Obiwan Kenobi, who it seems ended up retiring to Roseville, California, was arrested on Saturday after an investigation pointed to him as the alleged culprit in a hit-and-run. Kenobi fled the scene, presumably leaving behind only an empty robe that officers prodded uselessly, but they picked him up at home later on.
Kenobi was also wanted on an unrelated petty-theft charge, probably trying to get back his hyphen.
This isn't really my specialty, but prior posts have included at least two "RobinHoods," one "Ronald MacDonald" (who was arrested for stealing from Wendy's), and a guy who sued Michael Jordan for $800 million because they supposedly look too much alike.
Exposure to prolonged periods of light and/or darkness;
Extreme variations in temperature;
Sleep adjustment;
Threats of severe physical abuse;
Death threats;
Administration of psychotropic drugs;
Shackling and manacling for hours at a time;
Use of "stress" positions;
Noxious fumes that caused pain to eyes and nose;
Withholding of any mattress, pillow, sheet or blanket;
Forced grooming;
Suspension of showers;
Removal of religious items;
Constant surveillance;
Incommunicado detention, including denial of all contact with family and legal counsel for a 21-month period;
Interference with religious observance; and
Denial of medical care for serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions, resulting in severe and continuing mental and physical harm, pain, and profound disruption of the senses and personality.
Any guesses?
Time's up!
A: They're all things that government officials could do to an American citizen and still claim later that they didn't know they were "torturing" that citizen, according to a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In fact, they could do all those things to the same citizen and still claim it wasn't clear to them at the time whether it was "torture."
Did you guess right? If so, what is wrong with you?
The legal issue was whether John Yoo should be entitled to "qualified immunity" in a case brought by Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen detained as an "enemy combatant." "Qualified immunity" is a doctrine that bars claims against government officials if, at the time they acted, it was not "sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he or she was doing violated the plaintiff's rights." The idea is to try to preserve some freedom of action for officials who have to act in areas where the law may not always be clear. If it applies, no lawsuit.
So, next question: do you think a "reasonable official" in 2001-03, when John Yoo was in the government, should have understood that doing those things to an American citizen -- one who, by the way, had not been convicted of or even charged with a crime -- violated that citizen's rights?
If you are asking, well, but did American citizens actually have a right not to be tortured by their government, then again I don't know what's wrong with you but the answer is yes. The court stated, in fact, that "the unconstitutionality of torturing an American citizen was beyond debate in 2001-03." It also assumed for purposes of argument that the acts listed above actually do amount to "torture" as a matter of fact. But it held that whether they amounted to torture "was not clearly established at that time...." So immunity applies.
There are potentially valid reasons why Yoo himself, who was writing legal memos and wasn't personally, let's say, shoving an IV needle into a citizen's arm or pumping noxious fumes into his face, should not be liable. This isn't one of them. I suppose we could feel relieved that even if it wasn't clear back in those long-ago times of 2001-03 that this was "torture", surely it's clear now, so no official could ever use this excuse in the future. Right? Only, I notice that the Ninth Circuit was not even willing to go ahead and call this "torture," but rather just "assumed for purposes of argument" that it is. Hey, don't go out on a limb, guys.
I can see them dropping just the "forced grooming." Then all bets will be off, probably.
Here's what's really bad about this monumentally awful decision: the only people who wouldn't have thought this was "torture" in 2001-03 were the people doing it or writing memos trying to justify it. Is it a good idea to let officials use "uncertainty" they tried to create in order to argue they should be immune now because things were so unclear at the time?
Answer: no! These questions are not difficult!
Well, it may not be clear to our officials what "torturing an American citizen" means, but at least they passed a law this year saying that any citizen can be held in military custody indefinitely at the whim of the President. So we've still got that going for us.
... and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Is a stupid question, because of course it makes a sound, Einstein. That observer-dependent bullshit only works at the quantum level. Hello! It's a tree, not a photon! So we need a new Zen question, in my opinion.
How about this one: If a man exposes himself at a bookstore for the blind, is that "indecent exposure"?
A question that could have real-world consequences, as FindLaw reports today.
According to police in Newtown, Pennsylvania, a man reportedly exposed himself last Friday at the office of the Bucks County Association for the Blind. The reports say this happened in the association's "bookstore," probably meaning the "contemporary book room" in the thrift shop. Police said the man had then fled and at last report they had no suspects.
Now, while it's possible the book room only stocks Braille versions, obviously we know that not everyone there that day was blind. Otherwise, nobody would even have known this happened, I assume, let alone be able to describe the suspect. (Description available at the links above, if you have some time to go over to Newtown and look for the guy.) It strikes me that it might be possible to "expose yourself" to a blind person via a sort of sign language that I'd rather not go into any further, but that doesn't seem to have happened here.
FindLaw points out, though, that under the relevant Pennsylvania statute "indecent exposure" must happen in "a public place" or "in any place where there are present other persons under circumstances in which he or she knows or should know that this conduct is likely to offend, affront or alarm." (Emphasis added.) So, should this guy be found and charged, I'd very much appreciate it if he would try to argue that one who exposes himself at an "association for the blind" cannot be said to have known or be expected to know that exposing himself would necessarily bother anyone.
Assuming this did happen at the thrift shop and/or in a non-Braille-only bookstore, though, then the premise for this argument would not be valid, because there'd be no reason to expect everybody there to be blind. Also, of course, this is an association "for the blind," not "of the blind." I'd like to think that the culprit is stupid enough that he might actually have expected everybody there to be blind, and was startled to find out otherwise.
This is where the "should have known" element will get you, though. Not that stupidity is ever a very good defense.
Law novelist and former prosecutor Allison Leotta went to the Washington Romance Writers retreat last weekend. I also considered going, not because I like that genre but because I figured I might well be the only male human there. Another guy apparently had the same idea, because Allison reports that the attendance was 130 women and one (1) man.
She didn't say whether he scored or not, so I'm just going to assume he did. The thought of a guy not being able to score at a romance writers' convention, of all places, is too depressing to contemplate.
Anyway, Allison's blog commonly features her reviews of episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, to which she applies her experience as a sex-crimes prosecutor, explaining what they got right and wrong in each episode and assigning an overall grade. Last week's episode, which involved people dressed like superheroes, got a B minus. Its relevance here is really just that it involved people dressed up like superheroes, which as Allison points out is, believe it or not, an actual thing.
Nor are these guys just dressing up for pictures, like the Hollywood Boulevard "superheroes" or the Roman "gladiators." They go out and patrol the city (Seattle, in the case of this trio), striking fear into the hearts of evildoers, or triggering some sort of emotion, at least.
Phoenix Jones (not his real name), he of the black and gold above, is the most famous of these people so far, partly because he's been arrested at least once for allegedly pepper-spraying somebody who didn't deserve it. (No charges were ever filed.) According to Wikipedia, which seems like an appropriate source here, Jones is part of a ten-member team that also includes supercitizens Thorn, Buster Doe, Green Reaper, The Mantis, Gemini, Catastrophe, Thunder 88, Penelope, and the intriguingly named, or not-named, No Name. (Other reports suggest that Pitch Black, Red Dragon, Purple Reign and Blue Sparrow are also part of the group, but you know how these superpeople come and go.) Collectively they are known as the Rain City Superhero Movement, or, alternatively, "dorks."
I don't want to be too critical of these people, though, because (1) I am arguably a dork myself and (2) it appears that, loony as they may be, it seems like most of them mean well and some have (reportedly) actually stopped a crime. Phoenix Jones once chased away a car thief, another person claimed Jones had saved him from a potential "beat-down," and on a couple of occasions they are said to have helped police solve a crime, although I'm not sure it's the police who are saying this. What the record of supercitizens elsewhere might be, I don't know, but according to Wikipedia they definitely exist. In fact, the Wikipedia article on "Real-life superheroes" lists over four dozen of them, and not just in the U.S. as you might expect, but all around the world.
I would highly recommend you at least scan that article just to get a sense of the names people have come up with. Some at least sound intimidating (Thanatos, The Viper, Razorhawk), some not so much (Moon Dragon, Captain Oyster, Captain Xavier Obvious). I wouldn't want to tangle with Superbarrio, but could probably kick The Statesman's ass. (What's his secret identity, Mitt Romney?)
Other good lines there include, "His mother has expressed concern for his safety," and "Police have expressed their preference that Captain Australia not intervene in incidents anymore."
Update: A reader in Seattle reports that Phoenix Jones was active again today, this time apparently intervening to protect the federal courthouse from May Day demonstrators. (Whether they were really threatening it, I have no idea.) A Seattle Times picture showed Jones and an unidentified associate (maybe Mantis?) sort of lurking around while two other guys argue, but maybe they were on their break at the time. Another picture showed a demonstrator wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask, so now I'm totally confused as to who's on what side.
