. . . when the hard drive gets replaced.
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
From Murder Bumps to Brain Scans: New Ways to Excuse Crime
All this week, NPR is reporting on new genetic research to determine if some people have genes that make them kill people.
That is, if by “report” you mean shamelessly advocate and if by “genetic research” you mean paying expert witnesses to misrepresent academic findings in the courtroom.
Bradley Waldroup: Destined to Kill?
In the subtly-titled “Can Your Genes Make You Murder?” reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty answers: Why of course, yes, if it will get that poor man in the trailer park off from shooting his wife’s best friend eight times and then hacking up his wife with a machete, and to heck with him being drunk and just deciding to do it!
When the police arrived at Bradley Waldroup’s trailer home in the mountains of Tennessee, they found a war zone. There was blood on the walls, blood on the carpet, blood on the truck outside, even blood on the Bible that Waldroup had been reading before all hell broke loose.
Note the “all hell broke loose” sentence construction, as if it wasn’t Waldroup doing something, but that something beyond his control was acting on him. Like genes. Or hell-ghosts.
Or maybe he became a zombie.
In other words, it took a mere one and a half sentences for Ms. Hagerty to start singing the defense attorney’s refrain of diminished capacity.
Assistant District Attorney Drew Robinson says that on Oct. 16, 2006, Waldroup was waiting for his estranged wife to arrive with their four kids for the weekend. He had been drinking, and when his wife said she was leaving with her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, they began to fight. Soon, Waldroup had shot Bradshaw eight times and sliced her head open with a sharp object. When Waldroup was finished with her, he chased after his wife, Penny, with a machete, chopping off her finger and cutting her over and over.
Ordinarily, this would be a slam-dunk murder conviction. After all, it takes some time to pump eight bullets into an innocent woman and then tear around chopping up another one. But then, enter the “experts”:
[Defense attorney Wylie] Richardson says he realized that the testimony at trial would be “very graphic.” The defense team, he says, did not try to dismantle the graphic evidence but rather sought to “give a broader and fuller picture of what that was.” How to do that? The answer, it turned out, lay in Bradley Waldroup’s genes.
Wouldn’t that be “the defense said the answer lay in Bradley Waldroup’s genes”? No?
Immediately, Richardson went to forensic psychiatrist William Bernet of Vanderbilt University and asked him to give Waldroup a psychiatric evaluation. Bernet also took a blood sample and brought it to Vanderbilt’s Molecular Genetics Laboratory. Since 2004, Bernet and laboratory director Cindy Vnencak-Jones have been analyzing the DNA of people like Waldroup. They’ve tested some 30 criminal defendants, most of whom were charged with murder.
They’ve tested a whole 30 defendants since 2004.
They were looking for a particular variant of the MAO-A gene — also known as the warrior gene because it has been associated with violence. Bernet says they found that Waldroup has the high-risk version of the gene.
Oh no. Not only does the killer have the Warrior Gene, he’s got the High Risk Warrior Gene! And that’s not all.
“His genetic makeup, combined with his history of child abuse, together created a vulnerability that he would be a violent adult,” Bernet explains.
Remember when this used to be called phrenology?
You know, the discredited science of feeling people’s heads for things like “murder bumps” and promiscuity centers?
Boy, those Victorians sure were crazy. And prejudiced, because, of course, phrenologists got busy fast dividing mankind into superior and inferior groupings by doing things like measuring people’s foreheads and noses, and you know where that ended up.
Phrenology also made policing easier, because you could simply categorize people by their physical characteristics and not wait for them to actually do anything wrong before sending them to the poorhouse. Or Australia.
Thank goodness we’re far more advanced than those Victorians. Now we have experts convincing jurors that people can’t be held responsible for murders they actually did commit because their genes made them do it:
[Vanderbilt researcher William] Bernet cited scientific studies over the past decade that found that the combination of the high-risk gene and child abuse increases one’s chances of being convicted of a violent offense by more than 400 percent. He notes that other studies have not found a connection between the MAO-A gene and violence — but he told the jury that he felt the genes and childhood abuse were a dangerous cocktail. “A person doesn’t choose to have this particular gene or this particular genetic makeup,” Bernet says. “A person doesn’t choose to be abused as a child. So I think that should be taken into consideration when we’re talking about criminal responsibility.”
So, essentially, Bernet “feels” a non-proven connection between violence and a gene that non-murderers also possess ought to mitigate culpability for violent acts. Enough jurors bought this story:
[Juror] Debbie Beaty, says the science helped persuade her that Waldroup was not entirely in control of his actions. “Evidently it’s just something that doesn’t tick right,” Beaty says. “Some people without this would react totally different than he would.” And even though prosecutors tried to play down the genetic evidence, Beaty felt it was a major factor. “A diagnosis is a diagnosis, it’s there,” she says. “A bad gene is a bad gene.”
Well, thank you, Dr. Beaty.
After 11 hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Waldroup of voluntary manslaughter — not murder — and attempted second-degree murder. Prosecutor Drew Robinson was stunned. “I was just flabbergasted. I did not know how to react to it,” Robinson says. Nor did fellow prosecutor Cynthia Lecroy-Schemel. She worries that this sort of defense is the wave of the future. “Anything that defense attorneys can have to latch onto to save their client’s life or to lessen their client’s culpability, they will do it,” Lecroy-Schemel says. Waldroup’s attorney, Wylie Richardson, says she’s right. “I would use it again” under the right circumstances, he says. “It seemed to work in this case.”
It seemed to work in this case. There’s a scientific standard we can all be proud of.
NPR’s Three-Part Series, Inside the Criminal Brain
Friday, January 14, 2011
Burglary is Not a Non-Violent Crime: In Oakland, It Isn’t Even a Crime
Posted on July 27th, 2010 Tina
Well, OK, that’s not exactly true. But in July, Oakland police announced that, due to budget problems, police will no longer respond to a long list of crimes, including residential burglary where the home invaders are unknown.
I’m sure it didn’t help that the city had to spend so much money responding to the recent liberation of sports shoes and consumer electronics in the name of Oscar Grant.
Shoe Locker Looter Wearing an Oscar Grant Mask
That’s a lot of money that could be spent on doing things like protecting people’s property, going instead to prevent protesters from destroying even more Mom and Pop franchises and delis and phone kiosks and other symbols of oppression.
Maybe there should be an enhanced penalty for premeditated rioting.
Meanwhile, want to train to become a burglar? Move to Oakland. Though I don’t recommend living there, because home insurance rates are about to shoot up. For everyone, of course, not just burglars and looters. Funny how that works.
I spent way too much time yesterday fruitlessly searching for a comment I’d seen on a police blog, one that perfectly sums up the dangers of lowering the bar on criminal behavior this way. The commenter, a cop himself, was writing about the war on cops. He pointed out that virtually every cop killer has repeatedly cycled through the court system, learning along the way that he could get away with practically anything.
Even more troubling, the widespread belief that so-called non-violent crimes like drug trafficking and residential burglary don’t merit prison terms is creating a generation of criminals who not only have no fear of consequences but actually feel entitled to commit crimes. Whenever they find naive people to support them in their belief in these “rights,” they also feel more entitled to direct their resentment and rage at symbols of law enforcement, namely cops.
We should not underestimate the perniciousness of reinforcing the notion that it is “unjust” to punish people for things like breaking into other people’s houses.
Oakland has actually codified that mindset.
These trends are especially dangerous for women. Back when Georgia was implementing its DNA database by collecting DNA from all felons, not just sex offenders, something really shocking showed up in the first few hundred “hits” (where a felon’s sample matched previously unsolved crimes). Many men who only had prior records for burglary or drugs or aggravated assault were identified as rapists in stranger rapes that had gone unsolved.
That begs a few questions, questions which, sadly, law professors and criminologists are utterly disinterested in asking. Too bad, because they’re extremely relevant in the ongoing debate about prosecuting or not prosecuting certain crimes and how we choose to spend our shrinking justice budgets.
For example, how many of these men were previously caught committing rapes but were granted non-sex offense pleas by money-conscious prosecutors who didn’t think they could get rape charges to stick? In one of his several trips to prison, my own rapist got more time for resisting arrest and B&E than for sexually assaulting another victim — more time for breaking into a window than a woman’s body — thanks to one such money-saving plea. I’ve got a file cabinet stuffed with other examples of serial rapists — and serial killers — given multiple chances to rape and kill, thanks to routine, money-saving courtroom shortcuts.
They don’t call them “bargains” for nothing. These types of offenders also now have enhanced abilities to do pre-assault dry runs in Oakland and other places that are ratcheting back law enforcement.
Now, with less enforcement of these lesser crimes, more serious offenders stand to get away with even higher quantities of violent crime. A sex offender operating in Oakland can rest confident knowing that the police won’t be showing up to investigate his fishing expeditions. Does anybody believe the that the tiny fraction of burglars who end up in a courtroom in Oakland won’t benefit from the downgrading of this crime?
And what is happening in Oakland is the future for everyone, the logical consequence of decades of pricing justice out of reach — for us non-offenders, that is. We spend so much on largely useless “rehabilitation” and frivolous appeals that there is no money left to actually enforce the law. This is how violent recidivists are made, and how cops get killed, and why the rest of us are forced to spend more and more of our money insuring our lives and looking over our shoulders.
In the 1990’s, elected officials were able to turn New York City around by doing precisely the opposite of what Oakland is doing today. Expect opposite results, as well.
New Site Launched for Mesothelioma Patients
The mesothelioma law firm of Clapper, Patti, Schweizer & Mason is pleased to announce the launch of its new and improved website located at http://www.mesothelioma-attorney.com/. The new site offers even more comprehensive information about exposure to asbestos, the dangers of asbestos, and sites where exposure most commonly occurred in the United States. The new site is easier to access, has more in-depth articles and headline news, and includes everything one would need to know in terms of mesothelioma treatments and helping patients diagnosed with an asbestos related disease.
In addition, the new website has a dedicated section to veterans diagnosed with mesothelioma. This section was created as part of an ongoing effort to provide veterans exposed to asbestos with the necessary legal information regarding how to receive compensation and help with medical costs if diagnosed with an asbestos related disease due to time in service. Thousands if not millions of veterans from all branches of the U.S. military services, including Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Army, were exposed to asbestos during the course of duty.
The Veterans Health Administration can help provide some assistance to retired servicemen diagnosed with asbestos related illnesses, but it can also be very challenging to get compensation from the VA in a timely and successful manner. An experienced asbestos law firm can help you explore whether filing a VA claim or a mesothelioma lawsuit directly against the manufacturers of the asbestos products that made you sick is the best option given your circumstances.
Clapper Patti Schweizer & Mason specializes in asbestos lawsuits and has received hundreds of settlements and multi-million dollar awards on behalf of clients diagnosed with mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, our hearts go out to you as we have witnessed how devastating and challenging this cancer and its treatment can be. Please visit our new site and contact our offices for support, referrals, and expert legal representation.
Clapper Patti Schweizer & Mason website was designed and implement by our marketing team, WebSight Design, who are dedicated to providing up-to-date and helpful information to our clients in the most user-friendly way. We encourage you to visit our new site. If you have any questions regarding our services or our new site, please call toll free at 1-866-784-1148 or fill out the “Free Evaluation” form on the home page.
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2010 at 9:37 am and is filed under Mesothelioma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.Thursday, January 13, 2011
Is Cancer a Manmade Illness?
A recent review of tissue samples taken from ancient Egyptian mummies has revealed a strikingly rare occurrence of cancer, says a team of British and American scientists. Given the relatively high frequency of cancer among the modern population, the lack of cancer patients in Ancient Egypt leads researchers to propose the fact that cancer is a modern, manmade illness.
According to one of the lead researchers for the study, Rosalie David, “In industrialized societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death, but in ancient times, it was extremely rare.” This fact leads her to conclude, “There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer.”
However, this conclusion is not a universal viewpoint of the scientific community. Certainly, there are a few variables that need to be taken into account when reviewing signs of cancer in a mummified subject that is more than 1,000 years old.
For example, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin points out, “To see cancers with the skeletal record, you really have to have a tumor that’s affecting bone. Although there might be few confirmed diagnoses of tumors in bones, it’s because cancer is a difficult diagnosis to make from bone.”
Still it is not unheard of to effectively diagnose cancer from a skeletal record. In fact, Dr. Michael Zimmerman of Villanova University (and lead author for the study) was able to use mummified tissue to identify rectal cancer in a mummified specimen that is approximately 1,700 years old. Given this success, and the lack of cancer found across all mummies examined, Zimmerman agrees with David on the fact that cancer appears to be caused by pollution, diet and other manmade health hazards.
To bolster their claims, David and Zimmerman combed through ancient Egyptian and Greek texts in an effort to identify any mentions of cancer among both human and animal populations. The near lack of such data may be interpreted as an additional sign that some credence can be given to the controversial idea.
Critics have also brought up the fact that individuals living in ancient times had a typical lifespan of less than 30 years. Today, cancers generally manifest beyond the 30-year mark. As such it could just be that ancient individuals did not live long enough for cancer to occur.
The British/American team attempted to debunk this possibility by reviewing signs of other age-related illnesses. The fact that they found fairly common symptoms of atherosclerosis, osteoporosis and Paget’s disease of bone suggests that aging was progressed enough to reveal higher rates of cancer than actually found.
Still, the idea that cancer is wholly a manmade illness is a hard pill to swallow – signs of cancer have previously been found in the remains of dinosaurs. However, the evidence compiled by the team is compelling enough to raise questions about how much human contributors have affected the rise of cancer in our society. In the cases of clear carcinogens like asbestos, the connection to cancer (mesothelioma) is certainly present, but for many other cancers it is not clear.
Sources:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
http://www.care2.com/
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