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.

… and make room for the pretty parts defense.

Steve Irwin makes a compelling case for intolerance in response to those sicko Liberian parents in Phoenix who blame their eight year old daughter for being assaulted by four juvenile monsters earlier this week. Money quote:

We teach tolerance in this country, and respect for those who might disagree with us. Yet I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t disgusted and appalled by the very notion of blaming a victim, a child no less, for her own rape.

If there is such a belief system, anywhere in the world, our message to them should be unyielding and clear. If you seek refuge here; If you seek the freedoms and benefits of a democracy, then you must cast aside the barbarism which you might label tradition or faith.

There can be no compromise in this, for if we can’t unite behind the cause of a child’s safety and well-being, then our own lives don’t rise to the level of anything resembling culture.

Amen.

Want to burglarize a store without having to set foot in it yourself? No problem, just train a monkey to do your dirty work for you.

Not sure there’s a right place for convicted cannibals, but if there is one, it sure as hell ain’t the same village where you got in trouble the first time.

Patrick Tracy Burris compiled a rap sheet a mile long in five states (Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) before murdering 5 innocent people in a sixth (SC), and finally committing suicide-by-cop in the state that enabled all five killings by allowing him out on parole. State Law Enforcement Division Reggie Lloyd waved a copy of his criminal record in a press conference saying “Look at this. This is like 25 pages. At some point the criminal justice system is going to need to explain why this suspect was out on the street.” No kidding, particularly given that the principal offense he was serving time for was being an habitual felon. If being an “habitual” anything doesn’t disqualify one from parole, what on earth does? And why do we never hear from the people on the parole board in cases like this? Shouldn’t journalists be on them like white on rice, asking them what on earth they were thinking then, and why they still consider themselves fit to serve on parole boards now?

Meanwhile, during that same week, in some small California town you’ve never heard of, a 63-year old peach farmer was found alive and well by his wife when she returned home after running some errands. Four days following that non-incident, an 83-year-old woman in the same community invited her 50-year-old daughter over for tea. The two had a friendly chat, during which no one broke in, tied them up, shot them to death or disturbed them in any way. And the day after that, some middle aged man and his 15-year-old daughter worked at their family business, which they closed down for the day at the usual time without incident to re-open the next day. All because California’s answer to Patrick Tracy Burris is rotting in prison, courtesy of the much-maligned Three Strikes Law. We need that same law in the Tarheel State yesterday. And we owe our neighbors to the south a huge apology for the murders of five innocent people that we could and should have prevented.

Any media types care to explain how they decide which criminals get to own their aliases and which ones don’t? I ask because I can’t recall a single news article about “Clark Rockefeller” (Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter) that didn’t have his moniker in scare quotes, nor can I recall a single article about “Sarah Jane Olson” (Kathleen Soliah) that did.

Via Howard Bashman, the WaPo decries the majority ruling in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, which held 5-4 (and you don’t have to guess who the 5 and the 4 were) that prisoners have no constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing, though they do have that right under the laws of most states. What I’d like to know is, what on earth do the other 4 Justices think? That the Sixth Amendment guarantees every criminal defendant the right to two speedy trials? Seriously. It’s one thing to allow post-conviction DNA testing for convicts who had no reasonable opportunity to present that same evidence at trial. That I support fully. But it’s quite another to ask for post-conviction DNA testing for a rapist/kidnapper who had every opportunity to present that same evidence at trial, and declined to do so because he knew the results would be damning. If we’re going to give criminal defendants a second bite at that apple, why stop with DNA? Let’s give every criminal defendant a right to two criminal trials, with the second trial allowing him to adopt every legal theory of innocence, justification or excuse that was not raised at the first. Lost the “I didn’t do it” trial? No problem, plead insanity now.

This story also raises troubling questions about Alaska’s criminal justice system. According to the WaPo, Osborne was actually paroled for this brutal attack two years ago, after finally admitting to the Parole Board that he had in fact committed the crime. Apparently in Alaska, no crime is too heinous for parole; you just have to admit that you did it and pinky-swear you won’t do it again. And so far, Mr. Osborne hasn’t done it again. OK, so he maybe did break into some family’s home, duct-tape and pistol-whip the occupants and rob them at gunpoint. There is that. But at least he didn’t rape anybody, which was the crime he had pinky-sworn not to do, so I’m sure the Parole Board can rest easy.

Per Senate Bill 1193, it will soon be illegal to steal a catalytic converter in Michigan.

Last fall I bitched about Wal-Mart’s policy of refusing to accept returns on firearm or ammo purchase, even when they were the ones who screwed up, and the customer’s sole error was in trusting a Wal-Mart employee to know WTF he is doing. The official policy is that you can’t return ammo. Apparently, that’s not quite true. I’d like to say I don’t condone what this guy did, and that the right thing to do in such cases is to expose a bad policy publicly rather than to take the law into your own hands, but then again, I took a lot more grief from Wal-Mart apologists for bitching about the policy than this guy will likely get for … well … returning his ammo contrary to store policy.