truesee's Blog

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2011/05/24/Archive_Alcatraz.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2011%2F05%2F24%2Fba-Alcatraz_11_J_0503516420.jpg

http://gothamist.com/2011/05/24/brooklyn_man_remains_in_jail_5_year.php

Police say shoe shoplifter took carryout orders

 

 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41) -- Police have arrested a man they say had his shoplifting technique so down pat, he actually had customers placing orders for various items via text message.

California must cut prison population by 30,000

Bob Egelko

Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

(05-23) 17:20 PDT WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to reduce the population of its jammed prisons by more than 30,000 in two years to repair a health care system that lower courts found was defying constitutional standards and endangering guards as well as inmates.

Federal judges rightly found that overcrowding in a prison system that has held nearly twice its designed capacity for more than a decade was the main cause of "grossly inadequate provision of medical and mental health care," the court said in a 5-4 ruling.

"Needless suffering and death have been the well-documented result," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the majority opinion.

He cited evidence from two decades of litigation: mentally ill prisoners waiting up to a year for treatment, suicidal inmates held for 24 hours in phone booth-size cages without toilets, waiting lists of 700 inmates for a single doctor, and gyms converted into triple-bunked living quarters that breed disease, and violence victimizing guards and inmates alike.

Death toll

A federal judge found in 2006 that shoddy prison health care in California was responsible for the death of one inmate a week, Kennedy noted.

"The medical and mental health care provided by California's prisons falls below the standard of decency that inheres in the Eighth Amendment," which bans cruel and unusual punishment, said Kennedy, joined by the court's more liberal justices.

Under the ruling, California's prison population of 143,000 must be reduced to 110,000 by mid-2013. Critics both on and off the bench forecast a wave of dangerous felons on the streets.

Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, said the majority was loosing "the equivalent of three Army divisions" of criminals and was "gambling with the safety of the people of California."

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway of Tulare said Californians "could be at serious risk of becoming victims of crime ... as a result of this reckless and irresponsible decision."

One alternative

But Gov. Jerry Brown's administration, while critical of the ruling, said the state could comply without releasing any dangerous criminals - if Republicans approve Brown's budget proposal to shift thousands of low-level offenders and parole violators from state prisons to county jails.

"If realignment is done quickly and fully as the governor proposed, it will solve this problem," said Matthew Cate, Brown's prison director. "Our goal is to not release inmates at all."

The California State Sheriffs Association chimed in, saying Brown's plan - as long as it is accompanied by more state funding for counties - is "a way to ensure this is not a massive release of prisoners."

But Republicans have opposed Brown's plan on two grounds: The governor wants to extend tax increases to pay for it, and it would arguably reduce punishment by allowing some felons to avoid state prison.

Sentencing overhaul

At the other end of the spectrum, the American Civil Liberties Union said the ruling should prompt the state to ease some of the nation's harshest sentencing laws by, for example, making it a misdemeanor instead of a felony to write a $450 bad check or possess drugs for personal use.

"California locks up too many people who pose no threat to public safety and keeps them locked up for too long," said Allen Hopper, an ACLU attorney in San Francisco.

Inmates claiming that prisons provided substandard mental health treatment first sued the state in 1990. They were joined in 2001 by prisoners suing over medical care.

A federal judge appointed a receiver to manage the health care system in 2006, saying state officials were unable to comply with constitutional standards. After a trial in 2009, a three-judge panel said the system could be repaired only if the state first addressed overcrowding. At the time, there were 156,000 inmates in a system designed for 80,000.

Reductions to date

While fighting the courts' authority to lower the prison population, state officials have responded to the litigation by making their own reductions.

Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an overcrowding "state of emergency" in 2006 and transferred nearly 10,000 prisoners to other states. He also acted with lawmakers to speed up the releases of some low-risk inmates and stop returning parolees to prison for minor violations.

In upholding the panel's order, the Supreme Court said California's "serious constitutional violations ... have persisted for years. They remain uncorrected."

Kennedy said the three-judge panel had heard expert testimony by former prison directors in California and other states that prison populations can be reduced in a way that "does not increase crime to a significant degree."

The court also upheld the panel's two-year deadline for lowering the prison population but said state officials might ask the three judges for more time - five years, for example - because of "changing political, economic and other circumstances."

Cate said the Brown administration would seek an extension "if that's what public safety requires."

The ruling in Brown vs. Plata, 09-1233 can be read at links.sfgate.com/ZKZF:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf

Chronicle staff writer Marisa Lagos contributed to this report.

Trenton 12-year-old boy is accused of armed robbery on city street

Published: Monday, May 23, 2011, 1:17 PM   

Updated: Monday, May 23, 2011, 1:23 PM

Alex Zdan

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/23/BAH01JK1GT.DTL

Man sentenced for hot cocoa robbery

LINK TO VIDEO: 

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_c96496c5-e398-57c9-843b-b0a8648825af.html?mode=video

 May 23, 2011

"Boy, girl or both?"

California Catholic Daily

Oakland elementary school teaches pupils there are more than two genders

Today and tomorrow, Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland will be teaching children from kindergarten through fifth grade that there are more than two genders, Pacific Justice Institute reports.

In a press release, Pacific Justice Institute provided the following details:

The two days calendared for this are entitled "Gender Spectrum Diversity Training." In documents released by the school, students will be taught that "gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one's physical anatomy." Further, gender is a "complex interrelationship between (physical traits) and one's internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither as well as one's outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception."

Another document from the school advises parents: "When you discuss gender with your child, you may hear them exploring where they fit on the gender spectrum and why."

The activities and reading list include: Grades K-1: "Boy, girl or both? Which Outfit, Which Hairdo? (Reading) My Princess Boy." Grades 2-3: "What is gender? (Reading) 10,000 Dresses." Grades 4-5: "Three dimensions of gender. (Reading/Song) All I Want to be is Me."

"This instruction does not represent the values of the majority of families in Oakland," said attorney Kevin Snider of the Pacific Justice Institute. PJI has been providing legal counsel to parents in the Oakland Unified School District on this matter. "Though to many this may seem extreme, based upon some of the bills now pending in the Capitol such as SB 48, this will be the new normal in California's K-12 public schools," Snider continued.

At this point, it is not known if this is the only campus in the Oakland Unified School District that offers gender diversity training for children.

“Unfortunately, many parents in the school are unaware that this is being taught,” said the news release. “If you are a parent of a child enrolled in a school where this instruction is taking place, you may consider keeping your child home on days when this material is being presented. Please contact the PJI Legal Department if you are a parent and have questions about truancy or absence issues with your child.”

LINK TO VIDEO: 

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=fea25517-e69c-48e4-867f-93b83cd012c9

May 23, 2011

Vice President Joe Biden surprised a gathering of donors in Cincinnati last week when he floated the prospect of his succeeding President Barack Obama in the White House.

Biden, who started in the Senate young and would be just 70 in 2012, raised the possibility unprompted during a wide-ranging conversation at the May 19 dinner with major Democratic Party donors, a source in the room said. 

The Vice President, who has never ruled in or out running in six years, told the group he hadn't made up his mind, and cited both political conditions and his own health as relevant factors. 

But the spontaneous suggestion caught the attention of at least some in the audience, said the guest, "given he volunteered that without prompting...and given the audience."

A crop of Democrats already appear to be eyeing the subsequent presidential contest, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, and Virginia Senator Mark Warner; a sitting Vice President would utterly change the circumstances in a race that is, in any event, too far off to imagine, and whose contours depend most of all on whether Obama wins re-election.

A spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment on the exchange.

 

Rex USA

 

Penny Johnson was awarded $9.7 million for a botched plastic surgery operation.

Penny Johnson, a part-owner of a financial and IT consultant business, said her face was constantly contracting and she had a permanent buzzing around her eye, after the 2003 operation, the BBC reported.

As a result of the botched surgery, she lost her business - and became a recluse who wouldn't socialize with their close friends anymore, her husband said.

"Their marriage has survived, but the claimant said in evidence that she is no longer a wife to her husband," the judge said in is ruling.

"He says that she is now a completely different person and that their marriage is not what it used to be."

The judge also noted that Johnson formerly was a happy and outstandingly successful woman.

The doctor, Le Roux Fourie, denied the surgery was experimental, but admitted liability in the case.

The case is far from the first plastic surgery horror story to serve as a cautionary tale.

This year, a New Jersey woman received a $115,000 settlement from her plastic surgeon after a procedure left her unable to fully close her eyes.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/oprah/ct-live-0523-oprah-backlash-20110523,0,1617591.story

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/05/20/kpho.dnt.child.support.reward.kpho

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/05/video-did-joakim-noah-also-get-caught-using-gay-slur-chicago-bulls-miami-heat-nba-playoffs-eastern-conference-finals/1

Harold Camping 'flabbergasted'; rapture a no-show

Will Kane

Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Brant Ward / The Chronicle

David Eller speaks to atheists at Oakland's Masonic Center, where they gathered to mark Harold Camping's failed prediction of the end-time.

 

 

(05-22) 19:18 PDT ALAMEDA -- The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda a day later, very much alive but not so well.

"It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Massive earthquakes would strike, he said. Believers would ascend to heaven and the rest would be left to wander a godforsaken planet until Oct. 21, when Camping promised a fiery end to the world.

But on Sunday, almost 18 hours after he thought he'd be in heaven, there was Camping, "flabbergasted" in Alameda, wearing tan slacks, a tucked-in polo shirt and a light jacket.

Birds chirped. A gentle breeze blew. Across the street, neighbors focused on their yard work and the latest neighborhood gossip.

"I'm looking for answers," Camping said, adding that meant frequent prayer and consultations with friends.

"But now I have nothing else to say," he said, closing the door to his home. "I'll be back to work Monday and will say more then."

Camping's followers will surely be listening.

"I'm not as disappointed as everyone since I didn't fully believe him," said one, who asked to remain anonymous Sunday because he worried he would be shunned for admitting he was "upset" with Camping.

The middle-aged Oakland resident said he'd been listening to Camping since 1993, when he said the world would end in 1994.

That was strike one, the man said. And this is strike two. Even so, he said, that doesn't mean the message is wrong.

"I just know he's biblically sound," the man said. "I've never been one of these guys who think everything he says is true.

"I don't think I am going to stop listening to him," the man added, heaving a deep sigh before continuing: "I don't know, I gotta listen to him on Monday, see what he says on the radio."

Outside Camping's compound near the Oakland airport, which was locked and dark on Sunday, a different religious group waited for dejected believers.

"I would encourage them not to lose their faith because they listened to a wolf in sheep's clothing, and Jesus said there would be wolves in sheep's clothing," said Jackie Alnor.

Alnor, a resident of Hayward who blogs about the rapture, said Camping had twisted the word of God by trying to predict the end. Only God knows when the world will end, she said.

"He's in big trouble with God," she said.

If that isn't bad enough, she said, Camping's false prophecy could have bigger impacts on religion.

"It's given people who hate Christianity an excuse to hate it even more," she said. "People can just paint with broad brush strokes."

Across town, a group of atheists gathered in Oakland's Masonic Center to observe the promised rapture in their own way.

"The issue is the Bible is mythology," said Larry Hicok, state director of the American Atheists, bluntly laying out his case.

Roughly 200 people attended the hastily scheduled conference to discuss the impact of organized religion on American culture.

"Every ruler needs a religion," Hicok said. "Everybody knows that's the way you get power."

He said too many followers of religion get lost in the details of their particular belief.

"Maybe the constant is love, and the rest of it you can let go of," he said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/22/BAKO1JJIK7.DTL#ixzz1NAPTNrnY

 

Jim Rogash/Getty

 

Ray Lewis is concerned about the safety of the city streets if there's no football.

If the NFL and NFLPA can't come to an agreement in their labor dispute, one Baltimore Ravens' veteran believes society as a whole will pay – because there will be more violent crime.

"Do this research if we don't have a season -- watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game," Ray Lewis told ESPN.

Lewis, the face of the Ravens franchise who is considered a spiritual leader in the league, has dealt with his own fair share of crime.

Now deeply involved in the Charm City community, Lewis was once convicted of obstruction of justice in a 2000 murder trial in Atlanta.

If the NFL is on hiatus, he said, fans won't have anything else to do but get into trouble.

"There's too many people that live through us, people live through us," he said. "Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I'm not talking about the people you see all the time."

With the lockout now in its 68th day, there doesn't seem to be much movement on either side. A decision last week by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave team owners a slight boost, keeping the lockout in place at least temporarily.

The next hearing is scheduled for June 3.

The last NFL strike was in 1987 and lasted for 24 days. It is not clear if crime increased during that time.