Articles: August 2003 Archives

A story came across the newswires about a man that was forced to rob a bank.

How can you force someone to rob a bank, you ask. 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, a pizza delivery guy, went to a remote location outside of his home town of Erie, PA to deliver a pizza, and showed up an hour later at the local PNC bank with a "sophisticated" bomb strapped around his neck and a note demanding money. He successfully got out of the bank with the loot, but was stopped soon after by the State Police. Once stopped, he pleaded with the police that they had to remove the bomb because it was going to go off soon. He then told them his story: of going to deliver the pizza, being forced to wear the bomb, and rob the bank. The police listened, but did not remove the bomb, and it exploded, killing him.

The movie industry has announced that their own inability to make a decent movie is not to blame for declining movie revenues at the theatres. It's the fault of people with cellphones texting their friends telling them the movie sucks!

This is like blaming the butler because he brought you out a shitty meal instead of the cook in the kitchen.

Honestly, if the movie industry was not intent on trying to make us suffer through such shlock like 'Gigli', 'T3', 'The Hulk', '2 Fast 2 Furious', and 'Freaky Friday' and actually gave us something worth watching, their revenues would increase.

That would seem to be common sense, but when have you heard about the MPAA acting with common sense lately?

What scares me even worse is that this will add weight to the people saying that they should ban all cellphones from theatres, and put shielding in the walls of theatres to block cellphone signals. I'm not saying I like to gab in the theatre while a movie is playing, but as a parent, I'd like to be able to get a phone call from the babysitter if something happens.

Honestly, if free speech and word of mouth are such a detriment to your sales because people hear how badly your product sucks then MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT!

Honestly, can you imagine if Ford went around in the early 80's and said "If people would stop telling each other that their Pinto's exploded when tapped from behind, we wouldn't have any trouble selling them!"

Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that New York City will indicting begin indicting the DNA of unknown sexual offenders to circumvent the statute of limitations on these crimes.

Typically, a crime has a statute of limitations of about 10-20 years, and if in that time, the criminal is not caught, the authorities are not able to charge the guilty party with that crime. However, if the criminal is known, and they have enough evidence to get an indictment, it stands forever until the criminal is officially brought in and tried in a court of law. This way, if the criminal leaves the country, they can still charge him later for that crime, as long as he's already been indicted. The statute of limitations is in place for several reasons: people do crazy things when they’re young, and it shouldn’t be possible to convict them in their 50’s for something they did in their 20’s. Furthermore, it makes sure that a crime is prosecuted when the evidence is available and in good condition.
So here's the goofy thing.

Instead of indicting the actual person, New York City will now indict your DNA profile. Now, the dictionary defines an indictment as a formal written statement framed by a prosecuting authority and found by a jury (as a grand jury) charging a person with an offense (source www.m-w.com). A person. The target of an indictment might be a company, though it is most often a person. So how can your DNA be indicted? DNA is not a person, it’s part of who makes you what you are, but you’re more than just your DNA. A dead person is a pile of DNA, but they’re not committing acts of murder. Hair clippings on the floor at your barbershop are DNA, but it’s not involved in criminal activities. DNA didn't commit the offense, the person did. Indicting DNA is like indicting the car driven in a hit-and-run, or the gun used in the murder.

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

But the lunacy of indicting DNA is no the only problem. This raises a whole set of issues: If you’re the actor in a crime, and your DNA gets indicted, could your children be help culpable for your crime? How specific does the DNA match have to be? What if you were at the scene of the crime, but had nothing to do with it, and your DNA's all over the place? Say you've got an incessant drooling problem, and you drip like a Great Dane everywhere you go. If you drip your saliva all over a crime scene, are you going to get put in jail?

How far does this go? Has anyone thought this through?

Honestly, if DNA can be indicted, and otherwise treated as a human, does this suddenly mean a fetus can be declared a person? Or can anything be indicted: my cats, my lamp, my computer?

If the voters of New York really view the statute of limitations as such an onerous burden, they should do away with it, rather than this murky and frightening end-run around the law. Even if the intentions of the city are good, the execution of this law leaves a bad taste in my mouth.