Professor jailed on word of (ex-)felon

WorldNetDaily ^ | August 14, 2004 | Les Kinsolving

[torque]

"I remember him as one of the most superb organists ..."
"Considering the charges, this might not have been the best phrasing..."

I never thought of it in that way, but I did used to crack up when he would say that he and the pastor were going to do organ work and he'd pick up his bag of tools and go to tune one up. I always pictured them smuggling livers to the black market or something. *L*

[torque]

Thanks very much for the site addy, I've copied it into an email to those who are handling the administrative stuff for him, I guess you'd call it.

He does have a private attorney now. A good friend of his, also in C'ville, found him one who took him through the sentencing and into the appeal process. It just seems to move so slowly, and his health issues are a day by day thing, not week by week or month to month. Several have told me that his daughter would have more power than anyone on his behalf, even being unable to support his efforts financially, but neither of us can see how she can affect things.

[twigs]

Are you from VA? I have a reason for asking...

[Rastus]

Finally! I can't believe it took 79 posts before someone said it.

[torque]

Yes, I'm in Virginia. :)

[twigs]

I did used to crack up

That's just a VA way of saying that. I lapse into it too. I'm from SW VA.

[torque]

*L* And what's worse, I actually had to take a moment to figure out how to write it out because I've only ever said it, not put it into text!

[torque]

Gotta fly. Thanks for letting me get it off my chest on your message board, you guys. I appreciate the input.

*off*

[twigs]

I went back to school recently after, well a long time. My daughter is now in college. And I took English to get certified to teach it. And I still talk like that! I'm also in the north where they look at you really funny when you lapse in these Virginiaisms.

[marktwain]

You are absolutey right.

It is sad, but thanks for validating my interpretation of events. What is maddening is that I don't see a better designed justice system out there. Some things I've thought we could do to improve it, though are:

Teach children about the system in school.

Some type of "legal" insurance.

Respect for the Constitution and the law expected by the New Media, as the OldDominantLiberalMedia trashes the concept of rule of law all the time. If judges feet were held to the fire of public opinion, they might be more careful about what they do.

[beckett]

My sympathies go out to you and your friend, Dr. Strippy, but my central point remains. Dr. Strippy used the quintessential deadly weapon, a firearm, in a situation where he was the only participant carrying one. He discharged the firearm and struck a person. The only evidence he has that he was under assault at the time he discharged the firearm was he own word against the word of the person he struck. Whatever further evidence he has that he was under attack either was never presented to the jury or, if it was presented, did not convince them.

In a situation like that the law almost always comes down on the side of the grievously injured party, and the jury is duty bound to follow the law.

[torque]

"He discharged the firearm and struck a person."

No, he displayed the weapon which was grabbed and discharged. He wanted to scare Swann off and end the attack, not shoot him.

".... was never presented to the jury... "

Precisely. His public defender did nothing to defend him. Nothing to gather evidence. He had an entire congregation of people he could have subpoenaed and didn't do it. They saw him two days later. I testified to what I saw and that I took him to get a CAT scan at UVA, but the PD got the wrong records too close to trial time and couldn't get a postponement to have time to get the right ones. The judge didn't instruct the jury that they could find for a lesser charge, so they didn't know what the law was, really, or what they had the power to do. It was badly done.

[beckett]

You practice the time honored internet technique of only quoting those portions of your interlocutor's post that support your theory, and ignoring the rest. It's not that effective a technique in inconsequential debates like this one, and it's a very ineffective practice, indeed counter-productive, in a much more consequential place, such as a court of law, where the entire scope of evidence is weighed by the jury.

If, as you say, Dr. Strippy was unable to control his firearm in the heat of battle, then he should never have been carrying it. He gets less and less sympathy from me the more I hear about his case.

[torque]

I wasn't practicing any time honored technique of anything, was merely quoting precisely what I was answering for the sake of showing what I was responding to. My point was that there wasn't enough of anything for the jury to weigh. Since I'm not arguing in any court and am not a lawyer, and so am again not using any "technique" here or in court, I don't see the relevance of your statement except as an inflammatory remark. Even someone experienced with a firearm can find himself having the tables turned, especially an elderly man being attacked by a younger, much healthier drunk. And I never implied he was an expert. I'm sure if he'd not ended it with a firearm one way or the other, the story would be that a professor was beaten to death by a drunk. I don't see how that would be better.

I didn't come to be argumentative and don't really see where the negativity comes from. Your sympathy is not relevant, just as mine isn't. I only came here because I saw it being discussed when I googled it up and decided to tell what happened. I'm sorry if you feel offended by either my posting "technique" or the information I've presented. My only intention was to participate in a discusson of a subject that I have first hand, personal knowledge of. To show that things are not always as they seem or are reported. If this was taken another way, my apologies.

[marktwain]

A little bit of armchair psychology here, for what its worth. I believe that some people reflexively defend the "system" and try to find a way to blame the victim in cases like this, because they have invested a lot of their world view in the idea that the "system" is just, the world is rational, and if you do the right thing, bad things will not happen to you.

If they admit that people who routinely do the right thing get chewed up and abused by the "system" even occasionally, it threatens their world view, and, by extension, because it shows that the world is not as safe a place as they thought it to be, it threatens them.

They might have to change some long held assumptions, or consider taking actions that they long ago decided were unnecessary, and all people resist this kind of basic change.

Now, I don't want to offend anyone; that is not my intention, but, in life, this is what I have noticed, and the theory that I have evolved to explain why many people, when confronted with unpleasant facts, just ignore them, or work hard to find some fig leaf to cover the glaring injustices.

Moreover, I think that most of the time, probably 95% of the time, the system works fairly well to provide a reasonable, if rough, justice. It is those 5% of cases that are so deplorable and hard to deal with, and they often happen when good people, who have had no contact with the criminal justice system, trust it, are blind sided, and their lives are destroyed.