Joke: Getting a good lawyer

Nathan is talking to his lawyer. "Here's the deal, Abe. If you're absolutely sure I'll win the case, I'll give you the business."

"Okay," replies Abe, "but before I can give you my opinion, I obviously need to know the facts."

So Nathan goes into great detail about his failed partnership and ends up saying, "So now you've heard everything, do you think I can sue my partner and get my money back?"

"Well," replies Abe, "from what I've just heard, it's clear to me that you will win. It's rare to have such an open-and-shut case."

Nathan goes very white when he hears this.

"What's the matter?" asks Abe.

"I told you my partner's side of the case," replies Nathan.

Joke: Who stole the TV

A witness is testifying before the court, and the prosecuting attorney is asking him questions:

The Prosecutor: "You witnessed the robbery, sir?"

The Eyewitness: "Yes"

The Prosecutor: "What was stolen?"

The Eyewitness: "Two televisions"

The Prosecutor: "Did you see the thieves?"

The Eyewitness: "Yes"

The Prosecutor: "Could you identify them?"

The Eyewitness: "Yes"

The Prosecutor: "Are the two men who stole the televisions in this courtroom?"

At this point, the two defendants raised their hands.

Joke: The last gambit of a lawyer to protect his client

A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no corpse.
In the defense's closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you
all," the lawyer said as he looked at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom."
He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened.
Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But you all looked on with anticipation. I therefore put it to you that there is reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty."
The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty.
"But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt, I saw all of you stare at the door."
The jury foreman replied: "Oh, we did look, but your client didn't."

Weird news: Man charged with unlicensed driving car twice, hits police

When people are charged with a driving offence, they normally obey all the rules and laws, and desist from whatever activity for which they are were charged, since they do not want to suffer further problems (further driving problems could mean points on the license, or problems in getting insurance, and so on). However, once in a while there will be a person who will not care too much about the offence, and is even willing to take offensive action if charged with something (link to article):

A north Queensland man who was allegedly caught driving unlicensed twice in one day and became irate and has been charged with assaulting police. The 19-year-old was given a notice to appear in court for unlicensed driving about 10am (AEST) on Monday, and about 30 minutes later, the same officer saw him allegedly driving the same car, police said.
The officer was questioning the man when he allegedly became aggressive and punched his car's window, smashing it. He then allegedly kicked the side mirror of the police car and punched the police officer. While struggling with the man the officer was allegedly assaulted by a 15-year-old male youth who was in the man's car.

Weird news: A stranger slaps a toddler in a shop, arrested

Suppose you are the mother of a bonny toddler, and life is hectic for you. You need to handle the child as well as make sure that your house is running fine. So you may need to run around, do shopping while carrying your baby. However, children do not follow the rules that adults have; they can cry whenever something is disturbing, they can seem like an inconvenience to other people and so on. However, nothing can justify what this apparent stranger did when he got irritated by the behavior of this child (link to article):

A Georgia man allegedly slapped a toddler at a Walmart store because she wouldn't stop crying, authorities said. Roger Stephens, 61, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree cruelty to children. An incident report obtained from police in Gwinnett County indicated Stephens did not know the 2-year-old girl he stands accused of hitting.
The mother said a stranger later identified as Stephens approached them and said, "If you don't shut the baby up, I will shut her up for you." A few moments later, while the mother and the crying child were in another aisle, Stephens allegedly grabbed the girl and slapped her across the face.

Now, he has been charged with cruelty to children, and one would think that it is perfectly justified that he has been charged with such a crime.

Weird news: 13 year old Dutch girl wants to sail around the world

The craze to create records can make people do all sorts of things. But the expectation is that parents are there to control and guide the lives of children until they are capable of making their own decision. However, this does not always seem the case.
If you consider the art of sailing, it seems all fun and pleasure, out on the blue waters, under a nice sun, enjoying. However, if you consider a much longer journey, then not everything is such smooth sailing; you have storms, harsh weather, hot burning sun, engines break, and so on. Hardly something a 13 year old girl can manage alone, and yet her parents are fine with her attempting this. It took a court to bring some sense into this issue (link to article):

A Dutch court intervened Friday to stop a 13-year-old girl from attempting to sail around the world by herself, stripping her parents of sole custody. Laura Dekker's parents support her round-the-world ambition, which sparked concern from child protection officials because of her age. They took the case to court to prevent the solo trip.
Social workers took the action to stop the teen from attempting to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe because they believe the voyage would be too dangerous. "It's really more a question, is that person, that young person, mature enough to be able to look after themselves and deal with everything that's going to come at you when you get out alone at sea?" he said.

Seems more like an attempt to make a name for a person, or else a strong wish, not founded on more logical thinking, in some quarters, this could be called a 'death wish'.

Weird news: Man faces charges after biting out his son's eyes

A father (or mother) is very important in the life of a child, they are the one who protect their children till the children themselves become adults, and in addition, it would seem impossible to find a parent who can cause their children harm. So what do you say to this boy whose father, in a drug induced frenzy, bit the eye of his 4 year old son, as a result of which the boy may become blind (link to article):

Bakersfield police say 34-year-old Angel Vidal Mendoza appeared to be under the influence of the drug PCP when he attacked the boy April 28, The Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported. Afterwards police say Mendoza rolled his wheelchair outside and began hacking at his own legs with an axe.

Imagine being so much under the influence of drugs that you can no longer recognize what is good and bad.

Fined a huge amount for downloading songs

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been fighting a battle against people indulging in music-sharing across the internet. For the past many years, the music industry has seen a reduction in the number of music sales through the physical medium (CD's, DVD's, etc.) and this reduction is being blamed on the amount of file swapping that happens (file swapping gained prominence with Napster, and when the RIAA shut down Napster through a court case, other, more difficult to control file sharing methods such as P2P and torrents have gained prominence).
The music industry and the RIAA have been fighting against these, although fighting against a much widely dispersed enemy in the form of torrent sites and servers is more difficult. The music industry also started attacking the actual users, getting their details from ISP's, and then serving them notices with huge amounts of damages. The RIAA also had some hugely embarrassing mistakes, suffering from targeting people such as single mothers, children, and so on, all of which were huge Public Relations disasters. In some cases, they have successes, with people settling with the RIAA out of court. However, in another case, they have won huge damages (link to articles):

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.
This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions. The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.

Not sure about whether this will be a success, given that the accused is a single mother who works for an Indian tribe. Also, the RIAA has mostly given up fighting these cases, so this would be one of the few such cases that are still existing.

Weird news: Mother cut open to take unborn baby

Sometimes you come across crimes so bizarre and horrible that one does not know how to react. One cannot easily determine whether the crime was conducted when the person was of sane mind, or whether the person was insane at that time, and laws normally do not easily allow people who are insane to be prosecuted for crimes that they committed (it is a different matter that it can be fairly difficult to determine whether the person was insane when they committed this crime).
Consider the following case where investigators found a dead woman and a dying baby inside the home of a woman who had earlier claimed to be pregnant, but who was not pregnant (link to article):

An Oregan who was killed last week was cut open by her killer so that the baby could be removed from her womb, an autopsy revealed. Authorities also said Heather Snively’s accused killer, Korena Elaine Roberts, who was arraigned on Monday, told her boyfriend and her family members she was pregnant, even though she wasn’t, The Portland Oregonian reported on Tuesday.
Roberts did not speak during her court appearance, the newspaper reported. Her court-appointed attorney did not enter a plea on her behalf. She is charged with the death of Snively, not her baby because the unborn child must have taken a breath to meet the legal standard of being alive, Washington county prosecutor Bob Hermann said. “The issue is - was the child alive at all, at any point in time?” he said. “That’s the legal issue we’ve got to try and resolve.”

In such a case, jury members have a tough task of determining whether the crime was conducted by a person in full control of their mind (and one can expect that the defense attorney will try to present a defence based on temporary insanity).

Man in US jailed 83 days for missing jury duty

The United States has a system of justice that depends on jury trials for a large number of cases, based on the belief that a citizen should be judged by a jury constituted of 12 of their fellow citizens, and it is these citizens who can be depended upon to deliver a judgment. A condition of that is that every citizen can be called for jury duty, and it is only those who can show some sort of valid reason who are excluded from being on the jury. However, it was shocking when it was found that a person was jailed for 83 days for avoiding jury duty (link to article):

A man arrested for allegedly failing to appear for jury duty was released on Saturday after spending 83 days in jail, a length of detention that a judge called "unacceptable." Douglas Maupin was released a day after The Dallas Morning News brought his plight to the attention of a Collin County judge.
All American citizens and permanent residents are required to report for jury duty from time to time to supply potential jurors for court cases. District Judge Chris Oldner said he was unaware of Maupin's detention until Friday, even though the case was assigned to his court. The judge who signed the original 2003 warrant had retired, and officials said the case was assigned to the court of his replacement but the offense didn't fall under that court's responsibility.

This is part of the blind nature of the legal system. Maupin was caught as part of an earlier warrant issues in 2003 and when caught for speeding, this warrant showed up and he was jailed; further, he could not afford the bail amount.