Recently in Notorious Cases Category

Rene Stutzman and Jeff Weiner report for the Orlando Sentinel:

The evidence that George Zimmerman's attorneys have uncovered on Trayvon Martin's cell phone paints a troubling picture of the Miami Gardens teenager: He sent text messages about being a fighter, smoking marijuana and being ordered to move out of his home by his mother.

And photos from that phone offer more of the same: healthy green plants - what appear to be marijuana - growing in pots and a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun.

Defense attorneys on Thursday gave formal notice to prosecutors that they intend to use those and other reputation-damaging pieces of evidence about Trayvon once Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial begins June 10.

Prosecutors say they're not relevant and should be barred.

Florida defines "relevant" in pretty much the usual way.  "Relevant evidence is evidence tending to prove or disprove a material fact."  That is simpler than the Federal Rules of Evidence phrasing, but not really different.  Any probative value that nudges the probability meter one way or the other to any degree is enough to make evidence relevant.

Is this evidence relevant?  It's probative value is certainly quite weak.  Is there any at all?  Doubtful.

Brian Skoloff and Josh Hoffner report for AP:

Jurors in Jodi Arias' murder trial resume deliberations Thursday after they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether she should be sentenced to life in prison or death for killing her one-time boyfriend, prompting the judge to instruct them to keep trying.

In the wake of Ring v. Arizona, the Arizona Legislature had the good sense to enact a true penalty-phase unanimity rule.  Just like in the guilt phase, the jury must be unanimous one way or the other.  If they are truly deadlocked, that is a mistrial.  A new jury will be impaneled to retry the penalty phase unless the prosecution gives up and accepts a life sentence.

In many jurisdictions, there is a false unanimity rule, more aptly described as a single-juror veto rule.  If eleven jurors believe the death penalty is the just sentence and one disagrees, the one can simply hold out and impose his will on the eleven.  Jurisdictions that have such a rule need to fix it.  Congress needs to fix it immediately for the federal system, before the trial of the Marathon Bomber.

When the prosecution's evidence in a major criminal case depends heavily on a jailhouse informant, you know as surely as night follows day that there will be a claim of nondisclosure of evidence regarding the informant.  Zoe Tillman has this post at BLT on the Chandra Levy case.  The US Attorney's Office says the allegations are "baseless."

It didn't take defense-oriented types long to come up with the theory that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was merely the teenage tag-along to his charismatic older brother when he planted the Boston Marathon bomb.  He wasn't really a Muslim radical, you see, just a fun-loving, impressionable kid.

"F*** America, Boston Marathon Suspect Wrote in Boat."

As police searched for him, and as he lay bleeding in his boat hideout, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote "F*** America" on the side panel of the boat, police in Massachusetts told ABC News.

Officers said they also discovered the phrase "Praise Allah" on the boat's side panels and several anti-American screeds, including references to Iraq, Afghanistan and "the infidels."

When the IRS scandal first broke, I noted one possible criminal violation, 18 USC §241.  John Malcolm and Hans von Spakovsky have this post at The Foundry, the blog of the Heritage Foundation, noting this a few other possibilities.

The problem with the grotesque tale out of Cleveland in which Ariel Castro kidnapped, raped, starved, chained, beat and abused three young women for ten years is not Mr. Castro.  It's with those who have prejudged him.

"The initial portrayal by the media has been one of a 'monster' and that's not the impression that I got when I talked to him for three hours," [defense counsel Craig Weintraub] said to Cleveland's WKYC-TV. "I know that family members who have been interviewed by the media have expressed that as well."

Craig argues that Ariel is a loving father who is committed to his daughter.

He is "extremely committed to the well being and positive future for his daughter, who he loves dearly. And if people find that to be a disconnect from what he's alleged to have done, then the people will just have to deal with it. We just know how he feels about his little girl."

Had enough of OJ?

Maryclaire Dale reports for AP:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell gave up his right to appeal and in return will spend life in prison. Gosnell, 72, was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in a case that became a flashpoint in the nation's abortion debate.

Former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania's 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by "snipping" their spines, as he referred to it.

Unless Pennsylvania reformed its glacial capital appeals process, there would be no chance of the 72-year-old Gosnell being executed anyway.  (If they got the job done in 6 years, like Virginia, it would have been a strong possibility.)

CBS is reporting that abortionist/butcher Kermit Gosnell has been sentenced to life imprisonment on two of the three first degree murder charges of which he was convicted.  The deal is that he escapes the death penalty in exchange for his agreement to forego all appeals.

When the story of the Cleveland horror first broke, I said that the crimes, however horrible, could not be capital because there was no murder.

Now we have learned more.  There may indeed have been murders in the house of horrors.  Brandon Blackwell reports for the Plain Dealer:

The man accused of kidnapping and imprisoning Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight in his home could face the death penalty, says Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty.

McGinty said Thursday that he will pursue charges against Ariel Castro "for each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies" during the women's decade of captivity.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

Cleveland police this afternoon announced that they have charged Ariel Castro with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape in connection with holding Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight captive for the last decade.

Police Capt. Ed Tomba said Pedro and Onil Castro will not be charged, though they have warrants on misdemeanor cases, to be heard Thursday morning.

City Prosecutor Victor Perez said there was no reason to believe the brothers were involved. Kidnapping charges against Ariel Castro include the 6-year-old child found in home.

Also in the Plain Dealer, Brandon Blackwell reports on what we know so far about the case, including:

Every news source is reporting the horrifying story from Cleveland.  Debbi Wilgoren has this story in the WaPo:

Three women and a 6-year-old girl rescued from a house in Cleveland Monday night after years in apparent captivity have been medically evaluated and are in good health, police said Tuesday morning.

The girl is believed to be the daughter of Amanda Berry, the woman who triggered her own rescue and that of her fellow captives by flagging down a neighbor and begging him to help her escape. 

Berry, now 27, disappeared in April 2003, a day before her 17th birthday, after calling her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. Gina DeJesus went missing a year later, at age 14, while walking home from middle school. The oldest of the women, Michelle Knight, disappeared in August 2002, when she was 20 years old.

*                                *                              *

[Ariel] Castro was arrested Monday night, along with his brothers Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50. [See update note on the continuation page.]  The brothers are in custody and must be charged within 36 hours, law enforcement authorities said. They declined to specify what charges the men are likely to face or to detail how they were placed under arrest. Pedro and Onil Castro have addresses elsewhere in Cleveland, police said.

If Ariel Castro is convicted of holding these women prisoners for years, how will our society punish him?  By holding him prisoner for years.  Does anybody have a problem with that?  Will there be protests that "it is wrong to hold people prisoner to show that it is wrong to hold people prisoner"?  Will there be sanctimonious declarations that by holding them prisoner we are lowering ourselves to their level?  There weren't any such protests for Phillip Garrido, to my knowledge, and I doubt there will be any for Castro.

Monday, a customer and employees of a Starbucks in San Jose foiled an attempt to poison customers with tainted orange juice.  Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and poisoning.  Yet she will be released because the lab results haven't come back within the two-day window for formally charging an arrestee, Henry Lee reports for the SF Chron.

And then there is this gem:

According to her LinkedIn profile, Behbehanian has a master's degree in physical chemistry and chemical engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and works at a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

The profile says Behbehanian has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical device industries and has expertise in "drug delivery and controlled release technologies."

I just checked.  The profile is still there.  It says she is a "Six Sigma Black Belt Principal Scientist/Engineer."

We saw in the Christopher Dorner case that an Internet subculture grew up to cheerlead for the multiple killer.  We now have something even crazier, or more disgusting, I'm not sure which.  I'll just give a sample from this piece in gawker.com:

#FreeJahar resists describing itself as a "fandom." Because #FreeJahar is mostly young and largely female, its habitués struggle with the perception that their interest in the Tsarnaev's case is mostly about Tsarnaev himself. "i've noticed the only thing the haters can say is: all the people on this tag are young horny girls [and] we are only defending Jahar because he's good looking," one blogger wrote. (The fact that dedicated #FreeJahar blogs routinely reblog posts calling Tsarnaev "the world[']s hottest terrorist" or collecting tweets about Tsarnaev's good looks doesn't help.)

I thank all of you who tuned in and have given me the benefit of your comments, almost all of which were very generous.