Let me be up front: I am staunchly pro death penalty.  It is a proven deterrent and quite honestly I don’t see the point of giving a murderer life without the possibility of parole.  I don’t think that hanging, electrocution, or the needle constitute cruel and unusual punishment - especially in light of the crimes that were committed to earn such punishment.  But such ultimate punishment should only be administered once there is absolutely no possibility whatsoever that the guilt of the accused is in question.

A DNA testing for death row inmates advocacy group blasted out emails and talking points to news outlets and bloggers in Alabama to support DNA testing for a convicted murderer named Tommy Arthur.  Based on this article it seems that Arthur is a Grade A piece of crap and I have very little doubt of his guilt.  Supposedly there is still evidence from the crime scene that can be tested, but the state has refused to perform DNA testing or even allow Arthur to conduct testing at his own expense.

I believe that it is possible to fairly try and convict a person without DNA evidence and I understand the legal implications of allowing the convicted to continually introduce new evidence after being convicted.  But this is a man’s life we’re talking about.  What does the state have to lose?  Administer the DNA test.  When the expected results come back then give him the needle with a clean conscience.

FWIW a web page has been set up to proclaim Arthur’s innocence.

From the AP:

Alabama could be forced to refund $83 million in taxes paid by oil and gas companies, including millions of dollars from Mobile and Baldwin counties, if a recent judge’s ruling is allowed to stand, state revenue officials said Tuesday.

The Alabama Department of Revenue warned several counties and cities that receive oil and gas tax payments about the possible refunds in a letter sent last month.

The state has appealed a judge’s order granting ExxonMobil Corp. about $41 million including interest in oil and gas severance tax refunds.

Very interesting.  When it was ruled that ExxonMobil underpaid the state of Alabama courts granted a compensatory award of about the same magnitude as what Alabama apparently owes ExxonMobil here.  In that case the jury also awarded the state a multi-billion dollar punitive award, which was overturned by the state’s Supreme Court.  All across the state people got jackpot justice fever and acted as though ExxonMobil owed the billions to the state and that the state in some way deserved the punitive money.  I haven’t heard any of those same people demanding that the state be punished for withholding money from ExxonMobil with a similar multi-billion dollar award.

I haven’t given the Liberty Dollar raid too much thought.  Personally, I think folks that use an alternate currency are kooky.

The impetus for the raid went beyond just circulating alternative currency.  Mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering are also alleged.  I obviously have no idea whether or not the latter three charges can be substantiated, but just what law are they violating by circulating their Liberty Dollars?  Furthermore, why isn’t that law being enforced equally?

As far as I know the Liberty Dollar folks weren’t trying to pass their currency as U.S. dollars, i.e. they weren’t counterfeiting.  At its core what they were doing were trading one thing of value for another thing of value, which is still legal in our country as far as I know.

The case jogged my memory and reminded me of a story I heard on NPR many moons ago about some little town in Massachusetts that was circulating its own currency.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist’s face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

…

There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

In their 10 months of circulation, they’ve become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.

So, if one of the reasons cited for raiding the Liberty Dollar operation was that they were circulating an alternative currency then why aren’t the Feds raiding tiny Great Barrington?

Nearly everyone in this country is familiar with the 40 hour work week and the federal mandate that employers must pay certain employees overtime for hours in excess of the weekly limit.  The law, known as the Fair Standards Labor Act, was passed in 1938 in part to encourage businesses to hire more workers by making it prohibitively expensive to have existing workers toil more than 40 hours.  It excluded what were viewed as “white collar jobs” that involved supervision or “independent judgment.”

Now that more and more jobs are being turned into thoughtless, “just follow the script” type operations thanks to philosophies like Six Sigma the number of people who are - or at least are supposed to be - covered by the FSLA is growing.  Also, many companies have tried to skirt overtime pay rules by giving managerial titles to workers who can scarcely be differentiated from rank and file workers.

Well, lawyers are starting to turn violations of the FSLA into a veritable printing press.  The article is worth a read - who knows, you might realize that you’re entitled to overtime pay and didn’t know it (or maybe you’re too proud to admit it).

My thoughts: The FSLA is an unnecessary law that should be scuttled.  If you are willing to do a job for another person or company for a mutually agreed upon fee then you should be allowed to do so.  Government intrusion is not necessary.

A quick look around the Alabama blogosphere today revealed a number of posts on the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court’s decision to levy a $3.6 billion punitive award against ExxonMobil.

Doc’s viewed the decision through the prism of lawmakers who had been lusting at the windfall.  He included a quote from Rep. Yusuf Salaam who viewed the potential payoff not as an opportunity to relieve the tax burden on Alabamians, but as a chance to implement “progressive” legislation.  Translation: he wanted to kick start a bunch of unnecessary programs with money that would soon be gone at which point he would wail on the House floor that we needed to raise taxes to fund those “essential” programs.

The always humorous Left in Alabama predictably lamented the decision not because they felt there was compelling evidence in the case to support the huge award (at least they didn’t try to make such a point), but because it involved a rich oil company that clearly needs to be punished because it is A) large, B) an oil company, C) profitable, D) evil, and E) ostensibly Republican.

Birmingham Blues proffered innuendo from the previous election that this decision - which must have already been made for the narrative to hold - was delayed so that it didn’t hurt Drayton Nabers in his failed bid for Chief Justice.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that the huge multi billion dollar award was punitive damages.  This is not about reimbursement, i.e. compensatory damages, which the court upheld.  In other words, Alabama will get repaid for any money Exxon should have paid with interest.  This case was all about Alabama getting greedy and playing the jackpot justice game.

The case reminds me of how I would reform the legal system if I were king.  I’m not keen on loser pays ideas because that would effectively dissuade some credible plaintiffs from pressing charges when necessary due to fear of paying up if they lose.  I prefer a system where the successful plaintiff gets the compensatory damages, but the punitive damages do not go to the plaintiff.  They could go into the municipality, state, or federal coffers or could go into a charitably run fund that seeks to prevent the wrong that was perpetrated to bring about the lawsuit.  That would allow for people who have been harmed to seek out justice without fear of paying two sets of legal fees, but it culls out the others who just hope to get rich off of punitive damages - like the state in this case.

Shocking news out of New York: it has been alleged that mortgage lenders are pressuring appraisers to artificially inflate home values.  To say that such actions is an open secret would be a gross understatement.

The issue is somewhat proximate for me.  When I was young my dad was an official at a bank in our town.  He desired more autonomy and decided to leave his job and go into business for himself as a real estate appraiser - something he had experience doing.  He had a good network of local lenders that he knew that he could work with.  But a funny thing happened.  The lenders weren’t satisfied with some of his appraisals because he didn’t always just tell them the number they wanted to hear.  He gave them what he felt was a fair, justifiable number.  The lenders, many of them his friends, began to send their appraisal business to other appraisers who were more pliable.  My dad didn’t waver from doing what he thought was right.

Eventually he closed the business and sought other employment.  Some might perceive this as failure, but I was and remain utterly impressed.  It is rare to find someone with the integrity and character to do the right thing even if it can lead to financial hardship.  It was a lesson that was not lost on me.

Big surprise - some of the people affected by the massive, destructive tornado in Enterprise are suing the city and the school board.

An injured teacher and the parents of an Enterprise High School junior killed when a tornado destroyed the school six months ago have filed claims against the city and the Enterprise Board of Education, alleging that negligence and faulty structure construction caused the deadly consequences of the storm.

Kris R. Bowdin, who is still employed as a teacher by the school system but remains on medical leave, and Tim and Laura Jackson, who lost their 17-year-old son A.J. when the tornado struck the school shortly after noon March 1, presented separate claims Sept. 4 to the Enterprise City Clerk’s office.

Each claim requests $10 million from the City of Enterprise, Enterprise School Board, Enterprise administrators, officials and employees.

From what I hear, it was no big surprise that Tim Jackson was one of the first to file a lawsuit.  He has earned quite a reputation as that type of individual.

Quite honestly, the schools did the right thing in this situation and these lawsuits should be summarily dismissed as egregiously foolish.  I feel terrible for those who lost a child or suffered injuries, but think about the alternative.  If the school had dismissed the children a few minutes earlier there would have likely been stragglers just getting to their cars or still en route to home.

Take a look at the pictures of the high school and surrounding area.  It was total devastation.  The parking lot looked like a bomb had been detonated.  I personally saw a flipped over RV a little more than a block from my parent’s house.  If the school had dismissed the kids a bit earlier they would likely be facing far more lawsuits from the multitude of kids that might have died or been injured as a result of being discharged in the path of the tornado.  As things transpired they choose to keep the kids in a full brick structure that had withstood considerable severe weather throughout the years.  It was a rational choice that any of us would have made.

It saddens me to no end to see people like the Jackson’s use this horribly unfortunate natural disaster to seek out financial gain.  They are simply shaming their son’s memory. 

A Talladega man convicted of murdering two women and two children is asking that he not be put to death because it will cause him “severe pain.”

[Daniel Lee] Siebert was sentenced to death for the Feb. 19, 1986, strangulation deaths of Sherri Weathers, 24, and her two sons, 5-year-old Chad and 4-year-old Joey.

Weathers was a student at the Alabama School for the Deaf in Talladega and had been dating Siebert. The bodies were found in her Talladega apartment several days after the three were killed.

Siebert was also convicted of capital murder in the death of Linda Jarman, a neighbor of Weathers, who was killed the same night.

… 

In the lawsuit, Siebert claims that the way Alabama administers lethal injection could cause him severe pain. He also says in the lawsuit that he has been given a preliminary diagnosis that he suffers from hepatitis C and pancreatic cancer, which the suit says could cause complications with the lethal injection procedure.

Personally I hope it hurts like hell and reminds him of the severe pain he caused his victims.

The “ordained preacher” who plead guilty to molesting three boys in his care multiple times yet didn’t receive a single day of jail is now trying to rescind his guilty plea.  I would suggest that the judge refuse this request unless the next move would for the DA to aggressively try Mr. Love on all charges.  From what I heard through the grapevine there is really no question of his guilt; the DA’s office was just unwilling or unable to get the abused boys to testify.

What is most alarming, though, is this:

The boys now are 13, 14 and 16. Palmer told Hall on July 9 that Love had abused the boys multiple times over several years. Three of the four boys whom the Loves adopted have been removed from the home, Palmer told the court.

So this registered sex offender still has a boy in his care.  No problem there, I’m sure.

The article also confirmed a rumor I heard over the past weekend. 

In the 1990s, Love and his wife were named adoptive parents of the year by the Madison County Department of Human Resources.

I wonder if they can retract that award?

Read this from AL.com:

A Madison county judge on Friday ordered Thomas Erich Durham to serve 30 days in jail on nine counts of indecent exposure.

Thomas Erich Durham, 45, of 1408 Wind River Drive in Huntsville, pleaded guilty to nine counts of indecent exposure when he flashed his genitals at children in the cities of Madison and Huntsville.

…

Circuit Judge Jim Smith sentenced Durham to a year in jail on each count to run concurrently, but split up the jail time and ordered him to serve 30 days in jail and the remainder of the time suspended. He will spend two years on probation and pay a $100 fine on each count and court costs.

Smith also ordered Durham to finish a sex offender treatment program and register as a sex offender under the Community Notification Act.

Mr. Durham plead guilty, just like Jerry Wayne Love.  Mr. Durham’s offenses, while still bad, were orders of magnitude less harmful than Jerry Wayne Love’s.  Judge Jim Smith handed down punishment including probation, a fine, registration as a sex offender, treatment, AND JAIL TIME.  When Jerry Wayne Love plead guilty to sodomizing three boys multiple times Judge Karen Hall sentenced him to probation, registration as a sex offender, treatment, and NO JAIL TIME (the Huntsville Times didn’t report that she fined him either).

I’m looking forward to any and all rationalizations on why anyone thinks Judge Karen Hall did the right thing.