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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.
Item 2 is uncannily similar to a Pulitzer-Prize-winning story from NYT: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/katie-engelhart-contributing-writer-new-york-times
Re: Item 1, did Stark have any explanation as to where he was, why he decided to drop everything and leave without a word to anyone, and whether or not he was with Branning? Why was his DNA on the steering wheel of Branning's abandoned car? Who was the third guy? Because it could be possible they both decide to do a midnight flit independently, but it's certainly one heck of a set of coincidences. The conviction probably is shaky, but it's more "we have very strong suspicion he dunnit but we can't prove that on the evidence we have now, so we'll have to lean on him having a past violent criminal history".
Not ideal, but it's also not like they just plucked some random guy off the street and said "you are the man!"
EDIT: Looking up online, reports of the case indicate that Stark was not completely reformed between 1994 and 2021:
It's an odd case, because if Branning was just giving Stark a lift and loaning him money on foot of a sob story where Stark planned to skip town, why would Branning also leave? Why head off in the same direction as Stark? Certainly it can't be proven Branning was murdered, or if murdered Stark did it, but there's something fishy going on there. I can see how it's highly unsatisfactory for everyone involved, from the family of Branning to the courts:
How did he end up with the car, if he had no idea what happened to Branning? I suspect this is one of those cases where we'll never know the truth unless and until the mystery third guy is located or somebody decides to give a death bed confession:
This is the precise set of circumstances where the rules of evidence are designed to prevent past criminal acts from being introduced. "Our case against this guy is weak, but look at all this bad stuff he's done. Therefore, he's a bad guy and probably did this and you the jury should convict." It's understood that prior bad acts are some of the most prejudicial/powerful things to a jury, so in theory there are limits on when those things can be introduced.
The rule against introducing prior bad acts (numbers vary, but called 404(b) at the federal level) has so many exceptions that they almost swallow the rule. Even ignoring those exceptions, convictions will often be upheld because the evidence is so overwhelming against the defendant (on camera, clear cut DNA evidence, a dozen witnesses, a solid confession, being caught with the victim's property, etc.) that the appellate court will say even if the wrongfully introduced prior bad acts weren't present, the jury still would have convicted (appellate courts apparently have crystal balls and can see alternate realities). The likelihood of a conviction getting overturned go up as the evidence against a defendant gets weaker because those prior bad acts start looking like they carried more weight with the jury. When it's a marginal case like the discussed one, that's where the bad acts can have the most impact and it's the most important to exclude them.
If it were only "bad acts from twenty years ago", I agree that it was wrong. But the guy also had current "bad acts" that weren't used. I think they were desperate to get a conviction and over-did it, but I also think the guy had a lot of explaining to do, and without the transcript of the trial I have no idea if he did manage to sufficiently explain "Okay so I have his car because..." or not.
You're right about the weak case and circumstantial evidence and prior bad acts, but there's also the complication that the entire situation seems very suspicious and with no better suspect at hand, I can't say the prosecution were absolutely in the wrong.
Whether from 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago, the important thing is the nature of the bad act, not the age. Stark had a history of robbing fast food places at gunpoint with an accomplice and stealing from the safe. That evidence could be admissible as a modus operandi, or as evidence of a common plan or scheme, if he were charged with a crime that somewhat resembled these robberies. But, as the court makes clear, the story prosecutors were running with was so different than what Stark did in 1993 that it didn't have any probative value. That he was charged with resisting arrest is wholly irrelevant since there's no indication that he resisted arrest in this case. The drug charges may have some slight relevance here, but they'd almost certainly be outweighed by the risk of prejudice.
Stark had no explanation for what happened, but he isn't obligated to provide one. That he's free from such an obligation is a cornerstone of out legal system. What you're basically arguing here is a position the rules were expressly designed to avoid: We don't know what happened. But this guy was somewhat involved, and though we don't have any real evidence against him, he's a Bad Guy, and because he's a Bad Guy you shouldn't give him the benefit of any doubt, shouldn't require any evidence, convict him on the basis that him being guilty is the best explanation we have, even though it isn't a good one.
I get into this a bit in an above comment, but you're making a critical mistake when you assume that Stark must be guilty. Yes, it's true that it's very difficult to envision an explanation for the known facts that doesn't involve foul play. But it's equally difficult to construct a narrative where Stark murders Branning. For instance, Stark was 5'2". I can't find any information about how large a man Branning was, but even in the unlikely event that he was smaller than Stark, he'd have to be significantly smaller for Stark to be able to manhandle him; otherwise it's a fair fight. So it's presumed that Stark would have to have some kind of weapon. But if he had a weapon, why didn't he kill Branning with it? And how did such a small man kill Branning at all without use of a weapon, all while managing to avoid any cuts, bruises, broken bones, or other signs of obvious injury?
Even if he had a gun, how was Stark able to enter a Wawa and buy stuff over the counter without running the risk of his hostage escaping? This is a Wawa in a resort area around 9 pm on a Friday. Not typically a deserted location, even in October. For that matter, why didn't Branning escape when they stopped for gas earlier in the evening? This isn't a problem, of course, if Branning is dead, but then he has a much bigger problem of going to a Wawa with a dead body in the back of an SUV, and then driving back to Philadelphia with it, and then on to Baltimore to dump it. If we assume Branning was alive this whole time, the question arises why he was still alive. If Stark had always intended to kill him, it would make more sense to do it in the Jersey Pine Barrens than to go back to Philadelphia, and then to exurban Baltimore.
You know what also makes sense? That this whole thing was a drug deal gone bad. It's easy to look into the accused's background, but did you ever consider looking into the victim's? Maybe he has some dirty laundry that isn't being aired out of respect for the dead, or maybe he had a secret life his family didn't know about. Or maybe he was just naive and thought he was doing a guy a favor. But who drives from Philadelphia to Cape May on a Friday night, stays for an hour, then turns around and heads back? To one of the worst areas in the city? Suppose Stark tells Branning that he needs a ride to Cape May and that there's something in it for him. Things go fine in Cape May but turn ugly when they get back to Philadelphia. Maybe the guys Stark is working for take exception to the presence of an outsider, get spooked, and decide that he can't talk. They take him to Baltimore to get rid of him, and Stark drives his car to DC because it's the closest city that hasn't been involved thus far. From there he somehow gets to Detroit, where he's finally far enough away to feel safe.
Of course this is ridiculous, but it has the advantage of having fewer obvious plot holes than the theory that Stark lied in wait to ambush Brannin so he could steal $500 and a tank of gas and take an unnecessary trip to Cape May.
It's tough, because a man is dead and another guy went missing and ended up with his DNA on the missing man's car, which contained the missing man's bank cards. How do you explain that?
I agree Stark doesn't have to incriminate himself, but he has to be able to explain the car. Even if it's "yeah Branning drove me to work, everyone knows that, and I was sitting in the driver's seat while he [went and did something on the way there]".
Two guys go missing at the same time, their positions are plotted on the same route, one ends up dead? You can't just waltz away with "nothing to do with me, no sir!"
Which might account for the DNA evidence of a third man, if it was an accomplice of Stark and/or someone he owed the drug debt to. They make Branning take money out, he says he can't/doesn't have the full amount, they think they can maybe force him to take more out later or hold him for ransom, something goes wrong. That works too, and explains why Stark and Branning can be put in the same places at the same time, and the car. I don't think Branning was dirty, the family insist he was a great guy but soft-hearted. Of course that's the family, but I think the cops would have found some trace of a secret life. I think Stark did manage to persuade Branning to "help him out" by driving him to that place after work and then it all went badly wrong for everyone.
But like I said, we'll never know for sure until some witness is found or someone comes forward with the full story.
Not under the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. If Branning's estate were to sue Stark for wrongful death, maybe it would be able to collect under the "preponderance of evidence" standard. But that's civil, not criminal.
Yeah, that's why it's all such a mess. Stark is a shady character, but did he kill Branning? No way to prove it one way or the other, so the family is in limbo with no real ending.
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