The Kevin Canty Murder Case

     A former New York City police officer fatally shot his wife in their Queens home on Saturday, April 19, 2014 while their two young children were in the house….Officers responding to a 911 call around 11 AM at the family's home in Ozone Park found a 40-year-old woman who had been shot several times in the torso. The victim, Jessica D. Mera-Canty, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

     The man, identified as Kevin Canty, 43, a former transit officer, was taken into custody a short time later about a mile from the house….The children, an 8-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, ran from the house, looking for help. A neighbor took them to a nearby deli.

     "The kids were disturbed," Fez Atlas, the owner of Little Casablanca Deli, said. "The little girl knows what happened. And the boy told me that there was blood on the wall." Mr. Atlas said he hid the children behind the counter in an alcove by a wooden door, and kept an eye on the security camera video for their father….

     The police could not yet say whether the children had witnessed the shooting. The boy and girl were taken into police custody and given a medical examination before they were turned over to the city's Administration for Children's Services for questioning.

     Mr. Canty worked for the Police Department between 2008 and 2013….In 2012, he was praised on the department's Facebook page after he and three fellow officers helped save the life of a man who had suffered a heart attack at the Union Square-subway station. [Kevin Canty, in the fall of 2015, pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison.]

Ashley Southall, "Ex-Officer Killed Wife, Police Say; Children Ran for Help," The New York Times, April 19, 2014 

Lawsuits Are Important

     It matters how judges decide cases. It matters to people unlucky or litigious or wicked or saintly enough to find themselves in court. Learned Hand, who was one of America's best and most famous judges, said he feared a lawsuit more than death or taxes. Criminal cases are the most frightening of all, and they are also the most fascinating to the public. But civil suits, in which one person asks compensation or protection from another for some past or threatened harm, are sometimes more consequential than all but the most momentous criminal trials. The difference between dignity and ruin may turn on a single argument that might not have struck a judge so forcefully, or even the same judge on another day. People often stand to gain or lose more by one judge's nod than they could by an general act of Congress or Parliament.

     Lawsuits matter in another way that cannot be measured in money or even liberty. There is inevitability a moral dimension to an action at law, and so a standing risk of distinct form of public injustice. A judge must decide not just who shall have what, but who has behaved well, who has met the responsibilities of citizenship, and who by design or greed or insensitivity has ignored his own responsibilities to others or exaggerated theirs to him. If this judgement is unfair, then the community has inflicted a moral injury on one of its members because it has stamped him in some degree or dimension an outlaw. The injury is gravest when an innocent person is convicted of a crime, but it is substantial when a plaintiff with a sound claim is turned away from court or a defendant leaves with an undeserved stigma.

Richard Dworkin, Law's Empire, 1986

Traffic Laws Apply To Everyone

     At three-thirty in the morning of Saturday July 5, 2014, Pennsylvania State Trooper Frederick Schimp, with another officer in the police utility vehicle, ran a stop sign in Fairview Township just west of the lakeside city of Erie. The officers were not responding to an emergency.

     A vehicle driven by 57-year-old Donna Platz from nearby Edinboro, Pennsylvania, plowed into the troopers' 2013 Ford Explorer. An hour later, the Erie County Coroner pronounced Donna Platz dead at the scene.

     Members of the Fairview, Pennsylvania Fire Department cut the officers out of the badly damaged police vehicle. Trooper Schimp, 48, and his Troop E partner, 26-year-old Garrett Padasak, were taken to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hamot Trauma Unit. After being treated for "moderate" injuries, the officers were released the next day.

     The district attorney of Erie County declined to bring homicide charges against Trooper Schimp. While the officer's actions did violate the legal standard of due care, his behavior did not rise to the criminal standard of recklessness, a degree of negligence needed to justify a charge of homicide. (Reckless behavior involves a knowing disregard for the safety of others.)

     The local prosecutor charged Trooper Schimp with careless driving, a summary offense that imposed a six-month driver's license suspension in cases involving fatalities.

     On November 14, 2014, at a summary trial before Judge Paul Manzi, Trooper Schimp pleaded guilty to carless driving. The conviction placed the officer in danger of losing his job. Because he was just two years shy of the state police retirement age, termination had an enormous impact on this officer's life.

     Pending the results of an internal inquiry into the fatal accident, Trooper Schimp was placed on paid administrative leave. (Although I can find no disposition of this case in the Internet, I believe the trooper was placed on limited duty until his retirement date.)

Corpses Don't Count

     In July 2019, a Nevada Highway Patrol Officer pulled over a Chrysler minivan on Interstate 15 for driving solo in the HOV lane. The vehicle, equipped like a hearse, was hauling a gurney containing a recently deceased person. "So," asked the motorist, "he doesn't count?" The state trooper, while amused, informed the driver that in Nevada corpses, mannequins, and pets don't count. Following a warning, the hearse driver and his unresponsive passenger pulled back into traffic.

Judge Says Strippers Barely Make a Living

     Dancers at a strip club are due more than $10 million in back wages and tips, a federal judge in New York City ruled on November 14, 2014 after the dancers sued to be paid at least a minimum wage. And additional claims are headed for trial in the class action case, meaning there ultimately could be further awards to roughly 1,900 women who worked at Rick's Cabaret in Manhattan between 2005 and 2012…

     The dancers got no steady wages, instead paying a fee to the club to perform there and in return getting paid by customers. The customers put up $20 for each personal dance and fees starting at $100 for 15 minutes of entertainment in semi-private rooms. But after paying club fees and required tips to deejays and other club workers, the dancers sometimes ended up in the red…

     According to the plaintiffs' attorney E. Michelle Drake, "there is a real mythology of the wealthy stripper who has made piles of money. People see all the money that the customers give to the dancers. What they don't see is all the money going back from the entertainer to the club."

     The club argued that the dancers were independent contractors. Club lawyers said the wages due to the strippers should be offset by the money they made from customers, called performance fees….

"Court Awards New York Strippers $10 Million in Back Wages," Fox News, November 16, 2014 

The Economics of Taking A Terrorist Alive

     If the Boston terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had robbed a bank and shot a teller instead of setting off a bomb at the Boston Marathon, he probably would, under the same capture circumstances, been shot dead by SWAT officers. Police officers in America shoot and kill at least two people a day. While about a third of these shootings involve subjects who are unarmed, 95 percent of these police involved shootings are ruled justified. That's because the officers had reason to believe the subject had a knife or a gun. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, at the time of his capture, was known to be in possession of a gun and several bombs. He had earlier engaged in a gun battle with the police. He was also complicit in the murder of a police officer. To take the Boston Marathon terrorist alive, officers assumed risks they normally would not take against an armed fugitive.

     Police officers risked their lives to capture this 19-year-old killer alive because he may possess valuable terrorist related information. As it turned out, before FBI agents had a chance to complete their interrogation, a federal magistrate judge came into the hospital room and read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. After that, the terrorist clammed up. He now has a lawyer which means there is little chance the FBI will be questioning him further. When all is said and done, the arresting officers probably risked their lives for nothing.

     The taking of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev alive will, over the years, cost American taxpayers millions of dollars. His medical expenses will be staggering. He will also have to be physically rehabilitated. Moreover, there will be huge legal bills, and if he's convicted, the cost of housing and feeding him for the rest of his life.

     If Tsarnaev is eventually executed, that will cost even more money than housing him until he dies a natural death in prison. Is this terrorist worth all this trouble and money? In my opinion, no. And besides costing more than he's worth, he'll be worshiped as a martyr by terrorists around the world. The mass-murdering bomber, for a very long time, will be one big national pain in the butt. This is also true of his publicity-seeking, American-hating mother. 

Mary Wolski: The Up And Down Career Of Erie, Pennsylvania's First Female Firefighter

     In 1997, 34-year-old Mary Wolski became the first female firefighter in Erie, Pennsylvania. From all accounts, she did an excellent job, and all was well until her mother fell ill from a staph infection in 2005. Following her mother's death that year, Wolski became deeply depressed and came under the care of a psychiatrist who prescribed six medications which, according to Wolski, induced thoughts of suicide.

     The firefighter, on December 28, 2006, attempted to kill herself in a vacant house owned by her father. Wolski started a fire in a bathtub by igniting a pile of clothing. When the heat became too intense, she threw a pan of water on the blaze. After dousing the fire, Wolski made shallow cuts (hesitation marks) across her wrists with a knife. She called a family member for help, stating that she had tried to kill herself by smoke inhalation. Four fire department units rushed to the scene where a firefighter added more water to the smoldering clothing. (The vast majority of pathological fire setters are men. Women who set these attention-getting, cry-for-help fires usually ignite pieces of clothing piled on their beds. Wolski, a firefighter, had the good sense to set her fire in the bathtub so the house wouldn't burn to the ground.)

     In April 2007, the district attorney of Erie County decided not to charge Wolski with an arson-related offense. (I've thought about this decision, and believe the prosecutor would have made the same decision even if Wolski had not been a firefighter.) Shortly after the district attorney's decision not to pursue the matter, the fire chief, citing the fire setting as the reason,  fired Wolski. In December of that year, the Erie Civil Service Board upheld the dismissal. Set out in its report, the civil service rationale was: "The act of establishing [setting] a fire in a residence is wholly incompatible with the role of a firefighter, despite the mitigating circumstances of Ms. Wolski's psychological state."

     Wolski's attorney, Paul Susko, in October 2008, filed a wrongful termination suit against the city in federal court. The plaintiff, citing the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), claimed that Wolski had not been fired because she set the fire in the bathtub, but because she suffered from a mental illness. This, according to Susko, was in clear violation of theADA.

     Assistant City Solicitor Gerald Villella defended the city against Wolski's suit. In February 2011, he filed a motion asking federal judge Sean J. McLaughlin to dismiss the action. Villella argued that because the city had fired Wolski for setting the fire, not for being mentally ill, she had no case under the ADA. The judge refused to dismiss the case, ruling that a jury would decide "...whether or not Wolski's disability was a motivating factor in the city's decision to terminate her employment."

     The civil trial got underway on January 30, 2012. Wolski's attorney, Paul Susko, told the panel of eight jurors that the city had no evidence that his client's bout with mental illness posed a threat to her or others. According to Wolski, once city officials learned of her attempted suicide, she was treated "like a pariah." The ADA had been passed, he said, by congress to protect people like his client against unfair treatment by their employers.

     Assistant City Solicitor Villella argued that the ADA was not meant to protect a firefighter who had started a fire in a house. The solicitor denied that Wolski's mental illness per se caused her termination. He said her reinstatement would erode firefighter morale and public trust.

     The jury, on February 6, 2012, found in favor of Wolski. Judge McLaughlin ordered the city to hire her back as soon as a firefighter's retirement provided an opening. The judge said Wolski had "clawed" her way back from death's door, and was ready to serve the city again. He encouraged the community to take pride in the jury's verdict. Solicitor Villella, telling reporters that this was "...the first time a firefighter had started a fire and had gotten her job back," would explore the possibility of an appeal. (That did not happen.)

     In November 2013, Mary Wolski resumed her duties with the Erie Fire Department.

     The firing of this firefighter cost the city of Erie $206,665, $186,624 of it in back wages, plus various other reimbursements.

     When all is said and done, how one feels about the Wolski case depends on one's opinion of the Americans with Disability Act being applied to cases of mental illness. Had Wolski been injured in a car accident that rendered her physically incapable of doing the job, the ADA wouldn't apply. Does the fact Wolski set a pathologically motivated fire, then tried to kill herself, make her unfit to be a firefighter? What if she is confronted with another tragedy, and is given depression medication that induces suicidal thoughts? If she had been a police officer instead of a firefighter, would the results of this case been any different? What if she had been a public school teacher?

     Mary Wolski died in December 2018 at the age of 56. At the time of her death she was still employed as an Erie firefighter. She died of a heart attack. Following her re-hiring, she had been, by all accounts, an outstanding member of the fire department.

Mega Millions Lottery Odds

     [In state mega millions lotteries], the incredibly remote odds [250 million to one] don't really sink in for people. They don't really understand probabilities at all. Once you have a bunch of zeroes, it doesn't matter how many you have--one in 10,000, one in a million or one in a billion….

     When people are desperately sick, there's always a part of the brain that thinks there will be a miracle cure. It you want something to be true, your brain is awfully good at figuring out reasons, magical ones, that there's a good likelihood that it is true. The desire to win does drive a certain kind of frenzied optimism.

Professor George Loewenstein as quoted in an Associated Press article by Sharon Cohen, December 17, 2013

Idiots In Lower Education

Marie Waltherr-Willard's Fear of Kids

     Marie Waltherr-Willard, a Spanish/French teacher, began teaching French in 1976 at Mariemont High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2009, after 33 years at the high school, the language teacher was transferred against her wishes to a middle-school where she had to teach 7th and 8th graders Spanish. The move took place after the high school French program went online.

     In the middle of the 2010-2011 school year, Waltherr-Willard abruptly retired and began receiving her monthly pension payments based on an annual retirement income of $70,000. In June 2012, the retired teacher filed a federal lawsuit against the school district under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her disability: a pathological fear of young children, a phobia she said had been diagnosed in 1991.  The former teacher claimed that by forcing her to teach middle-schoolers, her employers had discriminated against her by refusing to recognize and take into consideration her disability. The plaintiff's attorney claimed that, as a result of her forced early retirement, his client lost $100,000 in potential income.

     According to the plaintiff, being around middle-school school kids had shot her blood pressure up to stroke levels. Moreover, the little buggers pushed her into a state of general anxiety, mental anguish, and gastrointestinal illness. The civil trial was scheduled for February 2014.

     A U.S. District Court judge dismissed Waltherr-Willard's ridiculous lawsuit in June 2014. In February 2015, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld that decision. (Lawsuits like this remind us there are too many lawyers.)

The Red Pen Alert: Abusive Grading

     The idea that marking up a student's test or homework with red ink upsets kids who don't appreciate criticism, isn't new. (Ever since Mister Rogers started telling children that they were all extremely special, most of them can't handle the sad truth that 90 percent of us, on a good day, are ordinary.) Since 2008, hundreds of schools across the country have replaced the insidious red grading pencils and pens with writing instruments that produce colors that are less aggressive and mean. (I can't imagine a kid who got an F on a test feeling better about himself because the F is written in a nice shade of blue.)

     Education researchers at the University of Colorado published a study that confirmed the theory that marking up a kid's work in red as opposed to more neutral colors caused unnecessary anger and embarrassment. Red ink splashed all over a paper supposedly makes the lousy student feel more harshly criticized. Assuming this is true, so what? What's wrong with criticism with a little zip? If students are offended by red ink, they can solve the problem by doing better work. (Maybe the geniuses at the University of Colorado should come up with strategies for that.) I'd like to get my hands on that study, and in red ink, write: "You people are idiots?" (Is that too harsh?)

Radical Anti-Bullying Advice From a Knucklehead

     Gabrielle Jackson was a sixth grader at the Central Middle School in Moline Acres not far from St. Louis, Missouri. Gabrielle complained to her mother, Tammie Jackson, that bullies at school were making lewd and insensitive comments regarding her large bust. Tammie called the school district to report the sexual harassment of her daughter and was not pleased with the response to her complaint. Over the phone, an unidentified employee of the school district suggested that the 13-year-old student have her breasts surgically reduced. Presumably the anti-bullying expert didn't provide this mother specifics regarding just how small the breasts would have to be to disinterest bullies. Moreover, if the plastic surgeon got carried away and made them too small, kids might bully her for being flat chested.

Zero Tolerance for Paper Guns

     On January 22, 2013, Melody Valentin, a fifth grader in a Philadelphia elementary school, inadvertently took a folded piece of paper to school that roughly resembled a handgun. Her grandfather had fashioned the toy weapon. When Melody realized what she had brought to school, she threw the paper gun into a classroom trash can. A fellow student who witnessed Melody's attempt to ditch the contraband, squealed. The teacher seized the evidence, hauled the offender to the front of the class, and gave her hell for being so reckless with all of their lives. Later that night, the distraught girl's mother found her daughter in the bathroom crying. As a result of the negative attention, some of her classmates were calling her a murderer.

     This example of schoolhouse hysteria came on the heels of an incident in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania involving a pre-schooler suspended for threatening to shoot a playmate with her pink Hello Kitty soap bubble gun. School officers called the incident a "terroristic threat."

     I'm afraid these school employees are so stupid they are immune from ridicule and embarrassment. (Still, I try.) Obviously there are bright, competent elementary and middle-school teachers and administrators, but just how outnumbered are they by all the fools and idiots?

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is the quintessential man of the British Empire--self-confident and self-reliant, athletic and active, intelligent and moral, a Tory in values but free of snobbery and political cant. And he likes to solve puzzles. And he is discreet, important, and famous. He ought to get tedious and even ridiculous, but he doesn't.

Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, 2005