Should you ever find yourself digging through the Vanuatuan penal code, you might notice a curious offense listed in Section 151: “No person shall practice witchcraft or sorcery with intent to cause harm or detriment to any other person.” Though this prohibition obviously has its roots in traditional Vanuatuan culture, it’s inclusion in the nation’s […]
Tags:law·Vanuatu·witchcraft
Much is made of the way in which the Soviets scored themselves some really nice artworks in the waning days of World War II, scooping up the priceless paintings and statues that the Germans had looted on their doomed march toward Moscow. But our side had some sticky fingers, too, to the great consternation of […]
Tags:Auric Goldfinger·Communism·Crown of St. Stephen·diplomacy·Hungary·James Bond·law
The federal government is becoming increasingly zealous about deporting convicted criminals who’ve completed their sentences. That official enthusiasm has led to some interesting legal conundrums, such as this case of an oil worker down in Texas: A descendant of the Lipan Apache tribe who was convicted this summer of re-entering the United States after being […]
Tags:deportation·diplomacy·immigration·law·Lipan Apache·Native Americans·Texas
The worst thing about this tale of a Sri Lankan maid’s suffering at the hands of her Saudi Arabian employers is that it’s completely unsurprising. Though the torture the woman endured is notable for its brutality, such abuse is evidently commonplace in Saudi Arabia—to the point that foreign workers are taught to expect beatings: The […]
Tags:crime·immigration·law·Philippines·politics·Saudi Arabia·Sri Lanka
The case against former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré appears to be as damning as they come. Like many of the twentieth century’s great monsters, Habré was fairly assiduous about documenting his regime’s brutality; according to this essential dossier, he received over 1,200 personal memos regarding the torture of dissidents, many of whom were eventually murdered […]
Tags:Cambodia·Chad·corruption·genocide·Hissene Habre·law·Senegal·war crimes
Yesterday’s arrest of a suspect in the long-running “Grim Sleeper” killings was made possible by familial DNA searching—in a nutshell, the suspect’s genetic material wasn’t in California’s database, but a family member’s was. A paper from earlier this year explains how the Golden State decides when such a search is enough to warrant further investigation: […]
Tags:California·crime·DNA·Grim Sleeper·law
Our adopted home state may have a progressive reputation, owing chiefly to its principal city’s joie de vivre, but it’s also been woefully behind the times on certain political matters. The notorious Rockefeller drug laws, for example, are just now being scrapped, though vestiges seem certain to remain. And over three decades later than most […]
Tags:divorce·law·New York·War on Drugs
The politics in our native state never cease to entertain, especially when the gubernatorial elections roll around. Who could forget, for example, the ill-fated candidacy of Gary Coleman? This year’s contest seems similarly likely to offer its share of oddities, starting with reactionary Douglas Hughes. Though he has positions on all the major topics of […]
Tags:California·crime·exile·law·politics
These are not particularly joyous days for legal fans of a liberal bent, seeing as how SCOTUS has just brought us ever-closer to selling naming rights to federal buildings. (The “1-800-FLOWERS White House Rose Garden” has a nice ring to it.) If you fall into that ideological category, let us brighten your day a tad […]
Tags:civil rights·Engblom v. Carey·law·New York·Third Amendment
Last night while cooking dinner, we decided to rev up a documentary that’s been languishing on our Netflix Instant queue for ages: Witch Hunt. Suffice to say that we weren’t anywhere near prepared for the ensuing 90 minutes, in which the filmmakers unwind a completely devastating J’accuse regarding the Kern County child-abuse panic of the […]
Tags:California·crime·economics·John Stoll·law·movies·South Korea·Witch Hunt
Growing up in Los Angeles, we were annually subjected to a series of PSAs cautioning against celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Eve. In fact, we distinctly remember a police officer visiting our elementary school one year before the holiday break, in order to caution us against going outside in the initial minutes after they calendar’s […]
As the once-sparkling metropolis of Dubai flounders, it’s worth revisiting Johann Hari’s eerily prescient, deeply disturbing take on the city-state from earlier this year. There are lots of nasty anecdotes contained therein, but none more depressing than the fact that the United Arab Emirates still imprisons debtors, a practice abandoned in the United States during […]
Upon being presented with the map above, the first question that pops to most minds is, “Why is the incarceration rate in the United States so absurdly high?” But given our proclivity for the esoteric, we now find ourselves wondering, “Why is the incarceration rate in Indonesia so darn low?” There is certainly no single, […]
Tags:crime·Indonesia·law·prisons·witchcraft
In reading about the murder of four police officers near Tacoma, we were most struck by the prime suspect’s obvious paranoid schizophrenia—a disease that seems to have been wholly untreated, in part because his family members were afraid of staging any sort of medical intervention: As part of the child-rape investigation, the sheriff’s office interviewed […]
Tags:Canada·crime·criminal insanity·law·Maurice Clemmons·psychology·Washington
In doing a little research on the lethality of sipping syrup, we came across this concise account of Johnny Jolly‘s legal woes. It seems the Green Bay Packers defensive end got caught with some liquid codeine in his native Houston. But he’s apparently in the clear for the moment, due to some rather strange circumstances: […]
Tags:codeine·crime·drugs·forensic science·Houston·Johnny Jolly·law·Texas
A pal of ours is on jury duty this week, and reminded us of one of the great pleasures of the process (at least in New York): getting to view Enter the Jury Room on your first morning. Narrated by the late Ed Bradley, the short film is surprisingly witty and informative, especially for those […]
Tags:Burma·crime·Ed Bradley·Enter the Jury Room·law·Medieval history·movies·trial by ordeal
As you’re stuffing your face with sweet sausages and Budwesier Chelada this holiday weekend, we hope you’ll pause for a brief moment to remember those who really could have used a Labor Day respite: victims of karōshi, who remain far more numerous than they should be. Karōshi translates from the Japanese as “death from overwork,” […]
Tags:economics·games·Japan·karōshi·law·public health·statistics·suicide
We find ourselves in full agreement with The Economist‘s argument against America’s draconian sex-offender laws, which prescribe too-harsh punishments for youthful blunders and other crimes unlikely to be repeated. But we were struck by this passage from the polemic, which would seem to undercut the magazine’s case: A meta-analysis of 29,000 sex offenders in Canada, […]
Yesterday we looked at the economic benefits of the Philippines’ divorce ban. In doing so, we noted that while legal splits are certainly uncommon over there, they’re certainly not unheard of. Filipinos who want out of bummer marriages must opt for an annulment, which is ostensibly tough to obtain. But as is usually the case […]
Account of Ajmal Kasab’s surprise confession have often noted that the Mumbai attacker’s trial has proceeded at a lightning clip, at least compared to other Indian criminal proceedings. How quickly have things gone? A 2007 study in Delhi cast a harsh light on the nation’s creaky wheels of justice: The analysis is based upon the […]
Tags:Ajmal Kasab·crime·India·law·terrorism
Once again, we’re gonna use our platform here to highly recommend The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe’s non-fiction account of the 1993 Golden Venture disaster. The book would be awesome enough if it just told the tale of Sister Ping‘s rise and fall as the tsarina of human smuggling in New York’s Chinatown. But The Snakehead […]
Tags:China·crime·Golden Venture·immigration·law·Liberia·maritime·Mongolia·Panama·Patrick Radden Keefe·Sister Ping·The Snakehead
A recent rash of moonshine deaths in Gujarat got us thinking about the state’s failed prohibition policy (PDF). While liquor bans may have some discernible impact in isolated villages, they’re doomed to failure in larger regions that are tied to wet neighbors via modern highways. But the black market for legit liquor is only for […]
By any reasonable measure, scleral tattooing—that is, the injection of ink into the eyeball—is far from a widespread fad. As far as we can determine, in fact, a grand total of three people have had their corneas inked for non-medical reasons. They are body-modification enthusiasts whose story made a stir on The Tubes two years […]
If a Massachusetts pigeon breeder gets his way, out-of-state squabs could soon be aves non grata on the state’s film and TV sets. Bill Desmarais has coaxed the Massachusetts House of Representatives into considering H816 (PDF), more colloquially known as “An act relative to pigeons in motion pictures.” The bill’s text reads in full: Be […]
Tags:law·Massachusetts·movies·pigeons·politics·Smoot-Hawley·TV
With the Obama administration in the midst of trying to dinosaur the phrase “War on Drugs,” we thought it would be worth looking at some of that 40-year-old conflict’s greatest defeats. And we found a true gem buried within this recent Department of Justice bulletin (PDF), a compilation of felony-case statistics from 2004. There are […]
Tags:crime·drugs·law·statistics·War on Drugs
Tiny Togo joins the ranks of nations that have officially abolished capital punishment. Which means this list is now slightly out-of-date. Who will be next to do away with their (usually figurative) gallows? Our money’s on Burkina Faso. Or maybe another small African nation that’s trying to carve out better relations with Western Europe—the likes […]
Tags:death penalty·law·Togo
We’re fond of gently mocking those who seek to make teetotaling a legal requirement. The Eighteenth Amendment, after all, is widely regarded as a notable (even noble) failure, and we certainly can’t imagine life without the more-than-occasional bomber of Ballantine. But does that mean all attempts at enforcing prohibition are doomed to have zero positive […]
Tags:Alaska·alcohol·crime·law·Prohibition
Look, we’ve occasionally been as tempted as the next Mongolian monarch to pull up stakes and move to Arkansas. But every time the urge hits, we remember that Al Green’s birthplace boasts the toughest liquor laws in the nation—even tougher than those in Utah, where we once had a devil of a time finding an […]
It’s not often that Microkhan has a personal stake in the day’s big news. But the curious case of Jonathan Lee Riches, a.k.a. Irving Picard, is a notable exception. Riches, a federal inmate doing a stint for wire fraud, has apparently passed the time by engaging in a most curious hobby: Filing as many frivolous […]
Tags:Bill Belichick·Jonathan Lee Riches·law·Martha Stewart·Wired
Delaware’s future as the new Vega$ East may well hinge on the microstate’s supreme court. A “sports lottery” law was recently passed, but the specifics of how it’ll work are still unclear. Yesterday, the Home of Tax-Free Shopping’s most learned judges heard arguments from two parties: Those in favor of single-game betting, and those who […]
