Category Archives: news!

Donating a Kidney as Condition of Prison Release

Mississippi sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, serving double life sentences for their roles in an $11 armed robbery will be released on condition that the younger sibling donate her kidney to her sister whose failing organs are costing the state a lot of money in dialysis treatment. This condition, proposed by the sisters themselves, comes at the end of a grassroots movement to have the sisters released from prison.

There seems to be something problematic with allowing an inmate to trade a vital organ for freedom. A gambler couldn’t tender the pink slip for his kidney to his bookie (assuming the debt were legal) as one would a car. Yet somehow this is washes with the Mississippi Governor.

Under Mississippi Code of 1972 §41-39-131 selling body parts within the Magnolia State:

(a)  Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), a person that, for valuable consideration, knowingly purchases or sells a part for transplantation or therapy if removal of a part from an individual is intended to occur after the individual’s death commits a felony and upon conviction is subject to a fine not exceeding Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00) or imprisonment not exceeding five (5) years, or both.

It is interesting to note that the Revised Mississippi Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), of which § 41-39-131 is a part, will be repealed on January 1, 2012. Whether the repeal is to make way for a new human organ law or to provide a new revenue stream for po’ folk is unclear. Regardless, the law is in effect at the time of Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision.

Separately, this goes to a question of morality, specifically: why didn’t Gladys fork over her kidney a long time ago? Two kidneys are great and all but most of the time she doesn’t need them both. Perhaps she was just waiting to use her organ as a bargaining chip or maybe she just never wanted to give Jamie that kidney. Either way, from a policy perspective do we really want inmates offering up body parts for shorter prison sentences?

Via the NYTimes.

Man hides veins to escape death row, State gets a second shot

Romell Broom, the only person in modern history to survive an execution, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1984 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl.

Last year, Ohio executioners spent two hours sticking Broom with a needle a total of 18 times unable to find a vein. That execution was stopped by Governor Ted Strickland and Broom’s lawyers took the case all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing 8th amendment and double jeopardy violations (ha!).

Unfortunately for Broom, the Court would hear none of it and gave the State the go ahead to try and execute Broom again. Broom’s in good company:

From the Chron.

Overheard on the Summer 2010 California Bar Exam

“Open the door, you jerk! I am the law!” — Irate process server.

Hairy Louseweed gets you high.

Using endangered falcons in some kind of heathen ritual.

More sexual assault multiple choice questions than you’d care to answer (sorry about your congenital heart defect).

SF Public Press Features Sit/Lie Comic Strip

Journalist Shawn Gaynor and artist Andrew Goldfarb teamed up to create this visual account of the history and politics behind sit/lie in San Francisco. Their illustration of the issue begins off well enough, illustrating a previous SF sit/lie law which targeted hippies but was used against homosexuals (smells like an equal protection argument).

But then the entire thing devolves into a slippery slope argument: to support sit/lie is to support the Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070). Sticking to San Francisco would have taken their position a little further than likening sit/lie proponents to anti-immigrant Arizonians.

— Update — Upon further consideration, the doomsday scenario posed in the comic (local cops would have to enforce the I.C.E. regulation requiring handing over the identities of undocumented workers arrested for violating the sit/lie law) is unlikely as it is unconstitutional under the commandeering doctrine — the federal government cannot tell state government to enforce federal law as doing so would be violative of dual sovereignty. — End Update —

The point is (well, not the point of the comic) the supervisors screwed up big when they decided to reject the policy outright rather than working with the Mayor to craft something a little more manageable and palatable than a city-wide sit/lie ban. Now, the SF voters are being offered the chance to clean up their streets (although, in the least ideal way) and they’re going to do it. Maybe the supes will take this as a lesson that even they can be too liberal for San Francisco.

Sample frames and a downloadable pdf of the entire comic are available on the SF Public Press website. Get the whole thing in print copies of the debut issue of SF Public Press, available at the Booksmith in the Haight and other locations.

See more StandAgainstSitLie.org.

CLS’s “Unrepentant Participation in or Advocacy of a Sexually Immoral Lifestyle” Discrimination Won’t Wash at Hastings

The Christian Legal Society of UC Hastings seeking to discriminate against homosexual members took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court via Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010). And in a 5-to-4 decision handed down today, they lost.

In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations. . . CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.

From the SF Chron.

Also news today: guns guaranteed everywhere!

For Sale: One Used Baby, Minor Bruising ($25)

“Alleged Parents-of-the-Year Samantha Tomasini and Patrick Fousek”

The most recent example of desperate times calling for desperate measures: meth heads and a 6-month old child.

Patrick Fousek, 38, and Samantha Tomasini, 20, were arrested Wednesday, hours after Fousek allegedly approached two women outside Walmart and asked if they’d like to purchase his child — at the bargain price of $25. The women initially thought Fousek was joking, but when he became persistent, they got suspicious and reported it to police, Salinas police spokesman Officer Lalo Villegas said.

Run of the mill child endangerment under Cal. Penal Code § 273a:

(a) Any person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of that child to be injured, or willfully causes or permits that child to be placed in a situation where his or her person or health is endangered, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison for two, four, or six years.

Note, however, they are not guilty of human trafficking under CA Penal Code § 236.1 which requires a scienter element of either child prostitution or slavery:

Human Trafficking.

(a) Any person who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to effect or maintain a felony violation of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 267, 311.4, or 518, or to obtain forced labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking.

In a barter economy, you always want to start with a high price point in anticipation of haggling. But, to be fair, he is rolling back prices.

In other news, Fousek was attacked by inmates while awaiting arraignment.

From NBC Bay Area.