THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Madoff’s Victims: Gullible Or Greedy?: French financier Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, committed suicide after losing $1.4 billion to Bernard Madoff. The Associated Press reports that Madoff’s Ponzi scheme not only sucked up the fortunes of Magon de la Villehuchet’s clients, but also his and his family’s money. Magon de la Villehuchet was found dead at his Madison Avenue office with both his wrists slashed, alongside a box cutter and a bottle of sleeping pills.
† Study: Insured Cancer Patients Do Better: The family of leukemia patient Nataline Sarkisyan, who died last year at the age of 17, is suing health insurance provider Cigna Corp. for her refusing to pay for a liver transplant, reports The Associated Press:
The lawsuit … alleges breach of contract, unfair business practices and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit accuses Cigna of delaying and rejecting valid claims, which resulted in [Sarkisyan’s] wrongful death. …
Nataline was diagnosed with leukemia at 14 and received a bone marrow transplant from her brother the day before Thanksgiving 2007. A complication, however, caused the teen's liver to fail.
The family had asked Cigna to pay for a liver transplant but the insurer refused, calling the procedure experimental.
In a subsequent letter to Cigna, four doctors from Mattel Children's Hospital at
The insurer eventually reversed the decision while about 150 nurses and community members rallied outside its office in
By this time, however, the teen had fallen into a vegetative state and was taken off life support. She died within the hour.
† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: People living in the suburbs that surround Washington, D.C. are worried that widespread job losses and foreclosures will cause a significant uptick in robberies and burglaries, and are taking steps to protect themselves and their homes, reports The Washington Post:
Whether the economic downturn will have a far-reaching impact on crime is unknown - and some officials are not convinced that there is a strong correlation - but the surge in property crimes is apparent.
Violent crime, however, is down in the District and many of its suburbs, according to preliminary data. Law enforcement officials said that crime statistics are still being tabulated for the last few months of the year - the period following September's global economic collapse.
But many people say they aren't waiting for the final stats before taking security measures into their own hands: buying guns, checking out home security systems and avoiding shopping malls after dark. …
Sales of guns and ammunition are up 8 to 10 percent this year, according to state and federal records, fueled in part by fears that the incoming Democratic administration might tighten restrictions on gun sales. But some new gun owners - crowding instruction classes and local ranges - are also worried about rising crime, according to Nan Sanders, a retiree and shooting instructor from
Sanders's group, Piedmont NRA Instructors, held a class in
Editorial Note: This hostage situation turned out well, but if the homeowner had been armed his family’s ordeal could have ended a lot sooner – and he would have been able to rely on his own ability to protect his family than to sheer luck.
† Updates To Previous Posts (Judge: Veils Not Allowed In My Courtroom, second item): Court employees and a municipal judge in the Atlanta suburb of Douglasville will be forced to undergo sensitivity training after Lisa Valentine, 40, was arrested for refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf before entering the courthouse and was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court, reports The Associated Press:
All police officers and some city employees who work with the court will be trained on court restrictions and special accommodations, and will post courtroom decorum rules at the front door and throughout the building, police said. Rollins will also undergo the training, said Gary Sparks, deputy police chief of administration.
Akil Secret, an attorney representing Valentine, said a lawsuit is likely.
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Is The Iraqi Criminal Justice System More Efficient Than Ours?): The Stiletto first posed this question when it became clear that the Atlanta “courthouse shooter” trial - which ultimately took three years to come to an unsatisfying conclusion and nearly bankrupted the states’ public defenders’ fund – had gone off the rails. Well now it seems The Stiletto has an answer, courtesy of a Human Rights Watch analysis. The New York Times reports:
The report portrays a system under which defendants are often abused in custody and held for months or even years before being referred to a judge. When cases are heard, the defendants are often left without adequate defense counsel to answer charges, which are frequently based on secret informants, coerced confessions and flimsy evidence, the report found. Juveniles are often held with adults, it found, despite an Iraqi law requiring they be held separately. …
Human Rights Watch investigators were allowed to attend a series of investigative hearings and trial sessions at two branches of the court in Baghdad in May; they were also allowed to examine court documents and to interview detainees, judges and lawyers.
At the hearings attended by Human Rights Watch, judges often dismissed cases for failing to meet basic standards of proof … often after a defendant has been in detention for months.
Keeping in mind that Brian Nichols had confessed, one must conclude that flawed as the Iraqi criminal justice system is – and it’s not the fault of the judges (unlike with the Nichols case), but the inept police and their inadequate investigative techniques - its courts adjudicate criminal cases much faster than U.S. courts. Justice delayed is justice denied - to crime victims and their families - as well as to those innocent of any crime.
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