Lowering the Bar

DOJ Moves to Dismiss Geronimo Skull Suit

Legal Times reported on June 12 that the Justice Department had moved to dismiss claims brought by a group of Native Americans who are hoping to recover Geronimo's remains.  See "Geronimo's Descendants Sue to Get His Skull Back," Lowering the Bar (Feb. 18, 2009).  The plaintiffs named the federal government, Yale University, and the Skull and Bones society as defendants in the lawsuit, based on persistent rumors that the skull (if there is one) inside the Skull and Bones "crypt" is in fact Geronimo's noggin.

The plaintiffs include Geronimo's great-grandson -- Harlan Geronimo -- and others who claim that a group of Yale men stationed in Oklahoma during World War I broke into a burial ground and took the skull (and, possibly, bones).  The group that allegedly stole the remains of the famous Apache leader is said to have included Prescott Bush, whose grandson, George W., later became a famous Caucasian leader.

The government is apparently asserting sovereign immunity.

Link:  The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Ninety Days Is Sentence For "Suspicious Activity" With Vacuum

A 29-year-old man who pleaded no contest last month to indecent-exposure charges has been sentenced to 90 days in jail, reports said today.  The man was arrested last October after someone called police to report "suspicious activity" at a car wash in Saginaw County, Michigan.  The activity in question was apparently unnatural congress with one of the car wash's vacuums.

I guess he's lucky he wasn't also prosecuted for a low-pants-law violation, which is all the rage these days.  On the other hand, since those offenses are often prosecuted under an existing indecent-exposure statute, maybe he was.  Ninety days seems a little excessive for a single incident of this kind, although I suppose it is more reprehensible when the victim is incapable of consent.

Link: AP via SFGate.com

Nebraska Man Still Pursuing Lawsuit Against God

When we last saw Ernie Chambers, his lawsuit against Almighty God accusing said deity of causing a variety of natural disasters, and seeking injunctive relief to prevent same, had just been dismissed.  He has not given up, however.

Chambers, who was then a Nebraska state senator, had sued God in Douglas County, Nebraska, in 2007, but immediately ran into problems with service of process.  Chambers argued to the judge that serving God with notice of the lawsuit was unnecessary because He knows everything anyway, and that the Defendant would be subject to transient jurisdiction because of His presence in the area.  "If God is omnipresent," Chambers argued, "then he is here in Douglas County."  Maybe so, said Judge Marlon Polk, but you still have to prove you served Him, and you have not.  Case dismissed.

The First Process Server

Chambers appealed.  In briefs filed with the Nebraska Court of Appeals on February 9, he argued that it was inconsistent for courts to "take judicial notice of God" for purposes of (for example) administering an oath to witnesses, and yet refuse to take notice of His omniscience when considering whether He needed to be served.  In other words, Chambers was saying, it is ironic that a court will notice God but refuse to assume that God would notice it.

It appears that Chambers may have failed to file a statement of jurisdiction as part of his appeal, since the report states that he has been given until February 24 to do so.  He is also required to provide proof that he has given notice of the appeal to John DeCamp, a local attorney who has filed papers seeking to represent God.  "If they want to go to court," DeCamp said, "we're willing to take God's side."  DeCamp has apparently been on God's side since about 1989, when he registered something called the "Church of the Golden Rule" as a legal entity in Nebraska.

DeCamp was not the only person who wanted to get on the Lord's legal team.  A Texas attorney filed a response on God's behalf in the lower court, and a Swedish man wrote to the appeals court asking to intervene there.  His letter, though, referred to a "Bjorn the Omnipresent," so he may have his cases confused. 

Link: Omaha World-Herald

Geronimo's Descendants Sue to Get His Skull Back

"We're tired of waiting and we're coming after them," said Harlyn Geronimo, a great-grandson of the famous Apache leader.  Specifically, they're tired of waiting to get Great-Grandpa's skull back from the creeps at Yale who allegedly stole it almost a century ago.

The story is that members of the Skull and Bones society, a group that has included both presidents Bush and many other men who for some reason later become important, went a-grave-robbin' while they were stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, during World War I.  Geronimo died at Fort Sill of pneumonia in 1909.

Skull and Bones members are highly secretive about the society, and so there is no way to know whether there is a skull (or bones) in their "crypt," let alone whether it belongs to Geronimo.  A historian recently found a 1918 letter that seems to refer to such a theft, but he has said he is still skeptical.

The lawsuit, filed in Washington on the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's death, names the university and federal government as well as Skull and Bones.  The plaintiffs say that under a 1990 act, they are legally entitled to ownership of their ancestor's remains and anything that was buried with him.

On Tuesday, none of the defendants were willing to comment on the lawsuit.  That included the President and Secretary of Defense (named because Geronimo was buried on a U.S. military base).  A spokesperson for Yale noted that the society is not directly affiliated with the university.  As for Skull and Bones, the Yale Daily News reported that "[r]epeated knocks on the front door of the society's tomb were not answered Tuesday evening."

Link: msnbc.com

Link: Yale Daily News

Burglar Says He Was Trapped In Home By "Supernatural Figure"

A Malaysian newspaper reported last weekend that a couple had returned from a trip to find an exhausted, dehydrated and terrified burglar inside their home.  The man, who the couple reportedly found "clasping his hands in an apologetic gesture for his wrongdoing," said he had been trapped inside the building for three days by a ghost.

The burglar said he had come in through the back door after the couple left but was "blinded" once he got inside and "felt like he was in a cave."  He told police, "Each time I wanted to flee, I felt a supernatural figure shoving me to the ground."

Sounds to me like somebody got himself stuck in a coat closet and panicked.  "Aiieee!   A supernatural figure, or several, have fallen upon me in this small cave!  I am blinded and frightened!  Even though it is surprisingly warm and cozy under here."  The burglar said he had called for help repeatedly over the next 72 hours, but to no avail.  The owners called an ambulance, and then the police.

The man, who told police that it was his "first time experiencing such trauma during a break-in," thus admitting there had been other break-ins, was said to be in stable condition.

Link: Malaysia Star
Link: Legal Juice

 

Woman Arrested for Cybermurder

A 43-year-old woman in Tokyo has been arrested for killing her husband, although they weren't legally married, she didn't really kill him, and he isn't really dead.

The two had only met online, as part of a popular interactive game called "Maple Story" in which cartoon-like "avatars" fight monsters, interact, and, apparently, get married.  They also get divorced, or at least these two did.  It would probably be more accurate to say that she got cyberdumped: "I was suddenly divorced," the woman said, "without a word of warning.  That made me so angry."  So angry that she used his login information -- which he had foolishly given her back when they were "happily married" -- to access his account and delete his avatar.  He called the cops.  They, apparently having no crimes at all to prosecute in their own area, traveled 600 miles to arrest the woman and bring her to the jurisdiction where the brutal deletion took place.

The woman is not actually charged with murder, but rather was arrested for illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data.  She might also be charged with destruction of property, since avatars and the "things" they own arguably represent a major investment of time (and money in terms of online fees).  The report did not say what value the electro-husband put on his account, but it could easily have been thousands of dollars, given the amount that online items can sometimes trade for.  (I don't know this personally, of course, but the guys in my Dungeons and Dragons group were talking about it the other day at the food court.)

The woman had not been formally charged as of October 23, but if convicted of the illegal-access charges she could be fined up to $5,000 or given up to five years in jail.

Link: Chicago Tribune

Case Against God Dismissed; Plaintiff Considering Appeal

Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers suffered a setback this week in his lawsuit against God, when a Douglas County judge dismissed the case.  Judge Marlon Polk said Chambers had produced no evidence that he had been able to accomplish service of process on the deity.

As you may recall, Chambers sued God in Nebraska state court back in 2007, seeking (among other things) injunctive relief to prevent future events such as earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., etc.  He claimed that his goal was to focus attention on efforts to limit frivolous lawsuits, efforts that Chambers opposes because he says they would unfairly restrict access to the courts.  "My point," Chambers said, "is that anyone can sue anyone else, even God."  Of course, you could argue, as I did, that suing God is not a great way to suggest to a legislature that it doesn't need to do anything about frivolous lawsuits.

Chambers appeared in court in August to oppose a motion to dismiss based on lack of service.  He argued then that Judge Polk should take "judicial notice" of God's existence, and that worrying about proper service and/or whether God had fair notice of the lawsuit was unnecessary because God is everywhere and knows everything.  "If God is omnipresent," Chambers argued, "then he is here in Douglas County."  Seems hard to argue with that.

Judge Polk still ruled that service was required but had not been accomplished, and he dismissed the case with prejudice.  He said the dismissal meant that the motion asking him to take judicial notice of God was moot, and he declined to rule on it.  Chambers told reporters that he has not decided whether he will appeal, but I sure hope he does.  I want to see where the case finally ends up.

Link: Omaha World-Herald

Millionaire Claims Ghosts Caused Him to Flee His Mortgage, I Mean Mansion

I wrote that post yesterday about Stambovsky forgetting that I also had this one in the pipeline.  I was sort of kidding about that case coming in handy for those who might need a reason to bail out of a deal or abandon a piece of property, but here we go.

The BBC reported that Anwar Rashid, a multi-millionaire who bought an English estate for 3.6 million pounds last year, moved out of it eight months later because of ghosts.  "I fell for its beauty," Rashid said of Clifton Hall, "but behind the facade it is haunted."  Rashid claimed he and his family had been terrorized by "mysterious figures," ghostly tapping and disembodied voices.  Their foyer would sometimes seem to lower and "stretch," as if it were a giant elevator, and they would then be led down a series of corridors past frightening portraits and scenes of a seance or ballroom, and later pestered by hitchhiking ghosts . . . oh, sorry, I'm thinking of the Haunted Mansion.  I guess I was just really bored by this guy's lame-ass story and my mind started to wander.

Anyway, Rashid said that he wanted to stay in the house, pointing to the fact that he went to the trouble of hiring "paranormal investigators" in hopes of solving the problem.  But it was just no use.  "The ghosts didn't want us to be there," he said, "and we could not fight them because we couldn't see them."  I wanted to find out more about how he fights ghosts he can see, but he provided no details.  Ultimately, "[w]hen we found red blood spots [do they come in another color?] on the baby's quilt, that was the day my wife said she'd had enough."  They fled, but only as a last resort did he stop paying the mortgage.

As a result, this week the Yorkshire Bank became the proud owner of an elderly Nottinghamshire mansion with some really boring ghosts in it.  Personally, I would expect these sorts of cases to multiply as the crisis deepens, and with any luck, future deadbeats will be a lot more creative than this guy.

Link: BBC News

Case Law Hall of Fame: "As a Matter of Law, the House is Haunted"

Here's a worthwhile addition to the Hall of Fame that may just come in handy these days as well.  In Stambovsky v. Ackley, New York's Appellate Division held in 1991 that a homebuyer could try to get out of a $650,000 sale contract based on his argument that he learned only after signing that the house was haunted by poltergeists.

The court agreed that the plaintiff could not sue the realtor and seller for fraud, because they had no legal duty to disclose the "phantasmal reputation of the premises."  But, applying its equity powers, it ruled that he should at least be able to seek recission on the grounds that the omitted fact was one that could have affected the property's value.  Exactly what effect a haunting might have on a house value was something that a jury would have to figure out later, the court said, but it ruled that the recission claim could go forward.

Arguably, this haunting might actually have increased the value, or at least you might conclude that from the fact that the owner had previously advertised the spirits' presence, getting the home included in a walking tour and also covered in a story by the crack journalists at Reader's Digest.  But if the owner profited from those efforts, she paid for it later, since the court ruled that having reported the spirits' presence so widely, she was now "estopped to deny their existence and [so], as a matter of law, the house is haunted."  (Note: previous sentence carefully drafted to avoid use of the phrase, "came back to haunt her.")

A dissenting judge said that in New York, the rule in real-estate transactions was still caveat emptor, "let the buyer beware."  (That was in 1991 -- whether it is or is not the rule now, I have no idea.)  He suggested that, since the owner had shared her belief in poltergeists with the public at large for at least twelve years, there was no reason give the buyer here the benefit of the doubt.  "[I]f the doctrine of caveat emptor is to be discarded," the court said, "it should be for a reason more substantive than a poltergeist. The existence of a poltergeist is no more binding upon the defendants than it is upon this court."

It would be nice to think that homebuyers in trouble would get some mileage out of precedent like this, but you know it will end up benefiting somebody on Wall Street.  "Come to find out, Lehman Brothers was built right on top of an ancient Indian burial ground.  We had no idea."

Link (PDF): Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. 1991).

Witch Pardoned

The government of Glarus, a canton in eastern Switzerland, has officially exonerated Anna Goeldi, who had the bad luck to be the last person executed in Europe after being charged with witchcraft.  This was in 1782, almost one hundred years after the fun had ended even in places like Salem, Massachusetts.

Goeldi was accused of causing a girl, apparently her employer's daughter, to "spit pins and convulse."  Showing a complete lack of appreciation for all the free pins he was getting, Goeldi's employer denounced her as a witch.  She was also accused of making needles appear in a glass of milk and a loaf of bread, and as any expert can tell you, only witchcraft can get needles into things like that.  When put on trial, Goeldi insisted she was innocent, but a little torture helped the truth come out, as torture always does.  It seems that the needles had been given to her by Satan, who appeared to her in the form of a black dog.

The alternative explanation, that she had an affair with her employer and had threatened to expose him as an adulterer, was apparently rejected as too implausible.

A book published last year told Goeldi's story and argued that her execution was a "judicial murder" intended to protect her employer.  Both the canton's government and the local council of the Protestant Church rejected the book's call to exonerate Goeldi, the government saying that it saw no need to make a "celebratory apology" for something that happened 225 years ago.  By this year, however, they had changed their minds.  "[T]hey tortured an innocent person," said a government spokesperson, "although it was known to them that the alleged crime was neither doable nor possible and that there was no legal basis for their verdict."  An enlightened country should not do those kinds of things, he said, and officially cleared Goeldi's name.

The government did not take any legal responsiblity for her death, or any other "past wrongdoings," but it did say it would pay about 90,000 euros to sponsor a play about her as an "additional sign" of rehabilitation.

In 2006, the governor of Virginia officially pardoned the "Witch of Pungo," but hard-hearted Connecticut refused earlier this year to clear the names of its ex-witches.  In a follow-up post to the latter story, we learned that in Salem itself, the number of guilty verdicts handed out by tourists serving as jurors in mock witch trials reportedly increased after 9/11.

Link: AP via SFGate.com
Link: BBC News (Sept. 2007)