cell number, and 2) Give them a chance at your financial information.
I’d call the TPD about it, but wouldn’t expect more than a 50% chance they would do anything about it.
Don't you wish that someone would put an end to those "Credit Card Services" scam phone calls. The scam behind the scam must be selling those robocalling machines. Since the scam has been going on for at least a decade, and not even the phone message has changed, the slackers who buy those robocallers, in the hope that they can hook another sucker into divulging credit card information, must not be very bright.
For the rest of us it would work the other way. But a lawyer can lay down with fleas and get up with dogs. Or as someone else said, go in a revolving door behind you and come out ahead.
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Posted by: Don B
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Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Betimes it came to pass that Morton Thiokol Managers did lawyereth and lobbyeth their Engineers mightily.
This did they say unto their Engineers.
If thou canst not prove that thy rings-of-O shall fail, thou must then giveth thy blessing to the Launch that it may proceed.
Verily, the Engineers, not able to giveth such proof, did giveth instead their blessing.
Even though it sateth not well among them.
And lo, it did come to pass that their Space Shuttle did climbeth partway unto Heaven.
And then did falleth all the way back down.
And then some.
Then did the Engineers beat their breasts and give up a great wailing unto the Heavens.
For those lives they had lost without need.
When their Space Shuttle did falleth from the sky.
Deep into the bottomless Sea.
For they had been Fools, lawyereth by Fools.
Verily, Verily, I say unto thee.
Thou canst and mayest and shall not lawyereth the Natural Law which was made by God.
In the mere Appearance of that which seemeth Good to thee.
For then thy Dams shall they fail, and thy Bridges and thy Buildings shall they fall.
And those that dependeth upon thee shall they die.
And thus, in the peril of thy Soul, thou wilt gnash thy teeth and cry great tears of sorrow unto the Heavens.
For thou art and shalt be known a Fool.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
41. Considering that people with mental illnesses have long been treated with fear and loathing out of all rational proportion to their actual and minimal threat, even before the Salem witch trials, the Plaintiff intends to challenge the entire manner how people with mental illnesses have been treated within and without the law, legally and extra-legally. Despite over 30 years of medical and legal research to the contrary, our legal system has based its treatment of people with mental illnesses on the presumed basis of a higher level of “dangerousness”, pretending that this is not the same as a presumption of guilt, even though the consequences to and deprivations of civil liberties are much the same. Even though the rate of violence among people with mental illness is only slightly higher than the general population, limited mostly to those with a prior history of violence and substance abuse, and even though research has shown 30 years ago that clinical prediction of violent behavior is less accurate than one in two, more often like one in three, our legal system has allowed such “expert testimony” to destroy the civil liberties of any person with any mental illness, no matter the lack of any significant history of violence, both temporarily and permanently.
42. See “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior”, John Monahan, circa 1979-1980, National Institute of Mental Health and Jason Aronson, Inc., 134 p (amazon.com). See “Psychiatric Disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the New Workplace Violence Account”, Vicki A. Laden and Gregory Schwartz, Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, Vol 21(246-270), circa 2000, available on the Internet. See The MacArthur Foundation Risk Assessment Study, circa 2001-2005, on the Internet. See Chapter 5, Psychiatric Disabilities and the ADA, of “Sharing the Dream: Is the ADA Accommodating All?”, a report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights which was product of a two-day hearing conducted by the Commission on November 12–13, 1998, was available at http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/ada/ch5.htm). See “Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit” by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, circa 1996 (amazon.com).
If nothing else, these sources will demonstrate that the only consistently and truly violent people with mental illnesses are those that have already been violent, especially those who abuse drink and drugs.
43. For example, in ADDINGTON V. TEXAS, 441 U. S. 418 (1979) the High Court stated, “The reasonable doubt standard is inappropriate in civil commitment proceedings because, given the uncertainties of psychiatric diagnosis, it may impose a burden the state cannot meet, and thereby erect an unreasonable barrier to needed medical treatment. The state should not be required to employ a standard of proof that may completely undercut its efforts to further the legitimate interests of both the state and the patient that are served by civil commitments.” It did so without consideration of the 228 references, from 1922 to 1980, cited by Monahan in “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior”. And without consideration Prof. Monahan’s finding of the terrible inaccuracy of such predictions, that would wrongly condemn as many as two out of every three persons found “guilty” of the likelihood of future violence due to mental illness, by the use of the standard of “clear and convincing evidence” in actual psychiatric practice. It may not be quite as bad as throwing an alleged and tied up witch into a pond to see if the water rejects her, but if this Court of Appeals cannot reconsider such matters at its level, it may at least pass them on to the Supreme Court.
44. There is also the matter of who actually needs and benefits from the “treatment”, the captive, involuntary patients, or the doctors and facilities who find it necessary for their continued profit and employment. The High Court has not adequately addressed the matter of how many and badly innocent people are damaged by these presumptions, processes and “treatments”. This, despite many cases and decades of scandal, abuse and outright abduction of vulnerable people for profit.
45. Even though some mental illnesses cannot often be reliably distinguished from traumatic brain injury (http://www.npr.org/2012/02/20/147058173/army-moves-to-act-fast-on-battlefield-brain-injuries; Note: Oklahoma Mental Health Code, OSC Title 43A, specifically excludes the effects of traumatic brain injury from considerations for involuntary commitment.), our legal system has treated people with mental illness to a double standard: lower standards of evidence and higher standards of scrutiny than even for murderers, gang-bangers, drug dealers and child molesters. Where it is said in criminal law that ten guilty men should go free lest one innocent man be convicted, the practice in mental health law effectively commits two innocent people to get the third, on the basis of what they are thinking and are suspected of being capable of doing in the future. Or because they have few advocates, and those involved in their “treatment” are often frightened of lawsuits after future violence. Even the Supreme Court has indicated that it is permissible to coerce people with mental illnesses into incriminating themselves without counsel, despite the fact that many innocent people in serious criminal investigations do the same thing, without the extra trauma and stress to which people with mental illnesses are subject and vulnerable.
46. Our legal system has long treated mental illness as if it was all one thing, like a surgeon performing the same radical excision on every cancer from benign prostate tumors to raging incurable melanoma. Despite all scandals and forcible commitments for insurance scams, it has pretended that “treatment” is not the same as punishment. Even when that “treatment” is no better than Harry Potter being locked under his relatives’ stairs, or similar to micro-management by an evil mother-in-law. Such double standards, depicting people with mental illnesses as those who don’t deserve the same legal rights and protections as others, have encouraged such agencies as the Tulsa Police Department to refrain from full and fair investigations, in order to achieve an arrest, and jurists such as Tulsa City and County Mental Health Court Judge Theresa Dreiling, in concert with the mental health section of the Public Defender’s Office, the District Attorney and such facilities as the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health, to short-circuit the due process protections of even a prejudiced Mental Health Code to achieve and maintain a commitment.
47. These issues, as was the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, need to be reviewed at all levels up to the Highest Court.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
*******
Anyone can have a “reasonable fear” of some thing or person. Self-righteous bigots do it all the time. In the 1980’s there were medical professionals in Springdale, Arkansas who presumably had a reasonable fear that giving someone narcotics for pain would get them hooked, and corrupt not only their morals, but those of the community. That’s likely why they made my Aunt Lucy die of excruciating ovarian cancer without painkillers, and maybe even a man in our church back around the ‘60s with bone cancer just as painful. It was their standard of care. Those people with titles before and letters after their names, just like the professionals the State of Oklahoma grants the right to decide who needs to be locked up, “for their own good”, in the same mental institutions that employ those professionals.
After all, “reasonable fear” is why many people if not most agree that no one with a mental illness should have a gun. As if mental illnesses are somehow all cause the same disabilities. As if no one can ever live with mental illness and not have any moral discipline about how it affects their actions. Like soldiers coming back from a war with PTSD. As if all the violent, paranoid, raging bullies who have never been formally diagnosed with a mental illness are somehow more safe and trustworthy. As if it is not easy and reliable to tell who is likely to commit future violence from their history of past violence.
Speaking as someone who grew up in a military family and went to grade school across the fence from Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese aircraft cannon shell pockmarks were still fresh after 12 years, I intend to challenge the Constitutionality of the Federal law, if I can, that says that anyone who has ever been committed to a mental facility, at any time for any reason, may never own firearms or ammunition again. No matter what the mental illness or its severity and effects; no matter the length of stay; no matter the falsehood of the accusations or diagnosis used against that person. As if mental institutions have not had a history for hundreds of years of abuse and scandal, including outright abducting people off the street for insurance profit in the U.S. as late as the 1990s, even children. As if anyone now can truly understand the human mind. As if the standards and methods of diagnosing it are based upon reliable physical tests, and not shot full of holes.
Those people that create a separate law and legal system, with lesser standards of evidence and proof for those with mental illnesses, make those they fear in their ignorance and intolerance into second-class citizens, creating a double standard of stupidity. It only forces people to hide their difficulties and leave them untreated. Until naivety or desperation impels them to take a chance on being labeled as forever unfit to have normal human reactions and emotions, much less allowed defend themselves against criminal attack, even another attack like one that may have started their difficulties. Leaving them with even lower social acceptance than the felons who would attack them.
Because I like irony, I just hope I get to do it while President Obama is still in office. Remember that his Administration has already tried to claim that all Veterans coming back from the Middle-East are mentally ill and should be banned from owning firearms. A political shot below the belt in my opinion, against those who are mostly Republicans. He will almost certainly have to send his Solicitor General to the Supreme Court to argue that there really is a minority that is so justly feared that its members cannot be allowed to defend themselves. And my response would be:
Oh, you mean like the Kluxers and Massas before them feared that people just like Mr. Obama would rise up and murder them in their beds, and called those people “crazy N-words”?
Which brings to mind a justifiable response to the question that most psychiatrists ask at the start of almost every session, “Are you thinking of hurting yourself or anyone else?”
“Oh, no, Massa – Ah never thinks of white women at all!”
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Sunday, February 26th, Nelson Mandela appeared on NPR to talk about his life, including his experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa after Aparthied. It occurs to me that we could use some of that in our court system. But lawyer-authors like John Grisham tell us that lawyers are almost if not proud that truth and justice are the first casualties in a trial. We are told that the object of a trial is not to find the truth, but to convince the jury by whatever means possible, while preserving the appearance of justice, so that the general public will be deceived into having faith in our justice system.
So in our adversarial (or confrontational) system of justice, the job of a lawyer is then to deny and distract from the truth at all costs. If for example, you say you have a disability and present doctor and hospital x-rays, CAT scans and MRIs of necrotic (dying) bone that looks like Swiss cheese, the opposing lawyer (in one case a U.S. Attorney, yet) will deny over and over again that this proves anything. And the Judge will let that lawyer go on like that for some time, without saying whether or not it is sufficient proof. If the local loony bin got a hold of you and you insisted on making those kinds of denial, in the face of that kind of evidence, you would likely get forced medication and a much longer stay, just for “losing touch” with reality.
We are also told, even if we can’t find a lawyer to stand with us, that we should speak to the court in legalese (whether we understand it or not) and not present to the court any “personal” information. Hold on a second. Isn’t that like saying that you can tell the court someone pushed you down the stairs, but not how much it hurt and terrified you to be ejected from your wheelchair. Or that the terror was so much the worse because someone had put you in that wheelchair by pushing you down some stairs before. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like an admission by the courts and legal community that injecting any amount of humanity into their process would corrupt their idea of justice.
Then there’s the practice of massive off-topic citations. If you file a suit and you are not a lawyer, the opposing lawyer is sure to demand that the case be dismissed, on grounds referring to a dozen or more citations of law and case law, that may be perfectly true but don’t honestly address your complaint. On the hope, of course, that you will utterly confused and intimidated by his or her superior expertise. For example, if you are suing a government official for violations of your civil rights under the color of law (42 U.S.C. Section 1983), the government’s lawyer will make a claim that government officials have “absolute immunity”. Namely, that no government official can be sued in the good-faith performance of that official’s duties. Which is perfectly true in that situation, but utterly irrelevant when that official does something stupid or corrupt that denies you the due process of law. Not to mention the fact that it is tough going for a layman to wade through all that legalese, and the Judge will not help by exposing the deception.
So in other words, it’s your fault if you present personal information in your arguments, but a lawyer is perfectly free to throw in all the garbage he or she can think of, so long as the lawyer puts it into “legalese”.
Then they go into an offended huff if we look at them like they’re crazy.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
One should read this study (done over time in the 2000s, and freely available on the Internet) to understand the harm done to people with mental illnesses by a bias in society against them so deep, irrational and pervasive that it has even been enshrined into law. Otherwise, it might be too easy to dismiss a complaint by a person with a mental illness unexamined. As did Judge Kern, who was presented with copies of this study, repeatedly.
In short, this study finds that the risk of violence covers a wide range, with predictable extremes and a very large middle range where no prediction can be statistically accurate. One can compare it to predictions of which people who drink will commit violence under the influence, or maim and/or kill in drunk driving incidents. One can easily predict that teetotalers won’t, and that severe alcoholics, especially those with previous convictions, arrests, wrecks and damages to others, will. In between, the vast majority of social drinkers cannot be predicted with any reliability to become drunk drivers who cause injury and death. In other words, it's easy to characterize the tails of a bell curve and use them to tar all the rest. Like Rush Limbaugh with "sluts".
Now imagine a society of Christian and other Fundamentalists, where drinking alcohol is so feared and loathed that any who drink at any level are subject to lower standards of evidence, proof and justice - "For the protection of society". Where anyone who is merely accused of thinking about drinking and driving can be locked up. Where, in consideration of society's interest in public safety, it's not too much of an imposition on civil liberties to lock up any person so accused, until that person can prove to "expert examiners", known in the past as inquisitors, that he or she is not a danger to others. One might guess that a member of the Court might not like that shoe on his or her foot. If so, then living among the Taliban or Iranians or Saudis might not be advisable. They seem to be a bit prejudiced that way.
Or one might imagine a society where women who read trashy romantic novels might be locked up, just to satisfy the mullahs and rushlimbites, who fear “the corruption of our precious young!” Until those women can prove they are in no danger of becoming prostitutes and pole dancers. As some church lady might say, “You know Those People read that kind of trash!” One understands from the newspaper that even Judge Dreiling might be a tad inconvenienced by that standard of justice. A lot of people wouldn’t like those shoes on their feet, but find it perfectly acceptable to bind the feet of those less able to fight back.
It must feel very satisfying to have such an impact on “improving” society.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
This wide range of inaccurate prediction has been shown by Monahan in “The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior” to cause the wrongful confinement of as many as 2 out of every 3 people judged by “expert opinion” to be dangerous (pp 44-47 re: Baxstrom v Herold, SCOTUS, 1966). See also FOUCHA v. LOUISIANA, 504 U.S. 71 (1992) regarding proof beyond a reasonable doubt at, “Its effect is at once both symbolic and practical, as a statement of values about respect and confidence in the criminal law”. On page 35, Monahan cites an example showing that even if the test for a marginal danger is 95% accurate, then 54 people will be incarcerated for every dangerous person set free. So much the worse at 33%. Thus, a rational examination of current judicial practices and standards of law for mental health shows that they have no credibility and deserve no respect or confidence. The fact that society and some Judges may not wish to know that their fear and loathing of people with mental illnesses has espoused and caused such a horrible result, does not make such bigotry and injustice any less monstrous or grievous.
We have a medical and legal name for serial monsters with a clear conscience – sociopaths.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Just thinking out loud here. What would constitute a Federal hate or civil rights crime against someone with a mental illness? Let’s look at some of the laws described on the FBI web site as “Federal Civil Rights Statutes”. Some require force or violence, others just conspiracy or intimidation. Which ones might apply to forcing into a detaining a person with mental illness in a mental institution under false pretenses?
Title 18, U.S.C. Section 241 – Conspiracy against rights
“This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”
So, if a person with a mental illness engaged in free speech, even sharp and painful satire regarding some social condition, it might be a Federal crime to lie about the content of that speech, alleging a non-existent, non-spoken threat, so as to get that person committed to a mental institution. One might argue that it is a Federal crime to harass a resident in Federally-subsidized housing with legal service and eviction notices, based upon false testimony about free speech. Or, that it is a Federal crime for local authorities to fail to fully and impartially investigate false allegations leading to arrest and incarceration, merely because they are made against someone with a disability, even mental illness. Or a Federal crime to deprive such a person of due process, and arrange things such that the only sworn “witnesses”, “mental health evaluators”, and petitioners allowed came from the facility benefiting from the commitment. Or a Federal crime to fake evidence of outside medical history so as to justify a commitment and deprivation of civil rights.
There is no qualification here allowing Government officials at the local, state or federal level to hide behind “sovereign immunity” or “good faith performance of duties” if those officials in any way distorted facts or due process in order to achieve a commitment to a mental institution. Or, as the Oklahoma mental health code puts it, through “negligence or deficient professional skill”.
Title 18, U.S.C. Section 242 – Deprivation of rights under the color of law
“This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.”
…
“Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.”
One can argue that this would make the unjust commitment to a mental institution a separate Federal crime, including such acts as false testimony and mental health evaluations to achieve that commitment. Again, there is no qualification here exempting even Federal Judges. One can even argue that 241 and 242 make illegal the Supreme Court’s 1979 decision allowing civil commitment on the basis of “clear and convincing evidence”, merely because it was just too hard for psychiatrists to distinguish between the few people who could be accurately predicted to commit violence and the rest of the bell curve. Not to mention any Federal Judge who would throw a case because one side had mental illness and was outspoken about it, while the other appeared to be “normal”.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 245 – Federally Protected Activities
This act prohibits the use of force or threat of force to discourage participation in a number of Federally protected activities and benefits. The definition of force here is not clear to me. Whether to not it includes misused of the courts, which are covered above.
Title 42, U.S.C., Section 3631 – Criminal Interference with Right to Fair Housing
This act also refers to the use of force or threat of force in getting a place to live, and specifically mentions “handicap” as a basis for the crime.
So where are the lawyers, FBI and U.S. Department of Justice when all this is going on? Hiding in the woodwork, perhaps. Because, why waste time and energy on people few care about, when doing the right thing would go against the current norms of societal prejudice, and even upset some Federal Judges. Better that hundreds and thousands should be unjustly incarcerated than for such heroes to face that kind of music.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Well, Mizz Mental Facility Psychiatric Counselor, if they ever bring back witchburnin, which side a the fire you gonna be on?
*****
You’re right – your God knows better than to like anyone you despise. Especially if He knows what’s good for Him. You can just go start Your own Church.
*****
How is a court of law like a basketball court?
The team with the best-paid players most often wins.
*****
How is a court of law not like a basketball court?
So long as the one side doesn’t know enough to object, the other side can commit all the fouls they want – in full view of the Ref.
*****
In legal terms, Pro Se usually means that you have to represent yourself because you can’t afford a lawyer. Of which the lawyers like to say that you have a fool for a client. May be. Sure enough, if you step over some invisible line that only they and the Judges can see, you might get your case thrown out of court. But knowing where those invisible lines are, they get to be as outrageous and obnoxious as they please. And proud of it.
*****
If you are representing yourself in court, Pro Se, and a lawyer from the other side compliments you on knowing all about the law, don’t agree or say nothing. It’s a trap where somewhere down the line, the lawyer will pick out some aspect of law that you didn’t know or weren’t clear about, and claim that you should lose because you knew better.
So instead stick your hand out and say, “Counselor, I would be honored to defend you against the death penalty! And I gaa-rone-tee you that by the end of the trial, you will get the all verdict you deserve! Now, that’ll be 500 dollars an hour. Up front.”
*****
If the Judge accuses you of mocking the court, gaze around at the ceiling and walls and say, “Wow, they’re a tough audience, aren’t they?”
*****
If he had recused himself because the gunman had shot some of us seniors who live on fixed incomes, and get into disputes with potential contributors to his campaigns, it wouldn’t have been about a conflict of interest. It would have been professional courtesy.
Re: Laugh? Or Cry?
Many people in that kind of housing are every bit as vulnerable to abuse as those in nursing homes. Not a few have used such housing for hospice. It is not that hard to cause an elder on oxygen or with a heart condition to die from stress if abused. Partly as a result of lax oversight of that housing, drug theft is rampant, especially of prescription narcotics.
If employees and contractors of semi-private and public housing had to be fingerprinted and checked out, maybe even the Tulsa Police Department, which has claimed to be uninterested in senior deaths unless beaten and bloody, would start to take notice.
Re: Taking Sides
The left wing shot itself in the foot. Just because it didn't like the politics of some of the small contributor organizations, it lumped politics by free speech and contribution in with politics by leverage of unaccountable profits, This justifiably outraged those smaller contributors who wanted a voice as well. Contributors who wrote to their Congressional representatives about it.
Anyone who wants campaign reform should try it while supporting free political expression by ordinary people who would band and raise their voices together under the First Amendment. No matter what their cause.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
At 3 PM today, April 1, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court released its 8-1 decision in the Oklahoma v. Mario Brothers case. Citing its 1979 Addington v. Texas case, it extended its conviction standard of “clear and convincing evidence” to anyone with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man. Since no one can tell whether or not someone with an Italian surname is or is not a Mob hit man, if anyone feels “a reasonable threat” when a person with an Italian surname says, “Badda-bing badda-boom”, then the person with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man can be civilly incarcerated until the person with an Italian surname can prove that he or she is no longer a danger to society.
NPR legal correspondent, Ninny Totalbarge, explained it this way. “It’s just like gun control. It’s worth it if it can save just one life!” The lone dissenter on the High Court, Justice David Sutler, voted against the decision to protest the alleged threatening language. According to Justice Sutler, “Saying badda-bing-badda is sufficient to constitute a reasonable threat. There is no need to utter the redundant ‘boom’.”
Since the standard of reasonable threat is based Oklahoma mental health law, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health will take custody of any person with an Italian surname suspected of being a Mob hit man. Ms. Lee Rachett, the Director of a facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma said, “We’re ready for them. We’re opening a new facility out in the stockyards for housing mental patients, or as we like to call them, consumers. This will open up our more secure facilities in town for suspected Mob hit men.”
The local District Attorney, Harvey Bent, swore, “We’ll keep them there, too. Enough of this namby-pamby “clear and convincing evidence” tripe. All we need is a preponderance of the evidence. If anyone even heard anyone else say a person with an Italian surname said even a little badda, that’s good enough for us! I’ve got a two-headed quarter that proves it.”
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Florida State Legislator Dennis Baxley, Representative of the 24th District, a prime author of Florida’s “stand your ground law”, perhaps said it best in an open statement published by Fox News March 21, 2012, and carried on this anti-bullying site: http://bullybuzz.org/2012/03/21/trayvon-martins-attacker-covered-stand-ground-law/
Neither “Stand your ground” nor the Castle Doctrine were meant to cover people who aggressively pursue and confront others. It was meant for those who suddenly face criminal threats and need to defend themselves, without having to second-guess whether or not they will be persecuted or prosecuted for doing so. It’s not the fault of the law, as some would have it, but as the Representaive said, the interpretation of the law. It can be summed up in one sentence:
Stand your ground doesn’t mean chase ‘em down.
The only possible exception to that I can see is in a case of abduction, especially of a child. Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, was instructed by Police not to follow Martin, and ignored the advice. It should be a warning to anyone who wants to be El Zorro. Even if Zimmerman is prosecuted and gets acquitted, he still faces civil suits brought by the Federal government as well as Martin’s family. He can be charged or sued under hate crime laws listed on the FBI’s civil web page on Federal statues covering civil rights:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/federal-statutes
Martin’s family can bring a civil suit against him under 42 U.S.C. 1983. See
http://www.constitution.org/brief/forsythe_42-1983.htm
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/42C21.txt
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, … subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, …”
One might argue that under the color of the stand your ground law, Zimmerman deprived Martin of the civil right to walk a public street peaceably, unarmed and unmolested. Anyone who feels they are being stalked has the right to turn around and ask why someone is following them. If Zimmerman had not been so suspicious and aggressive, he could simply have approached Martin peacefully, told him that he was a neighborhood watch captain, and politely asked if he could do anything to help Martin, perhaps even walk him home. If Martin had actually been a criminal and attacked Zimmerman, then the stand your ground law would likely have applied. But as a practical matter, Zimmerman would still have been under a cloud, unless he took the trouble to record the confrontation on audio or video tape.
At the very least, if Zimmerman was determined to follow and observe Martin, he should have done so from a distance and never approached him. He would then have seen Martin enter a home through the front door, and would have had no further cause of action, other than to report his observations to the police, if that.
These are my own opinions, not professional legal advice. Anyone who would carry a gun for self defense would be well-advised to read an authoritative book on it, like Massad F. Ayoob’s “In Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection”. It seems unlikely that Zimmerman bothered to do so.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
to: mona-chamberlin@utulsa.edu
Ma'am,
I've been ill and don't think I can drive this evening, but I have a question for Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein.
Recently, information has been coming out about the Obama Administration's "Fast and Furious" gun-running operation, strongly suggesting that a U.S. District Attorney and gun control advocate in Arizona set it up to create the impression that American guns fuel the Mexican drug wars. Gun dealers in border states were apparently pressured by the BATF to let suspicious purchases happen, and gun-runners to Mexico may even have been funded by the U.S. Government. Neither Mexican nor American law enforcement authorities stationed there were informed of the operation. As a result, untold numbers of Mexicans have died, and one U.S. Border Patrol Agent was murdered with one of the "Fast and Furious" guns. We don't know yet just how far up in the Obama Administration culpability goes, but the Justice Department under Eric Holder has been stonewalling Congressional inquiry and requests for records, to the point that AG Holder may face a charge of contempt of Congress.
Considering that no one died in the Watergate scandal, or in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, how do you think the Obama administration's "Fast and Furious" gun-running scheme will stack up against them? Will we see as much critical press coverage for it as we did for the Nixon and Clinton scandals? Or does the mainstream news media consider President Obama "too liberal to fail"?
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Perhaps the Babylonian King Hammurabi, said to be the inventor of written law, should have included in his Code an oath for judges, as Hippocrates’ did for physicians – “First, do no harm.”
Re: The Election-Year Politics of Energy
No politician has much actual control over gas prices and the economy. Enough of phony politics. Instead of these inflated, overwrought and illogical attacks, hit the President on things he does control. Like foreign policy, his legislative agenda and vetoes, his duplicity in "support" of the Second Amendment, and the actions of his administration in programs like the BATF "Fast and Furious" scam and scandal.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Many people are perfectly happy with this arrangement, secure in the knowledge that they are not “that kind of person” and that this will never happen to them. They cannot imagine that they will ever have to face jail on the opinions of two licensed professionals. Or that applying this standard to an unpopular minority is any kind of slippery slope that will some day blow back on them.
But what about terrorism? Most people are more afraid of terrorists even than those with mental illnesses. What if everyone had to face the scrutiny of licensed experts to decide whether or not they could be terrorists, and, like the mentally ill, incarceration until they could prove to those same experts that they are not a danger to themselves (suicide bombers) or society. If you think that’s a good idea, as many in the Republican legislature might during the current silly season, you may not have thought it all the way through.
Oh, Grandma got strip searched at the airport.
She fit the profile to a tee.
She said something suspicious to the agent.
Jus be glad that it weren’t you or me.
Because that’s just what “mental health evaluations” are, profiling. If in the last 200 years, for example, we had weeded out every leader who had a history of major depression, we would have lost Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. We might be doing Nazi salutes and still have slavery.
No one can predict just what someone will do in the future, if anything. Even the recent research into the relationship between mental illness and violent behavior can only produce relative certainties for the extreme violent and non-violent tails of the bell curve. Everything in between is a gray area, where no prediction has any statistical validity. You can only say that people with certain factors, like being abused as children or major depression, are more likely that those that don’t to be violent. But not that they are destined to that fate, and unable to escape or overcome it. As FBI Special Agent John Douglas said near the end of his book, Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, there is no psychological that can predict violence. Only past violence can predict future violence. See also http://www.physorg.com/news152819983.html
Locking people up for what an expert or bigot is afraid or says they might do in the future is not mental health or public safety. It looks, walks and quacks just like a jail for those who are deemed to be undesirable, but cannot be convicted of any crime in a regular court of law. And in the history of Psychiatry, this kind of profiling is less accurate than flipping a coin, condemning as many as two harmless and innocent people to incarceration out of every three who are profiled.
And if you think that this kind of profiling is such a good idea, tell me again why you don’t want to do it to Black Americans. What did you say? It’s immoral, bigoted and wrong? Oh. I’m so glad you cleared that up for me.
Oh, Grandma got strip searched at the airport …
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
There is our own military’s concept of “acceptable collateral damage” in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. During the war in Viet Nam, a woman where I lived stated that it was good to kill Vietnamese babies because they would just grow up to kill our soldiers. The U.S. Calvary did just that with Native American babies at Wounded Knee. The Irish Sisters of the Magdalene Order enslaved about 30,000 young girls who were raped, illegitimate, orphaned, pregnant out of wedlock, or just simple-minded, in chastisement for their “sins”. The girls’ families often agreed.
The last place I worked in Stillwater, a couple of coworkers would get together and mutter imprecations about homosexuals until the air turned black and blue. I don’t think they could tell the difference between homosexuals and child molesters. There are any number of liberals who want to throw in jail anyone who disagrees with their gun control politics. There are court decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court that left innocent people languishing in jails or on death row because of some technical objection to accepting new evidence and letting them go.
And the list goes on.
What if there was some way to tell if a woman was at a higher than normal risk of birthing a child with either Down’s Syndrome or a child likely to die of SIDS. Now suppose that Oklahoma passes a law stating that this woman can be denounced by her doctor and forced by court order to have her tubes tied until she agrees to abort any unborn child that could be shown to be likely to experience either Down’s or SIDS. In other words, until she proves that she is in no danger of having and raising that kind of child, and thus “inflicting” it on the rest of society. The old Spartans, after all, were said to kill any baby that wasn’t perfect. The White Power skinheads might like it, but I think that most decent people on both the right and the left would agree that such a law would be evil and morally repugnant.
I say that there’s not much moral difference between that kind of law and the Oklahoma Mental Health Code, by which anyone with a mental illness can be denounced, even by just hearsay, and sent off to the local loony bin, without any full and impartial investigation by local authorities. And kept there until that person can prove the negative, that he or she is not a danger, to mental health “professionals” who have nothing but their own prejudices and self-interest to decide who is and is not a danger.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
I got a text message on my TracFone cell, time stamped THU 5:10 pm 04/05/12, alleging to be from AT&T at 1-732-604-1359. It says:
AT&T MSG:
As part of AT&T’s loyalty program
You may register for a FREE Apple Ipad3
Go To AppleOffers.com
To CLAIM yours today!
Well, TracFone is not part of AT&T, as of the time of this writing the web site doesn’t exist, and the number does not have any listing in the reverse phone lookup of YellowPages.com. Be warned. Calling the text message number would do two things: 1) Let the scammers know that they found a live cell number, and 2) Give them a chance at your financial information.
I’d call the TPD about it, but wouldn’t expect more than a 50% chance they would do anything about it.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.