Category: lawyers

"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers." Part 2

From The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Justices dismiss ‘absurd’ sex prosecution of pregnant 13-year-old girl:

The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a sex-abuse finding against a then-13-year-old Ogden girl who became pregnant by her 12-year-old boyfriend, ruling unanimously that treating her as both a victim and a perpetrator for the same act had created an “absurd result.”

The girl, identified as Z.C. in court records, was found guilty of violating a state law that prohibits sex with someone under 14. She also was the victim in the case against her boyfriend, who was found guilty of the same violation by engaging in consensual sexual activity with her.

Writing for the court, Justice Jill Parrish said the Utah Legislature “clearly could have intended some degree of simultaneous culpability for both Z.C. and the 12-year-old boy under the fornication statute in order to discourage their admittedly reckless and age-inappropriate behavior.”

However, she added, legislators could not have meant to punish both adolescents for child sex abuse. “The primary fail-safe against the absurd application of criminal law is the wise employment of prosecutorial discretion, a quality that is starkly absent in this case,” Parrish wrote in a footnote.

Matthew Bates, an assistant state attorney general, said that neither adolescent was charged with a crime.

Rather, Weber County prosecutors filed delinquency petitions against the girl and boy as a tool to get services for them, he said. “The intent from the beginning was to help these kids,” Bates said.

What a bunch of geniuses. Now if only the courts in Georgia had this much sense. And Mr. Attorney General maybe you should check the definition of “delinquency” with which these two kids were charged with.

  • From Black’s Law Dictionary (Third Pocket Edition): delinquency, n. 1. A failure or omission; a violation of a law or duty.
  • From Juvenile Justice: Policies Programs, and Policies (First Edition): Delinquent act – Any behavior committed by a juvenile that would have been a crime if committed by an adult.

There are other ways to provide services to these two kids than charging them with a crime.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ

"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers."

From 630 WMAL in Washington, D.C.: How Much Is Enough?:

Thomas Fadoul wants Virginia to form a money pool modeled after the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which would be used to pay the families of the 32 people killed by gunman Seung Hui Cho on the Virginia Tech campus last April.

Fadoul told 630 WMAL’s Chris Core that the seven-million dollar Hokie Spirit Fund already collected by the school is woefully inadequate to meet the expenses of the victims’ families, and he is hoping to see compensation that is more in line with the amounts received by the families of those who died at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The amounts by those families averaged around two million dollars. Fadoul is meeting with his clients this week to decide whether to move forward with a formal proposal to create a compensation fund.

Fadoul say such a fund could come from taxpayer contributions, and that fundraising efforts could include personal appeals from the victims’ families. Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the distribution of the September 11th funds, is now the administrator of the existing Hokie Spirit Fund.

He is recommending compensation ranging from $8,000 for those who were in Norris Hall on the day of the shooting to $150,000 for the families of those killed in the tragedy.

You people have some nerve, when are you going to start selling your homes and cars for these people? How convenient is it that the lawyer himself, Thomas Fadoul, would receive money not just from legal fees from the relatives but also due to the fact that his cousin was murdered during the massacre? How convenient is it that those who lost someone will receive over eighteen (18) times more than those that were in the building. How are those that were injured supposed to pay for their hospital bills and counseling?

In no way an attempt to minimize the lost to the families, but how many of the students were supporting a family like the police, firefighters, and other victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks?

And here’s the link for those wishing to donate. The fund will be closed for donations on August 1st.