Andy9o8

Even with a "gag order" imposed upon the parties and attorneys, any such reporting restrictions imposed upon the news media would be unconstitutional in the US. Yes, selecting an impartial jury in a highly-sensationalized case is always a difficult issue; I imagine the defense attorneys will probably make the record of asking the judge to rule it impossible in this instance (which request will very probably be denied).

I'll give you a hint: if he was Canadian, he'd be mayor of Toronto. And if Rob Ford was Arizonan, he'd be Sheriff of Maricopa County.

In many (most?) US states, when a jury is hopelessly deadlocked in the penalty phase of a capital case, the judge automatically imposes a life sentence. (That's in the 64% of US states that have not abolished capital punishment.) Not so in Arizona; there, they can re-try the penalty phase. So how can this be done if the new jury hasn't sat thru the trial, you ask? Simple: they hold a new sentencing hearing - a new trial, essentially - from scratch, on factual issues relevant to the sentencing phase, before the new jury. Mind you, this is in Arizona, where, for example, deliberately medieval and degrading treatment of prison inmates is considered 21st Century civilization, and DWW (Driving While Wetback) is part of the Traffic Code.

Yes, that's precisely what I meant. Here's a different idea: take money government spends on a bloated military and a fraudulent war on drugs, and fails to take in by giving a discounted tax rate on capital gains that 90% of the population couldn't afford in the first place, and spend it on (a) infrastructure, (b) decent universal health coverage, even for the un- and under-employed, and (c) attorney's fees.

That's because American mentality is all about boogeymen. Always has been, since way, way back when.

Go to the first linked website; scroll down to 2nd from the bottom. There's your answer. (As long as he leaves it there...)

Well, in terms of public policy, the comparison isn't very difficult. The US spends its considerable largesse on a bloated military, projection of global power to kill people around the word, and a wasteful, fraudulent "war on drugs" - but precious little on universal health coverage not linked to one's employment status, or improvement of the infrastructure, the latter two driven in large part by a cultural anathema to taxation and public spending. The other civilized countries of the Western world essentially do the reverse; and in each instance, the difference shows. So at the end of the day, the US has a fiscal culture that effectively promotes or fails to prevent death, while the other Western industrialized countries have a fiscal culture of promoting and seeking to prolong life. Practices won't change until policies do.

You mean because some one changed that while we weren't looking to read "The right of the people to keep and bear muskets shall not be infringed?" I agree that a very strict reading of the Second Amendment would, in theory, preclude any infringement whatsoever of otherwise law-abiding people to own any kind of weapon. But, FWIW, even Justice Antonin Scalia, who's about as conservative as they come, signaled in the Heller case that he's not willing to go that far. Just sayin'.

Great idea, John. In that spirit, maybe some members who are concerned about the safety of other people around you would like to e-mail the officers of the Houston Canoe Club and the Houston Archaeological Society and tell them about you acting out your instability. Looks like you're HCC's newsletter editor. I'm sure the folks there will think quite highly of your having that role in their publication while serially vandalizing another website. Houston Canoe Club Officers contact info Houston Archaeological Society Officers contact info Maybe your local newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, would like to hear about you, too.

There are a lot of interesting first-person anecdotes in this thread. None of them are relevant to you.

You're quite right on this one. Want to create good jobs and rebuild America?

...and a bridge carrying I-95 over a river in Connecticut collapsed in 1983. Our bridge infrastructure is timing-out.

It seems that Ford held his news conference today, probably in response to (EVEN) the Sun calling on him to speak out. I'm guessing that the reason he fired his chief of staff yesterday was in reaction to similar advice. Still, the pedantic wordsmith in me can't help but notice his very particular choice of words: >>"I do not use crack cocaine," Ford told a jam-packed news conference at Toronto City Hall. "Nor am I an addict of crack cocaine." Hmm. Present tense of "use", when past-tense "used" would have been more to the point of whether he did or did not do it. And his reference to addiction might be back-handledly in reply to suggestions that he seek medical help, but it's otherwise diversionary to whether he DID smoke. Sometimes extreme specificity is a shield behind which to hide. Why no blanket denial that he was caught smoking anything? Why no comment on the video other than simply a refusal to comment "because he hadn't seen it"? The Sun anticipated that dodge, and expressly exposed its weakness. Hmm...hmm.. If I was Ford's lawyer, that's exactly how I'd advise him on what to say, how to say it, and what not to say. Put another way, I know a cute dodge when I see it; I've composed, thrust and parried them for a living for the past generation. Of course the presumption of innocence is crucial; but the Sun addressed that point, too. So even after Ford's news conference today, the smell of fish is still in the air. If I was a citizen of Toronto, I'd be left feeling that my questions were still unanswered.

You raise reasonable points. Here's how the editorial board of the conservative, generally pro-Ford Toronto Sun addressed those points just today: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/05/22/fords-silence-is-deafening

If we were to discuss what would pay for that, it would have to go into Speakers Corner...

The persistent literacy scandal. Something must be done. Why do care? Why do hu kare. Thats the reel scandle.

Well, now Robbie has reacted the way all ethical people do - by alienating those closest to him: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22652913 ***Toronto Mayor Ford fires aide Towhey after drug claims The mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, has sacked his chief of staff as he fights allegations that he has been caught smoking crack cocaine on camera. No reason was given for Mark Towhey's dismissal. ... Mr Towhey was escorted out of Toronto's City Hall on Thursday, saying only that he did not resign. "My advice is for him and him only," he told reporters. On Wednesday, the mayor was removed as volunteer head coach of a high school football team, the Don Bosco Eagles, by the Toronto Catholic District School Board. No explanation was given. Right-leaning paper the Toronto Sun, normally supportive of Mr Ford's agenda, wrote in an editorial that if the mayor could not appear in public to say the video was a fraud, then he should step aside and seek medical help. The paper described the mayor's silence as "deafening".

...the transcript of which will be available once they finish transcribing the handwritten shorthand notes via IBM Selectric typewriter, then run off the copies on the hand-cranked ditto machine.

The persistent literacy scandal. Something must be done.

You misspelled octogenarian.

Yes, both he and John Poindexter did that. I remember those well; I was a newly-minted attorney at the time, and followed the stories. However, AFAIK (pls correct if I'm wrong), unlike Lerner, those were not cases of selective invocation. Rather, they testified under subpoena subject to grants of limited immunity. They each began by going through the formality of first invoking the Fifth for the record at the very beginning of their testimony. The chairman then reaffirmed the limited grants of immunity on the record, and ordered them to testify. They then testified. I'm pretty sure this led to one of the main grounds of North's felony conviction being overturned on appeal - it was ruled that some of the evidence used against him at trial was ultimately derivative of his immunized testimony and ought not to have been admitted - thus his conviction was overturned. It's a neat strategy if you can get away with it, and North got away with it. His lawyers definitely earned their pay on that one.

Is this why the Boy Scouts don't like it when I call them "Hitler Youth"?

Did you?

Who is this Negro and what's he doing with a white girl?

So you are just jelous and he is right No, in this instance I'd predict that if Lerner's minimal selective invocation is tested before a federal judge, the judge will rule in Lerner's favor. That would make Dershowitz wrong.