Hoarse Speak

Well, if you fornicate in Ohio, make sure it isn't with your step-father, step-mother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law or any member of your family legal or otherwise. According to a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Lowe, (112 Ohio St.3d 507, 2007-Ohio-606) that would be incest. In the case, Lowe engaged with consensual sex with his step-daughter - both of whom were adults at the time of the crime and both of whom said the sex was consensual. Lowe was charged with Sexual Battery under Ohio State code § 2907.03

Here's the facts:

The Stark County Grand Jury indicted defendant-appellant, Paul Lowe, on one count of sexual battery, a felony violation of R.C. 2907.03(A)(5), as a result of his consensual sex with his 22-year-old stepdaughter, the biological daughter of his wife, on March 19, 2003.

§ 2907.03 reads:

(A) No person shall engage in sexual conduct with another, not the spouse of the offender, when any of the following apply:

Ok, if its your spouse they can rape you but that's another problem…

…
(5) The offender is the other person's natural or adoptive parent, or a stepparent, or guardian, custodian, or person in loco parentis of the other person.

This is what Lowe got hit for.

Lowe's argument relied heavily on the decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), 539 U.S. 558, 593, 123 S.Ct. 2472 which ruled that private consensual sexual behavior was protected by the constitution's Due Process Clause (14th amendment clause that says that no one can be deprived of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”)

The Ohio court said that in this case, Lawrence doesn't matter because when looking at Due Process because:

There are two tests used to assess the constitutionality of a statute under the Due Process Clause: strict scrutiny or rational-basis scrutiny. When the law restricts the exercise of a fundamental right, the strict-scrutiny test is used. … A statute survives strict scrutiny if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

Basically if the law restricts a "fundamental right" then use strict-scrutiny, but here the court says that Lowe under the Lawrence decision has no "fundamental right" to have sex with his adult step-daughter .

Therefore, first we must determine whether Lowe is guaranteed a fundamental right to engage in sexual intercourse with his consenting adult stepdaughter. fundamental rights are those liberties that are “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” … The United States Supreme Court has expanded the Due Process Clause beyond the specific freedoms named within the Bill of Rights in a series of cases. Thus, “liberty” interests specially protected by the Due Process Clause include the rights to marry, …; to have children, …; to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, …; to marital privacy, …; to use contraception, …; to bodily integrity, …; and to abortion,

{¶20} The Due Process Clause also protects the traditional right of an individual to refuse unwanted lifesaving medical treatment … However, the Supreme Court has "always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended." …

{¶21} Lowe cites Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508, to argue that he has a constitutionally protected liberty interest to engage in private, consensual, adult sexual conduct with his stepdaughter when that activity does not involve minors or persons who may be easily injured or coerced. In Lawrence, a Texas statute criminalizing homosexual conduct was held to be unconstitutional as applied to adult males who had engaged in private and consensual acts of sodomy. Lowe contends that Lawrence named a new fundamental right to engage in consensual sex in the privacy of one’s home.

{¶22} However, the statute in Lawrence was subjected to a rational-basis rather than a strict-scrutiny test, with the court concluding that the Texas statute furthered no legitimate state interest that could justify intrusion into an individual’s personal and private life. … In using a rational-basis test to strike down the Texas statute, the court declined to announce a new fundamental right arising from the case.

I cut out the citation with the elipses.

But the money quote is here:

Using the rational-basis test, we conclude that, as applied in this case, Ohio’s statute serves the legitimate state interest of protecting the family unit and family relationships.

The state has an interest in protecting the family unit and family relationships…. hmm…

Lowe should have moved to West Virginia first.

Israel has nukes and now the PM is in hot water for admitting it. Of course this won't affect our special relationship with Israel since

1. We already knew and they've had bombs for almost 20 years
2. nuclear treaties seem to be oh so 1970s.

Yes making the world safer one atom at a time.

See: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/10/american-sentenced-to-death-in-iraq.html

We shall see if the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will suspend Habeus Corpus (second para) for U.S. citizens.

Since the pending signing of the MCA 2006 should do just that, while we're at it, let's just throw out this pesky "Due Process" and corresponding amendments: Amendment 5 and Amendment 14 (section 1) and subject people accused of any crime to summary execution. That will take care of terrorists, corporate fraud, tax evaders, drunks, and your stupid loud neighbor that you don't like all at the same time.

What the hell are we doing?

btw, I thought the quote from The Trial was particularly nice.

Yes, that was how North Korea's bomb was described this morning on the BBC World Service.
Paraphasing:

The Russians estimated that the bomb had a yield of between 5 and 15 Kilotons. By comparison, the first nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 Kilotons. So this is a quite basic atomic device.

As I have recently finished Hiroshima by John Hershey, here's what that "quite basic" bomb did to a city of 237,000 people.

• 100,000 dead
• 62,000 of 90,000 buildings destroyed
• Hibakusha "explosion-affected survivors" who suffered long term health effects all their lives from radiation poisoning

I'm always overwhelmed by the British capability for understatement.

On Friday as part of a required field trip for the class I am taking, we went to Central Prison in Raleigh. Central Prison is a maximum security prison which includes the only Death Row and execution chamber in the state. We got to see all of it.

Our tour guides were Lieutenant W. and Sergeant B., both of whom had worked at the prison for a significant amount of time: Lt. W. had been at Central for 12 years, while Sgt. B. had been there for 20 years. Lt. W. was a woman in her late 30s - early 40s but just gave off that aura of don't mess with me. Sgt. B. was also probably in his early 40s very large man, at least 6'8", and looked like he worked out regularly - he also had a bit of a sadistic/control streak that might come out in my descriptions. The tour began first with disallowing one of the students because she had forgotten her wallet (and ID), and making another student swap shoes with the disqualified student because she was wearing sandals as opposed to close-toed shoes. The guards made us stand single file with most of the women at the front near Lt. W. who led, with the men and our professor at the back with Sgt. B..

They took us into the prison lobby first and displayed the collection of "contraband" that had been taken off of or out of prisoners - knives, razors, drugs, bullets, guns, etc.; all of which were hidden in books, cigarette packages or persons. There were also X-ray films of a couple of prisoner's stomachs with some metallic objects inside - I don't want to know what passing that might have been like. Some of the stuff seemed particularly dated, such as a 2 barrel derringer cut into a Bible, but some of the stuff seemed modern like a bunch of pills hidden in a cigarette pack.

The first real stop was the execution chamber. Central prison is the only execution location for the State of North Carolina. Four people have been executed this year the last execution occurred on August 18th. We only entered the observation room which was a triangular room about 10' on a side with 10 - 12 numbered chairs which face a large window. The window looks into what looks like a grubby doctor's examination room, something like I'd seen in the third world, in which the most prominent feature is a gurney. The condemned prisoner is allowed from 1pm to 11pm to be with his family in a very small room (a "sallyport") off the main visitation area - the only physical contact he is and has been allowed with anyone outside the Department of Corrections since his incarceration. After 11pm they are taken away and at midnight wheeled into the execution chamber strapped to the gurney. The observers are packed together in this small room, 1 member of the press is included with the victim's and prisoner's families. Apparently the window is not sound proof, so the condemned says his ritual last words while strapped to the gurney. The entire thing was profoundly creepy and clinical.

Next stop was the visitation room which was a large room with lots of doors to very small rooms - literally 6' X 6' with two stools (which were the only new thing in the place) which faced a 1" thick plexiglass window with a 2" X 12" steel grate in it through which you could speak to the prisoner you might be visiting. Prisoners are allowed 30 minutes to 1 hour per visitation depending on their behavior. Next we went into Block I which I'll write about later.

The Iraqi "government" has decided in its wisdom to go with moats instead of the proposed wall that our most intelligent president suggested. From the Nytimes article, Iraqis Plan to Ring Baghdad With Trenches, I'll just pull some choice quotes:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 15 — The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

The effort is one of the most ambitious security projects this year, with cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed. The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent cars from evading checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.

“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” he said in a telephone interview. “The idea is to get the cars to go through the 28 checkpoints that we set up.”

This is what our 'C' average fratboy-in-chief had to say:

Bush said at a news conference on Friday that the Iraqis were “building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices, for example.” Military officials said the Iraqis had considered such a project earlier, but decided to go with trenches instead.

I guess, the Iraqi's figured that Bush hadn't studied his military history. Otherwise he would have known that walled cities became obsolete with the advent of artillery of which the guerillas fighting in Iraq have plenty - as they routinely mortar (that is lob shells over walls) the green zone, U.S. bases, Iraqi police outposts, etc…

I don't know that the moat (i.e. trench) strategy will be much more effective considering the sheer area of Bagdad (60 miles in circumference) - but then considering NR's post on the CPA, they'll be creating more jobs for people!! Now that is more modern!