Say this and this guy will sue you...

This is Steve Theriot

If you say that he is "just another Jefferson Parish politician thug mobster trained by his mentor John Alario, dressed up in a facade of respectability by a corrupt Louisiana Legislature.”

He will try to sue you.

Really.

Hell hath no fury like a judge embarrassed

Judge Michael Gary

Ever wondered how judges manipulate the system to impose their own sort of justice? Here's a great example. According to that sage source the post, " A red-faced Brooklyn jurist -- smarting from an oversight that forced him to let a subway vandal go free last week -- yesterday seized on the man's inability to show up in court to hit him with 11 months behind bars. Justice Michael Gary said the failure of the subway vandal-artist known as Poster Boy to appear in court last Thursday (he came on Friday--a day late) meant his carefully negotiated no-jail plea was now worthless. "I owe you nothing," Gary told Henry Matyjewicz, 28.

So what did Judge Gary gave him for being a day late? 11 months in jail rather than the non-jail 210 hours of community service he'd been promised. And why? The post speculates that the judge might have "been steaming over the coverage he got in The Post over his first, failed attempt to jail Matyjewicz."

So here we have an absolutely perfect example of how the system really works:

1. A judge makes a perfectly reasonable (and legal) decision.
2. The post criticizes the judge for being soft on crime.
3. The Judge, bowing to political pressure, finds an excuse to seem like a bad-ass after all and sends a guy to jail for almost a year because he was a day late for court.

Now, it's not like Gary is above doing this sort of thing. Nor even that he's a decent sentencer. In fact, In 2003, an appeals court reversed him for imposing a 15-year maximum sentence in a robbery case where the defendant had beaten a murder charge. The appeals court said Gary was punishing the defendant, Jared Errington, for the murder, rather than the robbery, and sent the case back for sentencing by a different judge. And that, by the way, explains the 11 months rather than the maximum year-long sentence he could have imposed: It's insurance against an appeal--an effort to look considered rather than vindictive.

So to all ye who wonder how it really goes down. Look no further...

Great defense...

A wheelchair-bound lawyer who suffers from cerebral palsy and cannot control the movement of his arms and legs astonishingly faces charges he sexually assaulted a judge while they were alone in a Queens office, authorities said. Hippocrates "Chicho" Mertsaris, 35, is accused of slapping a 40-year-old administrative judge for the Taxi and Limousine Commission on the rear end in October as she walked near him in a small room in the commission's Long Island City office, according to court documents.
An attorney for Mertsaris, a TLC lawyer, says his client has "no voluntary control of his arms or legs." "We are not saying he didn't touch her, but he didn't grab her or feel her up. Nothing like that," said attorney Wyatt Gibbons. "It was nothing sexual." But the judge, whose name has been withheld because she is considered a sex-crime victim, decided to press charges, and Mertsaris was charged.

Colbert Rips Anti-Gay Activist (Brilliant)

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The Face of Prosecutorial Abuse...

Virginia's Tea Party AG--Ken Cuccinelli

So here's a perfect example of why prosecutors with a political agenda are so damn scary. The Attorney General of Virginia is on freakish crusade to enforce a set of norms the Tea Party and Taliban both love. He's used the power of the state to try to rescind anti-discrimination policies for gays and lesbians, approved a new policy allowing sectarian prayer by state police chaplains at public events, and even tried to cover up the bare-breast of the Roman Goddess who has graced the state seal since 1776. Now he's been turned back on several of these efforts, but he seems undeterred. His most recent target of intimidation? A climate scientist.

As Dahlia LIthwick ably reports in Slate, the AG has filed " A civil investigative demand (or CID, which is basically a subpoena) with the University of Virginia on April 23, giving the school 30 days to produce more than 10 years' worth of documents related to the state-funded research of a former faculty member, Michael Mann. Operating under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, the CID seeks from the university, among other things, "any correspondence, messages or emails" to or from Mann and 40 named climate scientists; any documents sent to or from Mann that reference any of those 40 scientists; and any "documents, things or data" submitted in support of any of five different grant applications that amounted, in total, to almost $500,000. The university is also expected to turn over "any and all emails or pieces of correspondence from or to Dr. Michael Mann since he left the University of Virginia."

And why? Because while he'd like to further the science deniers who persist in thinking that global warming is a hoax, Cuccinelli understands that issuing CID's and targeting academics will have a chilling effect--making scientists and academics fear that research with politically sensitive implications will bring down the heavy hand of the tea-party taliban upon them.

And that, is a scary world indeed.

The DVD of season two...

So turns out the complete second season of RTB will be released on DVD on May 11th.