Category: Crime and Justice
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Big Damn Heroes
I’ve been lucky enough in my life to have met some men and women I’d call heroes. All of them, to a soul, would reject that appellation. That’s part of the charm, to be honest. Self-aware heroics… aren’t. They were, they will tell you if they are willing to talk about it at all, just…
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An American Hero Needs Help
I’m going to get a ration for the title of the post, but I mean it, so… Lawdog needs help, folks. He’s been backed into a corner by corruption and betrayal, and it costs money to fight that. If you can’t add money to the fund, you can share the word to help this man…
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The Case of the Viking Bodysnatching
I will admit, I don’t actually read science journals and blogs to find story ideas. It just… happens sometimes. I can usually count on historical accounts of any era to spark some evocative mysterious questions that just beg to be fleshed out. Because there’s no other way to answer some of these long-cold cases than…
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Glyphosate and Science in the Courtroom
“glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet.” — WHO and FAO Meeting, 2016 So why, in light of the above conclusion after extensive and repeated studies trying to prove that glyphosate is carcinogenic and genotoxic, (including an arguably fraudulent conclusion by the IARC that it was, later revoked…
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Pandora’s Gun
I don’t often talk about it, but I’m a strong supporter of the second amendment. For that matter, I support all the amendments. What I don’t believe, though, is that the government in some way has granted us those rights. I believe we are born to those rights, and the government has simply codified our…
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Wilding Places
When the wild creeps into the human spaces, the fear crawls along with it like a wounded animal, snapping at anything that moves. From time immemorial, bandits have hidden in the forests, even if only metaphorically, and a tangle of trees and brush ignites a spark deep in the brain. An instinctive reaction to an…
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Plea Bargaining: Part IV
This is the final part of my term paper, and I have gone ahead and appended the conclusion I wrote, which is brief. I’d thought I might write more of it, but when I pooled the four parts, and looked from the 16 pages to the rubric which required it to be no more than…
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Plea Bargaining: Part III
This is part III of a five-part series that was written as a term paper for my Criminal Justice class this semester. The first part was an overall introduction, the second part looked at potential benefits, this third part at drawbacks, and the fourth part at disparities regarding race and gender in plea bargaining. The final part…
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Plea Bargaining: Part II
This is part II of a five-part series that was written for a term paper in my Criminal Justice class this semester. The first part was an overall introduction, this second part looks at potential benefits, the third part at negatives, and the fourth part at disparities regarding race and gender in plea bargaining. The…
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Plea Bargaining: Part 1
This semester, I am writing a lengthy term paper with an assigned topic. Plea bargaining… sounds boring, right? Well, it turns out that perhaps more than 95% of criminal cases end in a guilty plea, with only a very small fraction of cases ever proceeding to trial. So whether it’s a good thing, or a…
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Forensic Toxicology: Poisons, Drugs, Scientific Analysis, and the Law
This is a paper I had to write for class, but it was rather an enjoyable project. I am very interested in this specialty, and it’s interesting to delve into the cases, methods, and implications of this field. If you catch a typo or find yourself confused, leave a comment. I’m turning this in…
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Exigent Circumstances
This is not a blast from the past. I know I said I wouldn’t be back yet, and I do still have exams. In fact, this is part of one of them. For my take-home final exam on Criminal Law and Procedure, I wrote up what is essentially a summary of the exigent circumstances surrounding…