Sobering Signs
In February, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that David Bell could not avoid being charged with driving under the influence merely because he had been sober enough to pass all six “field sobriety tests” administered during a traffic stop. It was enough, the court said, that he had admitted to drinking that night. A few days later, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Texan Larry Davis’ struggle to clear the 2013 DWI arrest from his record — since he had blown a 0.0 alcohol reading that night and then had voluntarily undergone a blood test for other impairing drugs and came up clean on that, too. Davis had admitted to “one drink” but allegedly failed a “field sobriety test” (in the opinion of the arresting officer, anyway). (Davis’ case is still unresolved, but since he has been declared an “indigent,” the state must cover his legal expenses.)
Compelling Explanations
Briton Jack Harvey, 42, drew a three-plus-year sentence in Truro Crown Court in February following his guilty plea on drug charges. Earlier, he had insisted that police had planted the drugs seized from his house and car and even that a stranger (maybe “some filthy woman,” he said) must be the owner of that cocaine and heroin that police found taped to his testicles. …
Logical: (1) John Rogers, of Geneva, Fla., was recently acquitted in a shooting death (using Florida’s “stand your ground” defense). He convinced a judge in February to return his guns, which police had confiscated when they arrested him. Rogers said he needs the guns for protection, because he is particularly vulnerable in that he is blind. (2) Rogerio Scotton, challenging federal charges in January that he lied to immigration officials about his “marriage” to a Cuban woman (a “sham,” said prosecutors), offered to prove the matrimony’s bona fides by showing the couple’s conjugal-bed videos in open court. (The judge instructed Scotton to find a “less intrusive” way to make the same point.)
The Continuing Crisis
The firm 3D Babies has begun selling (for $800) 8-inch-long fetal sculptures developed from 3-D ultrasound images, computer graphics and 3-D printing technology (“printing” successive layers of material continuously, eventually creating a physical object). (Four-inch and 2-inch models are available for $400 and $200, respectively.) For celebrity hounds who are not planning imminent parenthood, the company sells one fetal sculpture off the shelf: the Kim Kardashian-Kanye West fetus (“Baby North West”) for only $250. …
Ms. Blondie Bennett (her recently acquired real name), 38, is not just a California model selling provocative “Barbie doll” photos of herself online (featuring her recently augmented 32JJ breast implants). She is at work on a longer-range project to remake herself completely as a human Barbie doll to include the popular critique that Barbie represents not only bodily perfection but mindlessness. Bennett said she has had 20 hypnotherapy sessions to “help” her appear more confused and vacant, according to news reports. “I want people to see me as a plastic sex doll, and being brainless is a big part of that.” She said she is doing well in that she recently got lost driving to her mother’s house.
Perspective
First-World Problems: The designer Giorgio Armani is one of the most recent one-day sponsors of a United Nations project to send safe drinking water to help some of the planet’s 768 million people without access to a clean supply. The Tap Project program signs up smartphone users with a reward: It will donate one day’s worth of clean water to a child for anyone who can manage to refrain from picking up his or her phone for 10 consecutive minutes. Tap Project screens even feature a 10-minute countdown clock to help do-gooders remain strong in the face of anxiety over the brief loss of access to Facebook, online games, et al.
The Litigious Society
British litigant Jane Mulcahy was turned down twice recently in her attempts to sue her former divorce lawyers for negligence, although they had won her case, defeating her husband’s contentions. The lawyers were negligent, she said, because they never told her that if she “won” the lawsuit, the marriage would be over. Lord Justice Briggs, in the second appeal, said that Mulcahy’s Roman Catholic faith should have tipped her off that “divorce” ended the marriage. …
Clients Richard and Sandra Weiner filed a lawsuit in Paterson, N.J., in January against their former real estate agent, Robert Lindsay, who they said had a blatant conflict of interest while offering the Weiners’ house for sale. The agent allegedly, purposely, high-balled the asking price so that the house would remain unsold longer so that two agents (Lindsay and Jeannemarie Phelan) could meet there frequently for sexual rendezvous. The agents denied the charge, but Coldwell Banker terminated their services.
Ironies
As Americans know, Canada’s health care system, funded largely by taxes, is dramatically less expensive than America’s — well, unless you’re a dog. The Canadian news service CTV reported in February that increasingly, pet owners in Winnipeg, Manitoba, are making the 120-mile car trip to Grand Forks, N.D., because U.S. veterinarian prices are significantly lower than comparable services by Canadian vets. One Winnipeg family, facing a $650 teeth-cleaning plus blood work for their Shitzu took him on the road trip to Grand Forks, where the bill came to $205. …
The Internal Revenue Service might have second thoughts about suing William Berroyer to recover a $60,000 tax underpayment since, by the time Berroyer was finished with them, the federal government had been ordered to write Berroyer (now age 66) checks totaling nearly 15 times that much. Berroyer, who was on his way out of the IRS office in Hauppauge, N.Y., after his first meeting in 2008, tripped over a phone cord and fell against a filing cabinet, injuring himself so severely that he required a 17-day hospital stay and rehabilitation and alleged long-term confinement to a wheelchair. …
In February, after a 43-year-old rape victim in Cowlitz County, Wash., missed court hearings, prosecutors needing her testimony filed for a rare “material witness” warrant to assure her availability — by asking the judge to jail her. She acknowledged her anxieties but promised to do better if the judge would dismiss the warrant. She pointed out that prosecutors were seeking to lock her up against her will to force her to testify that a rapist had once locked her up against her will (in addition to committing other indignities). (The sympathetic judge dismissed the warrant, but the woman has since missed another court date.)
Least Competent Criminals
Unclear on the Concept: (1) Michael Williams, 53, was arrested in Sumter, S.C., in February after his debit card was rejected as payment at the Applebee’s restaurant. Police were called when Williams’ backup form of payment was a “U.S. currency” bill in the denomination of $1 trillion. (2) Dyonta Rose, 29, in police custody the night of Feb. 22 in Dallas for possession of narcotics, fled the police cruiser still wearing his handcuffs. Rose was tracked down a short time later when he called 911 to ask for an ambulance because his handcuffs were cutting off circulation in his arm.
Undignified Deaths
(1) Twenty-two people were killed just north of Baghdad in February (and 15 injured) from a devastating suicide-bomb blast. The 37 were Sunni militants attending a class on how to be suicide bombers when the teacher’s vest accidentally exploded. (2) An 86-year-old man, celebrating his selection in November by the Howard Stern radio show to be treated to a fancy meal followed by a menage-a-trois session with prostitutes at Nevada’s famed Bunny Ranch, called it “the greatest day of my life.” However, he failed to make it through dinner, as he choked to death on a piece of steak. CV
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