Showing posts with label Law Enforcement: Crime does pay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law Enforcement: Crime does pay. Show all posts

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Darwin Award - Lack of judicial restraint leads to a judicial error

Editor's note: Parkinson's Law: A 7 second grenade fuse detonates in 4 seconds.  Lucius Verenus Schoolmaster, ProbateShark.com


Darwin Honorable Mention: Short Arm of the Law

Confirmed by Darwin

May 2003 Pakistan


Lack of judicial restraint leads to a judicial error

Usually it’s the criminal, not the judge, who attempts to take himself out of the gene pool. But not in this twist on a familiar tale! A man accused of possessing a hand grenade challenged police to produce it at his trial. When the police brought the grenade into the courtroom, the defendant claimed it was not real. The judge absentmindedly took the grenade in his hand while listening to arguments - and pulled the pin! He was injured but survived, no doubt with improved judgement.

(Reference: Agence France-Presse, Kihaleej Times)

The difference between genius and idiocy?
Genius has its limits.

Law Enforcement: Crime does pay

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Darwin Award: Convince the jury

Editor's note: This Shark was reminded that mundane fatal acts such as sucking up gasoline with a vacuum cleaner or photograph posing at a cliff edge are exempted from Darwin Awards.  Only classics like the man who affixed an aircraft JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) unit to the back of his Buick. His car became airborne at 250 mph and crashed 60 feet high into the side of a cliff.  (Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com)

Darwin Award: Convince the jury

Confirmed by Darwin 16 June 1871


Proof that the only good lawyer is a dead lawyer


Clement Vallandigham was a well-known Northern Democrat who campaigned for state’s rights during the Civil War. In 1863 Vallandigham was convicted of treason for his speeches attacking the administration of President Lincoln. He was banished to the South, where he continued to voice his political views.

After the war Vallandigham became a lawyer. In his last appearance in the courtroom he represented a client on trial for murder. The accused man’s defense was that the victim had drawn his own gun in a fashion that caused it to fire, killing himself. To prove the defense argument, Vallandigham demonstrated the victims method of drawing a gun - using the loaded evidence gun as his prop. The firearm went off, and he lost his life - but proved his case.

(Reference; Klement, Frank L. The Limits of Dissent: Clement Vallandigham and the Civil War. Fordham, Mass.: Fordham University Press, 1998)

Law Enforcement: Crime does pay