The Coin Toss

In Virginia, Judge James Michael Shull was faced with of two divorced parents, each wanting custody of their child for Christmas. Since there was no compelling reason to choose one parent over the other, Judge Shull tossed a coin. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled last week that Judge Shull “failed to uphold the dignity of the judiciary,” and removed him from the bench: a rather draconian punishment, given the behavior of some judges who are allowed to keep their gavels and robes (such as Philadelphia judge Teresa Carr Deni, appointed to another 6-year term earlier this month, despite her decision last month to downgrade the alleged at-gunpoint rape of a prostitute to a “theft of services” charge).

And exactly how should Judge Shull have resolved this issue? This was the proverbial coin-toss decision, which made tossing a coin rather appropriate. Would the Virginia Supreme Court have preferred he ask for a sword and suggest a more Solomonic solution?

• No Charges For 10-Year-Old Firestarter and other crime news both serious and not

How to Smuggle a Bomb Through Airport Security

(Okay, I hope that title doesn’t get me a visit from Homeland Security…)

According to a government report released last week, the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration agents made almost 300 attempts last year to smuggle bombs past security screeners at three major American airports. Twenty percent of the bombs passed through undetected at San Francisco International Airport, sixty percent at Chicago O’Hare, and seventy-five percent at Los Angeles International Airport.

Clark Kent Ervin, a former Homeland Security inspector general, calls this “a huge cause for concern” and says that the screeners’ poor performance might encourage terrorists to try smuggling bombs and other weapons on board planes.

Okay, now here’s a thought: Is it possible that terrorists might be less emboldened by the screeners’ poor performances themselves than by the fact that the government saw fit to release the report including specific details?

This is nothing new, by the way: A few years back, the government released a study of which American port cities were most vulnerable to terrorist attack and why.

• More Crimeweek

McStrip Search

• …and Other Lawsuits

Why Fred Goldman Must Be Smiling Now

All that sports memorabilia O.J. Simpson allegedly tried to steal at gunpoint last week, claiming it was legally his… whether or not Simpson is found guilty, any of the memorabilia that turns out to have been legally owned by Simpson… will get handed over to the Goldmans.

And the publicity generated by the robbery couldn’t not have increased sales of the book (as of Tuesday morning, it’s the #2 best seller at Amazon.com).

• If Who Did It (September 17): Okay, what’s the weirdest thing about last week’s release of O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical double-murder confession (as if this whole affair needed any more weirdness)? No mention of Simpson’s name on the cover. It’s a confession without a confessor.Or even worse than no confessor: Amazon.com is marketing the book as “If I Did It by the Goldman Family”.
• September 6
  Barnes and Noble decides to carry O.J.’s book after all, and Lisa Nowak will try an insanity defense (article)
• August 14
  O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical double murder confession, the rights to which are now owned by the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, has been contracted to a publisher [updated article].
• July 30
  So… Now that the rights are owned by Ron Goldman’s father, who plans to rename it Confessions of a Double Murderer, is anybody more inclined to read the thing? And will it become the best-seller HarperCollins originally expected it to be? [article]

Good Luck, Bad Luck, and Just Plain Stupid (OT)

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PWNED!

 

I’m probably way too old to even try to use the ersatz word correctly. In a literal sense, it does apply to O.J. Simpson, who just lost the rights to his life story and likeness. In a more colloquial sense, though (and I’m not sure “pwned” can legitimately used in any other way), I believe it better applies to The World’s Stupidest Pedophile:

The Diaper Story Gets Changed (OT)

Of course you remember Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who drove 950 miles from Houston to Orlando earlier this year, wearing a NASA-issued adult diaper to eliminate the need for rest stops, in order to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut.

Well, according to her attorney, Donald Lykkebak, Nowak was wearing her normal undergarments: The media had gotten the story wrong because there were diapers in the trunk of her car – toddler-sized diapers that had been there since 2005.

Lykkebak explained that the whole family, adults and children alike, had used the diapers when they were forced to evacuate their Houston home in the wake of Hurricane Rita – diapers that were designed to fit a waist between 15 and 19 inches.

None of which explains why Nowak told an Orlando police detective that she’d used them during her February 5 drive so she wouldn’t have to stop at restrooms (though presumably she did have to stop for gas) – or why, if the diaper detail is a “preposterous tale,” as Lykkebak calls it, he waited almost five months to refute it. He refers to this as “the biggest lie” about the case, which doesn’t bode well for the now-former astronaut who faces attempted kidnapping, battery, and attempted vehicle burglary with battery charges.

The truth might never be known, since the diapers were never taken into evidence.

Doesn’t matter. Facts notwithstanding, Nowak will always be The Astronaut Who Drove From Texas to Florida Wearing a Diaper, because that’s how we’ll choose to remember the story.

• More Crimeweek: ”I’ve Heard of a Suit With Two Pair of Pants, but Never a Pair of Pants With Two Suits”

Judicial Bullies

• Why Mike Nifong Deserves All the Punishment He Gets, and Why the $54 Million Lawsuit Over a Pair of Pants Wasn’t All That Funny