Strange & Sad Things in the News

Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, Florida, convicted and given a 20-year sentence in 2012 for firing a warning shot into a wall to fend off her abusive estranged husband, finally had the charges dropped in February. The persnickety trial judge had earlier determined that Florida's notorious "Stand Your Ground" law did not apply, even though the husband admitted that he was threatening to rough up Alexander and that she never aimed the gun at him. (With that defense not allowed, Alexander was doomed under Florida's similarly notorious 20-year mandatory sentence for aggravated assault using a gun.)


Despite California's 2015 law aimed at improving the fairness of its red-light cameras, the city of Fremont (pop. 214,000, just north of San Jose) reported earning an additional $190,000 more each month last year by shortening the yellow light by two-thirds of a second at just two intersections. Tickets went up 445 percent at one and 883 percent at the other. (In November 2016, for "undisclosed reasons," the city raised the speed limit on the street slightly, "allowing" it to reinstate the old 0.7-second-longer yellow light.)


In 2008, Vince Li, a passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada, stabbed another passenger, then beheaded him and started to eat him, and in 2009 was "convicted" -- but "not criminally responsible" because of schizophrenia. He has been institutionalized and under treatment since then, and in February, doctors signed off on an "absolute" release back into society for Li (now known as Will Baker) -- declining a "conditional" release, which would have required continued monitoring. Manitoba province law requires absolute discharge if doctors conclude, on the "weight of the evidence," that the patient is no longer a "significant" safety threat.


Doris Payne, 86, was arrested once again for shoplifting -- this time at an upscale mall in an Atlanta suburb in December -- but according to a 2013 documentary, "careerwise," she has stolen more than $2 million in jewelry from high-end shops around the world. No regrets, she said on the film, except "I regret getting caught." Said her California-based lawyer, "Aside from her 'activities,' she is a wonderful person with a lot of fun stories."


Least Competent Criminals: (1) Alvin Neal, 56, is merely the most recent bank robber to begin the robbery sequence (at a Wells Fargo branch in San Diego) after identifying himself to a teller (by swiping his ATM card through a machine at the counter). He was sentenced in January. (2) Also failing to think through their crime was the group of men who decided to snatch about $1,200 from the Eastside Grillz tooth-jewelry shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, in February. They fled despite two of them having already provided ID and one having left a mold of his teeth.

Live Long and Prosper...