TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

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  • So it’s not about the bullying in Joplin

    So it’s not about the bullying in Joplin

    Middle-school shooting suspect claimed he wasn’t targeting anyone:

    Ever since Thomas White fired a round from a MAC-90 into the ceiling of Memorial Middle School in Joplin, Missouri, his defenders have declared that it was because he was bullied, and the school wouldn’t do anything about it. Yet in recently released documents, White himself claims it was because he was failing in school and saw no other option.

    The 13-year-old boy believed he was failing four out of his six classes at Memorial Middle School. He felt it had got him “into trouble at home,” and he didn’t see anyway to improve his grades.

    How about studying and doing your work. Did you ever think of that? Look, I was no Valedictorian, but the only person who was responsible for my bad grades was me.

    Anyway, the fact that he claims that his failure would get him into “trouble at home” makes me think that we should be looking once again at the White family and not the school.

    As I’ve previously posted, Thomas White’s father is a former drug dealer who was in illegal possession of a firearm. The same firearm that Thomas White used at his school.

    Also, White said that he had no target in mind except to scare the teachers.

    Thomas White told them “he just wanted to scare people,” according to a statement of facts drawn up by public defender James Egan and submitted as part of a brief filed this past week with the state’s high court. When asked specifically whom he was trying to scare, he’d told them “all the teachers,” according to the brief.

    According to police, White tried firing the gun at his principal, but the gun had already jammed. White even admits to trying to fire the gun.

    White eventually “admitted,” during a second interrogation, that he’d tried to fire the gun more than once, although the brief claims this “admission” was elicited by his interrogators with the assistance of his own attorney at the time,

    His new attorneys say that his previous defense was inadequate. It sounds like to me, he was trying to get him the best deal possible. Now the case is tied up while attorneys argue that White should not be tried as an adult.

  • craigslist blows $1.6M on UC Berkeley

    craigslist blows $1.6M on UC Berkeley

    Craigslist Foundation Donates $1.6M To UC Berkeley:

    Craigslist, the popular community networking Web site, has donated $1.6 million to the University of California, Berkeley, to help create the first endowed professorship at its 5-year-old Berkeley Center for New Media.

    The mission of the center is to advance new media in the public interest, and to explore the effect of new media on culture, said engineering Professor Ken Goldberg, who was appointed director of the center in July.

    I wonder how far that money would have gone towards the effort to stop the human trafficking that their site facilitates.

  • Dyleski sentence appeal

    Dyleski sentence appeal

    Scott Dyleski files appeal of life sentence for murder conviction:

    The attorneys for Scott Dyleski are trying the spaghetti plan to get their client out of a life sentence without parole. By spaghetti plan, I mean they’re throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

    Scott Dyleski was the 16-year-old who was tried as an adult, convicted, and sentenced to life without parole in the murder of Pam Vitale. Vitale was the wife of famous criminal defense attorney Daniel Horowitz.

    One of the focuses on the trial was that some people felt trying Dyleski as an adult was inhumane, and that sentencing him to life without parole was worse. I’m not one of those people. He brutally bludgeoned Pam Vitale and carved a symbol in her back. If that doesn’t warrant being tried as an adult, nothing does.

    Anyway, on to the matter at hand, his appeal.

    Scott Dyleski’s sentence of life without the possibility of parole in the October 2005 bludgeoning death of Lafayette resident Pamela Vitale amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment because he was only 16 at the time, his lawyer argued in a court appeal this week.

    The 183-page brief, filed Wednesday in state appeals court, also argues that there was not enough evidence during the trial of burglary — the special circumstance that allowed Judge Barbara Zuniga to sentence Dyleski to life without parole.

    The judge also should have allowed a change of court venue because of the local notoriety; held a hearing on the reliability of DNA testing that linked Dyleski to the murder; and should have thrown out evidence from a home search that attorney Philip Brooks claims was based on a “recklessly inaccurate” search warrant affidavit, the brief argues.

    Is there anything else? Can we get you a coffee or something? Did you not care for the color of the bailiff’s uniform? Were the courtroom chairs too stiff for you?

    If Dyleski was 21 when he killed Pam Vitale this wouldn’t even be an issue, but some people just have to do things “for the children”. Even if those children are cold-blooded and callous killers.

  • West Memphis Schism

    West Memphis Schism

    Money at root of effort to free WM3:

    When a group becomes too big or its leadership becomes corrupt, a schism is inevitable. The supporters of the West Memphis 3 are just finding this out.

    On the one hand, you have 44-year-old Lorri Davis, the wife of Damien Echols who married him 8 years ago while in jail, probably after getting moist from watching the ‘documentaries’. She’s basically in charge of all the donations given in the name of the West Memphis 3.

    A new splinter group has arisen calling itself the West Memphis 3 Innocence Project, and they claim that Davis has not been forthcoming about how the funds are being spent.

    Let’s hear from West Memphis 3 Innocence Project president Kelly Duda.

    “Isn’t it a clear conflict of interest for a spouse of one of the WM3 to have what appears to be ultimate control over funding that is intended for all three young men?” asks the new Web site that seeks donations of its own on behalf of the three defendants.

    West Memphis 3 Innocence Project president Kelly Duda said he likes Davis and applauds her efforts but said she’s given no public accounting of her fund-raising efforts. Among concerns, Duda said when he and associates contributed money, they didn’t receive receipts.

    “People have been asking these questions for a long time. The house of cards is crumbling,” Duda, a Little Rock filmmaker, said Wednesday. “Donors have a right to know where their money is going and how it’s being spent. That’s not happening.”

    In rebuttal, let’s hear from Ms. Davis’ and her publicist?

    “They are all happy with the way the money is being spent,” Davis said. Indeed, Echols’ San Francisco lawyer, Dennis Riordan, said he had no misgivings about Davis’ fund-raising.

    “It’s all accounted for,” Riordon said. Suggestions to the contrary by the new organization are “absolutely false,” he said.

    Davis’ New York publicist, Alice Leeds, dismissed the new group’s assertions, saying her client’s devotion to the case has left her with a mound of bills. “Right now, she’s about $40,000 in debt,” Leeds said.

    Leeds also questioned the motives of two people affiliated with the new organization — board member Mara Leveritt, who wrote a book, “Devil’s Knot,” about the West Memphis murders; and Paragould, Ark., lawyer Dan Stidham, Misskelley’s original attorney. Stidham consulted with the new organization before becoming a full-time judge this month and has often been paid expenses for speaking to groups about the case.

    “These individuals have been making their names and money … by using this case for years,” Leeds said. “It is about self-interest.”

    I think that can be said for everybody involved. Once the case became a cause célèbre, it became profitable.

    I think this is the beginning of the end for the West Memphis 3 movement. Remember, kids, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

  • Child advocate scoffs at MySpace. Scoffs, I tell you.

    Child advocate scoffs at MySpace. Scoffs, I tell you.

    Children’s Advocacy Group Scoffs at New MySpace Security Measures:

    Robert Fellmeth is the director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego. He’s not happy with the new proposed security measures that MySpace will be putting in place.

    I’m just concerned that parents will get a false sense of security that this is all taken care of because they’re handling it — and I don’t think they can handle it.

    He also has some advice for you.

    Fellmeth says parents need to be the first line of defense in monitoring children’s Internet use.

    You don’t send your kids sown a dark alley alone. Why should the internet be any different?

  • Ark. AG says WM3 DNA campaign is misleading

    Ark. AG says WM3 DNA campaign is misleading

    Ark. AG slams ‘misleading’ campaign on DNA evidence in 1993 West Memphis slayings:

    Arkansas’ Attorney General, Dustin McDaniel, says that the campaign that the West Memphis 3 cultists are waging about the new DNA evidence is misleading at best.

    “I’m growing increasingly frustrated by what I see as a misleading press campaign to suggest that there’s new DNA evidence that in some way exonerates these boys that a jury found guilty and whose appeals they all lost. There is no new DNA evidence that exonerates these boys at all,” McDaniel told reporters.

    “If there was any new evidence that exonerated the defendants, I would be the first one to start approaching the governor on options on bringing justice to the matter. But I’ve seen nothing, at this point, that leads me to believe that Judge (David) Burnett should on the basis of newly discovered scientific evidence grant a new trial,” McDaniel said.

    You don’t have to be an AG to realize that, since this is exactly what I said back in July.

    Then again, you can’t bring facts into a discussion with zealots.

  • Stickam still flies under the radar

    Stickam still flies under the radar

    Teens turn to sites without monitoring:

    This article from a local Arizona news outlet brings up a great point.

    While soccer moms and politicians have their panties in a wad over MySpace, no one is paying attention to the more dangerous site, in my opinion, Stickam.

    Stickam is an unmonitored webcam chat site. To the unenlightened, that means that anybody of any age with a webcam can go on Stickam and basically show whatever they want.

    The site states that nudity will get you banned, but think about it. Who is really going to complain about nudity, since that’s pretty much what a lot of people are going there hoping to find?

    Further proof that politicians are clueless.

  • NY husband and wife MySpace rapists indicted

    NY husband and wife MySpace rapists indicted

    Queens couple used 2 Internet teen girls for sex, prosecutors say:

    22-year-old Sophie Soto and her husband, 31-year-old Julio Rojas, have been arrested for an assortment of charges. I’ll let the article explain the travesties they’ve committed…

    The sordid saga began in late 2006, when Sophie Soto, 22, used the MySpace social networking site to contact one of the girls, prosecutors said Monday in a statement. Soto told the girl that she was an 18-year-old virgin who had sexual relations with girls and was planning to have sex with a boy but was nervous and wanted the girl to be with her, they said.

    The girl wrote back to Soto and said she would be there and would take a friend along, and their relationship developed through telephone and Internet instant-message conversations, prosecutors said.

    When the girls showed up at Soto’s Queens apartment in January 2007, she liquored them up and took them into a bedroom, where she sexually abused them before her husband, Julio Rojas, 31, had sexual intercourse with all three, District Attorney Richard Brown said.

    Later that night, the couple took the girls, who were under 15 but were given fake identification cards, to a Manhattan strip club, where Soto and an exotic dancer dragged them on stage, slipped their clothes off and made them have oral sex with patrons, the district attorney said.

    Together, the pair face a 56-count indictment including charges of rape, sexual abuse, and using a child in a sexual performance.

    While the ultimate responsibility for these crimes ultimately lays with the multiple rapist scumbags that did this to these poor girls, it still has to be asked.

    Where in the hell were these girls’ parents?

    Why aren’t the attorneys general looking into that?

  • What to do if you’re harassed on craigslist

    What to do if you’re harassed on craigslist

    The other day, I received an e-mail from a woman who was being harassed on craigslist. For several months, someone was posting ads in the personal ads sections advertising for things like no strings attached sex and lesbian affairs. The ads would contain her pictures and personal information. She is very busy in her profession and didn’t have the time to flag every ad that popped up. Both her local police and craigslist were not exactly helpful. She came to me asking for assistance.

    I thought about trying what little media contacts I have, but even then, craigslist doesn’t always respond. So I did some research and I found out that if you’re being harassed on craigslist like this, there is someplace you can file a complaint. My research took me to The Internet Crime Complaint Center.

    The site itself talks mostly about fraud, but I e-mailed them directly, and they assured me that IC3 is the place to file complaints about craigslist harassment of this type. They also recommended filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

    So even if craigslist is no help, there are places you can turn to.

    I’ll keep you posted on the status of the complaint.

  • Johnson attorney tries to get statements squashed

    Johnson attorney tries to get statements squashed

    Jonesboro Shooter Wants Statements Suppressed:

    The attorney for Jonesboro gunman Mitchell Johnson wants statements Johnson made to police to be thrown out.

    Jack Schisler, assistant federal public defender, made the motion Monday in U.S. District Court. Schisler argued that Johnson was not read his Miranda rights before police began questioning him following a traffic stop. Schisler said Johnson made incriminating statements about his use of marijuana during the questioning.

    So, police have to read everybody Miranda rights when they get pulled over for a traffic violation? Spare me.

    Schisler contends Johnson was actually placed in custody, handcuffed and locked in the back seat of a patrol car, and questioned by police numerous times during a search of the vehicle. The exchanges were recorded by cameras in the police cars and on officers’ microphones.

    Being held in custody and being under arrest are two different things, but I’ll give him points for trying.

    If you’ll remember, Johnson was arrested on New Year’s Day 2007 for being in possession of drugs and a weapon. The city turned over the case to the feds, who are trying him on federal weapons charges.

    No word yet on when the trial is due to start.