Legal Loss
Love him or despise him, the legal world lost an icon last Thursday with the passing of the flamboyant and controversial attorney F. Lee Bailey at the age of 87. Bailey’s legal career was a roller coaster that featured winning big cases to being disbarred several times to even serving a short prison term.
Among Bailey’s most famous cases was that of Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was convicted of killing his wife in 1954. Throughout his trial, Sheppard insisted that he was innocent and that he had seen his wife’s killer. In 1966 Bailey successfully convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that Sheppard had not received due process, and the Court granted Sheppard a retrial at which he was acquitted. This case became the basis for “The Fugitive,” a popular television series that ran from1963-1967.
Bailey’s other cases included Ernest Medina (a win in the My Lai Massacre), Patty Hearst (a loss), and of course the O.J. Simpson case (a win as a member of the dream team that included Bailey, Robert Shapiro, and the incredible Johnnie Cochran). Bailey’s relentless cross examination of Detective Mark Furman established the lawman as a racist and thus erased one of the key witnesses for the prosecution.
Despite his rather checkered career, Bailey was a fascinating character, and I will never forget watching him just destroy Mark Furman on the witness stand. That testimony was one of the keys to Simpson’s acquittal and, in my opinion, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in history.
He Wants What?
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who on April 21 was convicted of killing George Floyd by kneeling on the black man’s neck for more than nine minutes on live television, wants a judge to reduce his sentence to probation. A sentencing memorandum filed last Wednesday, asked a judge to consider Chauvin’s lack of criminal activity and prior activity as a police officer in making his sentencing decision before the sentencing deadline of June 25.
During his trial a jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd. If Judge Peter Cahill decides to apply the maximum sentence, Chauvin could spend 40 years in prison even though Minnesota law says that the maximum sentence for Chauvin’s crime is punishable by 10 ½ to 15 years in prison.
In Chauvin’s case, however, prosecutors last Wednesday filed a memo asking for the judge to send Chauvin to prison for 30 years because Cahill found what he termed four “aggravating factors” in the case. These are the following: Chauvin’s crime occurred in front of a child; Chauvin exercised extreme cruelty; He performed his crime as part of a group; And he disrespected his position as a police officer.
Chauvin’s attorneys also fear for their client’s safety while he is prison, and I think this is definitely a viable concern. Considering that the film of Chauvin’s kneeling on Floyd’s neck while his victim pleaded for his life, repeatedly said he could not breathe, and called out for his mother, went viral on the Internet, it’s almost a given that Chauvin will not be very popular with general prison population.
No matter what happens with the sentencing, one thing is perfectly clear: Chauvin is guilty of a particularly heinous and egregious crime witnessed by millions on television. After seeing Floyd’s murder again and again, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Chauvin.
I’m Applying
Now that the pandemic has calmed down a little bit, I’ve decided to seek a part-time job. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I saw a recent news item about Qantas Airlines. It seems that one of the best places to store jumbo jets is in hot, arid deserts. Thus, Qantas moved some of its A380 superjumbo planes to the Mojave Desert in California.
Now even though the giant machines are idle, they still need a certain amount of maintenance, and the article I read said that a vital part of each engineering kit is something called a “wheel whacker,” which really is just a broom handle. Any guesses as to what they are used for?
Tom Heywood, an engineering manager based in Los Angeles explained: “The area is well known for its feisty ‘rattlers,’ who love to curl up around the warm rubber tires and in the aircraft wheels and brakes. Every aircraft has its own designated ‘wheel whacker’ (a repurposed broom handle) as part of the engineering kit, complete with each aircraft’s registration written on it. We’ve encountered a few rattlesnakes and also some scorpions, but the wheel whacker does its job, and they scuttle off.”
Now I obviously didn’t ever take a course is superjumbo maintenance, but I could take a wheel whacker and walk around the planes smacking the tires to wake up any snoozing rattlers. RIGHT!!!
Ponder This:
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
~ Anonymous
