Wednesday, September 29, 2010

You be the judge

Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers 2010 Judicial Poll
I was planning on writing about my very eventful weekend, including the trip to Gainesville, but a Casey Anthony status hearing took place yesterday, and that takes precedent over personal matters. My story will come in due time. This one will actually be a two-parter; the first part will cover the hearing. The second part will be about a very interesting document that came into my hands.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Another day of discovery

While Casey Anthony's defense team continues to depose forensic experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory today, the prosecution released additional documents this morning. The lab conducted air tests on Casey's car and claimed that evidence showed signs of human decomposition...
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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Pie in the sky?

The term "pie in the sky" originally meant to be a promise of heaven while continuing to suffer through living in the material world. It was coined by Joe Hill in a song written by him in 1911. Joe was a Swedish-born itinerant laborer who migrated to the United States in 1902. The Web site phrases.org.ukdescribed his radical songs as he fought for labor organizations. "The phrase appeared first in Hill's 'The Preacher and the Slave', which parodied the Salvation Army hymn 'In the Sweet Bye and Bye'. The song, which criticized the Army's theology and philosophy, specifically their concentration on the salvation of souls rather than the feeding of the hungry, was popular when first recorded and remained so for some years."
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
Today, it can allude to many things, such as asking for more than you may end up with. You ask for the sky and end up with pie...
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Baez announces two new defense team attorneys

Jose Baez and Cheney Mason announced the names of two new members of the Casey Anthony defense team.
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Sunday, September 12, 2010

A Portrait of War

There isn't a day that goes by where the heavy echoes of war escape us. Today, we live in a world filled with radical extremists, justified to maim and kill in the name of their god. The following story is my hideous wake-up call. It came at a time when wars were fought over more mundane causes - patriotism, democracy, communism, bigotry and territorial rights. This was back when building a bigger bomb was all the rage and nations proudly strutted their hardware in order to intimidate their neighbors and enemies.
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Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Slowly, the wiles of justice churn

"Carla was my very best friend. We talked about everything and anything together. It didn't matter where we lived. If Carla was there, it was home to me. Now I feel very alone.''
- Jim Larson in 1999
When John Huggins was arrested for the murder of Carla Larson in 1997, several ministers who knew him said no way. He was not capable of doing such a horrible act. After all, they proclaimed, this was a gentle giant, anointed by God to do great work. He had become a born-again Christian. He volunteered to go on many missionary trips to Haiti to help build schools, churches, and to run clinics. No, the preachers collectively agreed, John was a good man. For the sake of Carla and all her loved ones, law enforcement thought otherwise...
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Sunday, September 05, 2010

When karma strikes twice

At 6:13 PM EDT on October 26, 2006, Danny Harold Rolling took his final breath. Florida's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy was executed by lethal injection for raping and carving up five college students in a ghastly spree that horrified and terrorized the University of Florida's campus in Gainesville back in August of 1990, just as the fall semester got underway. Each one was murdered with a hunting knife. Some were mutilated, sexually molested and put in gruesome poses. One of his victim's severed head was placed on a shelf, her body posed in a seated position...
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Trial by Ambush

PART I
I hate being late to anything, but on Monday, so many people were present at the courthouse waiting to go through security, it was a full 9 minutes before I entered courtroom 19D, meaning that I was 9 minutes late since Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. is a stickler for being prompt. When a hearing is set to start at 1:30, it starts at precisely that time. Courtroom 19D holds some bittersweet memories for me, too. It's Judge Strickland's courtroom, and the one where I was called up to meet him on that fateful October day last year. Alas, life goes on, but it's a date I will never forget...
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