Ann Coulter thinks the criminal-minded ACORNies in the Brooklyn video are guilty of criminal conspiracy. I’m not so sure. I don’t recall the ACORNies conspiring with each other on the tape, only attempting to conspire with two people they thought were a pimp and a prostitute but who actually weren’t. Can you have a conspiracy of one?

“Alleged” cocaine dealer left a welcome mat on his front door inviting cops to “come back with a warrant.” So they did. ‘Hat tip: DRJ.

Doubts, (which are not to be confused with reasonable ones) notwithstanding, is justice delayed finally about to mean something other than justice denied?

One can only hope.

John McCormick of Bloomberg “News” has an uncommonly silly piece on the poor, downtrodden gun-grabbers whose continuing efforts to blame the gun lobby for the failures of their own unconstitutional gun ordinance are being largely ignored. I counted five flat-out lies in the article, which are in addition to the overall whiny tone, but what I’d really like to know is, does writing for Bloomberg actually require the reporter to be as obnoxious as Bloomberg himself?

UPDATE: Insty has more. Or less, actually, unless less is more, in which case he does have more.

Poland is enacting a new law providing mandatory castration of anyone convicted of raping children under the age of 15, unless the rapist was a really famous guy and the rape occurred nowhere near Poland.. Or something like that. There’s a bad Polack joke in there somewhere…

Contrary to popular opinion, getting acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity is harder than you might think. In most states, you either have to prove you were so crazy that you didn’t know right from wrong, or that you were so crazy that you didn’t really understand what you were doing, e.g., you thought you were slaying a dragon when you actually murdered some innocent bystander. In Washington, it’s harder still. There, you have to prove that you were sane enough to douse your victim with gasoline to cover your tracks, and the person in charge of your loony bin has to be insane enough to think that sending you on a day outing to the local fair is a good idea.

Not sure that going from ACORN’s point man to a guy who’s barely heard of the organization and had no idea that they get a lot of money from the federal government is exactly the kind of change his supporters envisioned, but YMMV.

Now that Sting #4 contains what seems to be a flat out admission to first degree murder, you’re probably wondering to yourself, is this murderer going to be prosecuted? Your guess is as good as mine, but bear in mind that the video itself probably will not be admissible. The California Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, enacted Penal Code Section 632, which provides in subsection (a) that:

Every person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication … eavesdrops upon or records the confidential communication, whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device, except a radio, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment.

OK, you say, but this conversation wasn’t really “confidential,” was it? It’s not like the lady said “keep this under your hat” or anything. Not so fast. Subsection (c) generally defines “confidential communication” to include “any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto,” excluding only communications made in public gatherings, legislative, judicial, executive and administrative proceedings open to the public, and “any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.” Any ACORN worker who now expects a consultation like that not to be overheard or recorded is probably relying on an unreasonable expectation. But unless O’Keefe and Giles told Murderer-Lady that this consultation may be recorded for quality assurance, Murderer-Lady had no reason to suspect that at the time.

All right, all right, so maybe Jerry Moonbeam can throw a misdemeanor charge at these two if he’s as politically tin-eared as his Maryland counterpart. That shouldn’t stop the state from using the woman’s statements against her, right? Wrong. Subsection (d) of this same brilliant statute provides that evidence obtained in violation of Section 632 is admissible for one purpose and one purpose only: to prove the violation of Section 632. Isn’t that special?

UPDATE: Then again, she may have another, more straightforward defense, namely the fact that the ex-husband she claimed to have murdered is … um … alive. How convenient.

In the nation’s capital, “bitch set me up” is just an empty campaign slogan, but in Maryland, it’s official policy.

Finally had my first check up with a dentist in the Triad, only two years after starting here. Conversation with the new dental assistant:

Her: So, who do we have to thank for referring you as a client?

Me: Kirk Turner.  All my colleagues had him as their dentist, so if he hadn’t murdered his wife he’d probably be mine now, too.