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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Item 1 of 7
The arguably-illustrious Ozy semi-recently penned an article on the internal workings of a jury trial, which reaffirmed that person's faith in the justice system. Here we find a detective story that may push opinions in the opposite direction.
Branning and Stark are two workers at a manufacturing business in Pennsylvania. They are on non-overlapping shifts, and rarely interact. On October 15, Stark switches to a different shift that overlaps with Branning's. Neither of them returns from work, and their families report both of them missing within a few days. An investigation determines that, after work, (1) Branning and an unknown person (possibly, but not definitely, Stark) drove Branning's car to an ATM and withdrew 500 dollars from Branning's bank account, and (2) Branning's car, Branning's and Stark's cell phones, and Stark (no direct sighting of Branning) moved from east-central Pennsylvania 120 miles to southern New Jersey and then 90 miles to Philadelphia before dropping off the radar. The police eventually find Stark 600 miles away in Detroit as of October 27.
In December, Branning's car is found abandoned in Virginia. The steering wheel bears DNA from Stark and an unknown man, but not from Branning. At this point, Stark is arrested and presented to a grand jury, which indicts him on a plethora of crimes—robbery, kidnapping, murder, et cetera.
More than a year later, a nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying unidentified corpses identifies a corpse found in a Maryland drainage ditch on November 2 as Branning's. When the corpse was discovered, the Maryland investigators found time of death to be October 29 or later, and could not determine the cause or manner of death (due to decomposition). However, the Pennsylvania investigators reassess the Maryland autopsy records and decide that the time of death could have been as early as October 11 (before Branning actually disappeared, but the "forensic anthropologist" told to do the analysis doesn't know that).
At trial, the prosecutor introduces evidence of three robberies that Stark committed 25 years ago. In those crimes, he brandished a gun and demanded money from a business, but did not harm the employees. The jury convicts Stark on all charges.
The appeals panel vacates and remands in a very angry opinion. (1) "There are absolutely no commonalities between Stark's 1990s robbery convictions and the instant events." So introducing them in this trial did nothing but prejudice the jury against Stark. (2) "None of the experts can say how Branning died. Not only can none of the experts explain how Branning died, but the investigators also never located a murder weapon or evidence of one. Finally, none of the experts could even conclude that there was a homicide in this case. Because we cannot say with any degree of certainty that there was even a homicide, let alone that the other offenses were committed, we conclude that there is not overwhelming evidence to sustain Stark's convictions. Accordingly, the trial court's error cannot be and is not harmless, and we are compelled to vacate Stark's convictions and remand for a new trial consistent with this opinion." (Emphasis in original.)
Remember, the jury convicted Stark of a zillion crimes under the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard! But the appeals panel points out that there was a whole two weeks between Branning's disappearance on October 15 (assuming he made it to Philadelphia alive) and his original estimated death date on October 29, and what happened in that period may or may not have involved Stark at all. Obviously, it seems a bit far-fetched that Branning would randomly skip town with Stark of his own volition. But is the idea that he was kidnapped and killed by Stark (and not by the unknown third person whose DNA was also found in the car) the only reasonable explanation? According to the appeals panel, no.
Item 2 of 7
Year 1993: A 51-year-old divorced immigrant from Japan works as an interpreter (and later the general manager) at a golf club. She enters into a close friendship with a 25-year-old chef at the same club.
Year 2003: The golf club is sold to a new owner (and eventually is redeveloped as housing). The woman (age 61) retires. Her friendship with the man (age 35) continues.
Year 2023: The woman (age 81) suffers from delusions and temporarily is committed to a mental clinic. The man (age 55) visits her while she is committed, and after she is released she begins to rely on him more. He hires housekeepers for her, finds lawyers for her, drives her to medical and legal appointments, et cetera.
Year 2024: The woman gives to the man power of attorney, transfers ownership of her house to him, and writes a new will giving 60 percent of her estate to him and 20 percent to each of her two sisters (who still live in Japan).
Year 2024, later: The woman's sister and niece come from Japan to visit her for the first time in years. Upon discovering the situation, they try to persuade her to return to Japan, but she refuses. They file a lawsuit, (1) accusing the man of exerting undue influence over the woman, and (2) seeking guardianship over her.
Year 2026: The trial judge finds that the woman now is incapacitated, but also finds that the man did not exert undue influence over her, and awards to him guardianship over her, rejecting the claims of her Japanese relatives. In particular, when the woman visited several lawyers in year 2024, they all were suspicious of the man, but after interrogating the woman they all were convinced that she was not incapacitated or unduly influenced at that time.
I'm sure that this website's resident weeaboos can imagine a cute (or sexy) visual (or kinetic) novel inspired by these events.
Item 3 of 7
A municipal govt. on the Jersey Shore™ claims that, "for many decades, it has experienced substantial numbers of unsupervised minors who rent rooms during the months of April, May, and June to celebrate high-school proms and graduations", and these crowds of minors are responsible for "unlawful and unsafe conditions". On that basis, it passes ordinances increasing the minimum age for renting a hotel room during those months, first to 18 in year 2018, and then to 21 in year 2023. In response, two hotels sue under a litany of theories.
The trial judge rejects all of the hotels' arguments (including the idea that the ordinance discriminates against Hispanics who celebrate Cinco de Mayo and blacks who celebrate Juneteenth—the hotels offered no evidence to support this assertion). However, the appeals panel reinstates two claims (equal protection and due process) that obviously fail under the federal constitution's rational-basis review but under the state constitution's balancing test have a chance of success.
Item 4 of 7
Ugly custom house update: More delay. The contractor claims that ordering the countertop was not possible before the cabinets were installed, and the countertop manufacturer has an unexpected backlog. But I guess I'm not actually suffering any damages.
Item 5 of 7
A side-splitting family case:
Item 6 of 7
Apparently, recently-deceased low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines was infamous for the low quality of its passengers. Here we see one in the wild.
A woman is sitting in a wheelchair, waiting to board a Spirit Airlines flight. Upon being told by an employee that she will not be permitted to board due to intoxication, she stands up from the wheelchair and starts screaming profanities. Four police officers escort her out, and she continues to curse at them. Upon being warned that further outbursts will result in arrest, she continues to shout. She resists the officers' subsequent attempts to handcuff her and to put her in a police car.
The woman is acquitted of public drunkenness, but is convicted of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and is sentenced to six months of probation and 125 hours of community service. The appeals panel affirms.
Item 7 of 7
In year 1989, husband (age 34) and wife (age 49) get married. Just seven years later, they separate, but don't bother to get a divorce. The husband voluntarily continues to provide financial support to the wife—500 k$ over 28 years.
In year 2024, a house owned jointly by the husband (age 69 and apparently still working) and the wife (age 84, incapacitated, and living in a nursing home) is sold. The husband gives the entire 300 k$ of proceeds to the wife, and in exchange stops sending support payments to her. The wife (through her daughter as guardian) sues, alleging that she never agreed to this exchange and she's still entitled to spousal support under the law. (The 300 k$ of house money that she got apparently already "has been depleted" in the space of a year.)
The trial judge rejects the wife's arguments, and the appeals panel affirms. Setting the husband's spousal-support obligation to zero is not unreasonable when he already has given such a huge amount of money to the wife for a separation period that was far longer than the marriage.
I don't see why Item 1 would cause anyone to question their faith in the justice system. This is exactly the kind of case the prohibition on admitting prior bad acts was meant to address. What you have is a guy who engaged in a bunch of extremely suspicious activity pertaining to someone's disappearance, none of which is actually evidence that he committed any crime. No, Branning's actions do not make much sense, and we are drawn to the conclusion that there must have been foul play involved in his disappearance absent any other explanation. The problem is that Stark's actions don't make much sense, either. The prosecution's theory is that Stark, finding himself alone with Branning at work, decided to rob him. From there, the theory goes downhill:
The proceeds of this robbery were $500 and a tank of gas. People commonly will rob someone for this amount. People won't commonly turn it into an elaborate jaunt across several states culminating in the victim's murder.
The drive to Cape May makes absolutely no sense. There were no further ATM withdrawals, and Branning had an opportunity to escape when they stopped for gas at the Wawa.
The drive back to Philadelphia makes no sense. They allegedly visited an open air drug market, which is admittedly not as good a place for an escape attempt as a well-lit gas station, but still not somewhere you take a hostage if you don't have to.
Branning was almost certainly alive when they arrived back in Philadelphia. If he were killed at any point prior it would mean that Stark drove an extended distance across the pine barrens with a dead body in his car and rather than dump it in possibly the best spot for such a job in the Lower 48, he decided to drive back to Philadelphia, buy crack, then drive to exurban Baltimore with a dead body in his car. An SUV that doesn't have a trunk.
Stark is 5' 2". He would have evidently used a gun to effect Branning's kidnapping, but not use any weapons to murder him. Stark may be built like a brick shithouse, but it would still be quite a feat for him to overpower Branning if he were even 5'7".
It's true that criminals don't always act rationally. But we're more likely to ascribe this behavior to someone whom we've already pegged as a criminal. If Stark is a normal, law-abiding citizen, a jury is unlikely to believe the improbable tales of an prosecutor looking to tie up an unsolved mystery in a nice little package by claiming that Mr. Stark simply decided to kidnap, rob, and murder a coworker one afternoon in the most bizarre and complicated way possible. They are more likely, however, to believe that someone they've already pegged as a criminal to be capable of that behavior. This is exactly the scenario the rules are designed to prevent. Knowledge of a string of 25-year-old robberies that bear no resemblance to what the prosecutor is alleging have nothing to do with the case. The only purpose is to give the jury the idea that Stark is a bad dude and is capable of something like this.
My wording was too broad. I meant to point specifically at the jury rather than at the justice system as a whole. Quote from Ozy's article:
Yet the jurors in this case seem to have delivered unanimous convictions on evidence that fell far short of "beyond a reasonable doubt", even with the prior-bad-acts evidence.
Sorry, at first I thought you were implying that the blow to one's faith was caused by the overturning of the conviction of the most obvious suspect in a murder case. As far as your actual concern, I wouldn't worry too much about it for the simple reason that you can't expect jurors to know the law better than the lawyers involved and to not act like humans. The rules of evidence are cognizant of the fact that certain prejudices are so difficult to put aside that we won't even let the jury hear evidence that may inflame them, and in such a situation, I can hardly blame the jury for thinking that these prior offenses were relevant and that fact influencing their conviction. This is an unusual case, where there's no real evidence but also no satisfying explanation. This case can't be conceived of in a way that makes sense, because any angle has some obvious deficiency.
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Yeah, that would do it!
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