Last week I wrote about the conviction of Ma Yaohai, a Chinese computer-science professor who was recently sentenced to three and a half years in prison for organizing what the New York Times called "informal swingers clubs" and what the…
On May 20, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported that 22 people had been convicted and sentenced to jail for taking part in "licentious activities," which it appears are criminal offenses in that happy land. At least if the whole…
Here's one I drafted last summer but, for some reason, never got around to posting. It still seems worth mentioning, though, because of the remarkable defense argument involved. In July 2009, 30-year-old Sultan al-Sayed was sentenced to nine weeks in…
Many have rightly praised Spider-Man for foiling that comic-book-store robbery in Australia last week (with the aid of a few super-friends), but some still question whether his brand of vigilante justice is always a good thing. The robbery story reminded…
“It’s not every day you see a giant cartoon dog go on the rampage after trying to break into a prison,” said a prison spokesman of the incident on May 1. Nor is it often that a story beginning with…
They finally found someone to take it off their hands.
Also in Australia this week, a man who tried to abscond with an expensive comic book from a store in Adelaide was apprehended by an ad hoc team of superheroes and turned over to police. Unfortunately for the villain, he…
It could work to your advantage.
Ex-judge, that is. After his firing, which you may recall was prompted by the jailing of a 19-year-old for failing to return a DVD to the library, former municipal judge James Kimmel stood by his decision to issue a bench…
I think this is the first time I've used this particular word here, but I think it has to be done. On April 9, the chief judge of the provincial court for Canada's Prince Edward Island acquitted a local hockey player…