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It’s our last podcast of 2014, so no guests, just the guys wrapping about politics, culture, and the best posts on Ricochet over the last year. Did your post make the list? Which ones did we leave off? This is why we have comments, people.
Music from this week’s episode:
With A Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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That is some beautiful artwork, EJ!
Agreed, Randy. BTW: my dad’s name is Ralph.
I’m blind! Blind!!!
Poor James.
Though I will not ruin his life by sharing the picture publicly, one of my nephews not only adorned the “pink nightmare” bunny suit but thoroughly enjoyed it. He was, of course, too young to know he should be embarrassed. His father was embarrassed for him.
His mother is a great fan of A Christmas Story. So my brother decided to construct a leg lamp for her a year or two ago.
By means I won’t strive to remember, he acquired a mannequin leg and dressed it in a stocking. Then he needed a shoe. So he carried the dressed leg through the local mall to get it fitted (and of course was witnessed by associations who have doubted him ever since). At last, he ran a wire through and implanted a bulb… at which point the leg looked absolutely hideous. Rather than “the soft glow of electric sex” exemplified in the movie, the light revealed an extensive wire mesh within the model.
So, instead of pretending that octogenarian spider veins can be attractive on a twenty-something’s immaculate tease, my brother broke down and bought the genuine article. Yes, it came in a wooden box marked FRAGILE. Last I saw it, it was stationed prominently in the atrium as a toddler played with the tassels.
These last few casts have been fantastic. You fellas seem to be having more fun these days. Keep up the laughter.
Looking forward to 2015.
Special shout-out to James Lileks for helping me pull together the open for this week’s show.
How about an official Ricochet Christmas carol?
Here’s one by a group named, appropriately, Ricochet!
James – The lack of al Qaeda themes in comics and movies isn’t surprising. Aliens are a substitute that can be villainous without cries of racism or cultural imperialism. In the 1960s when America became more self-conscience about ethnic and racial humor Hollywood simply created their own minorities – monsters, witches, Martians, genies who lived with astronauts, etc.
I think it was a headlock, not a chokehold. But either way, if the police officer violated NYPD policy then he should be disciplined accordingly, up to and including getting fired. But whether he committed a crime is a different issue. And the grand jury determined that there wasn’t enough evidence that he committed a crime. Does Rob Long think that he, Rob Long, who hasn’t seen the evidence or heard the testimony that the grand jury did, is better able to make that determination?
Albert- There’s nothing inherently authoritative about the opinion of a grand jury. Their opinions carry weight because of the position they hold in our justice system. That doesn’t mean it is improper to question their conclusions. I haven’t noticed a great deal of reluctance on your part to criticize the Supreme Court’s decisions when you disagree with them. For that matter, do you think it inappropriate to dispute OJ Simpson’s acquittal by a jury (admittedly of the petit variety)?
The money for police hires and assets never really “runs out”. It gets spent on unnecessary nonsense.
In a responsible city, crime fighters, fire fighters, and utilities are first at the trough. Too bad we don’t have any responsible cities of significant size.
Salvatore Padula
“Albert- There’s nothing inherently authoritative about the opinion of a grand jury. Their opinions carry weight because of the position they hold in our justice system. That doesn’t mean it is improper to question their conclusions. I haven’t noticed a great deal of reluctance on your part to criticize the Supreme Court’s decisions when you disagree with them. For that matter, do you think it inappropriate to dispute OJ Simpson’s acquittal by a jury (admittedly of the petit variety)?”
As long as you have access to the same information as the grand jury, you are free to question its conclusions. Otherwise, you are basing your conclusions on incomplete data. I believe the OJ trial was televised and the Supreme Court has a public record of the evidence presented. There is a difference with a grand jury.
Frah-gee-lie. I think it’s Italian.
True, but I don’t remember Rick and Victor Lazlo going up against Ming the Merciless.
Rob stated that he thought the police officer was guilty of manslaughter because he had used a chokehold that wasn’t allowed. That doesn’t follow. NYPD policy states officer should not use a chokehold. It has not been established that the officer did use a chokehold. That is in dispute. There is now an internal NYPD investigation. If the officer did use a chokehold, that does not mean automatically that he’s guilty of manslaughter, or any other crime. I’m questioning Rob’s logic.
When you use lethal force against another person who is not an immediate threat to you, you have committed a crime.
The arguments I have seen suggesting the Brown posed a immediate threat to the officers bend the term beyond the breaking point.
But the Nazis are are “good” villains. They’re white, bigoted Europeans. That’s why it shocks me that Unbroken got made.
Basil- you are of course absolutely right that we are not privy to all of the evidence presented to the grand jury in Garner case. However, the single most salient piece of evidence – the video of the event – is publicly available.
Beyond that, I simply dispute the idea that it is somehow improper to question the judgment of a grand jury. Grand jury’s are made up of ordinary citizens drawn at random. Human beings are fallible. There is nothing sacrosanct about a jury’s decision. It is final as a matter of law, but that is it.
Based on what I know of this case, the question of whether or not it was appropriate to bring charges against the officer in question is a very disputable matter. I am not saying that the grand jury made the wrong decision. I am simply saying that we should not automatically assume it made the correct one.
Albert- I agree with you that the mere fact that the officer used a chokehold would not necessarily mean he was guilty of manslaughter. However, if he didn’t use a chokehold that would be robust hit of of the fact that he used excessive force during the arrest. Homicides which are the result of excessive force, but which are not the product of deliberate or reckless disregard for human life are the very definition of manslaughter in most jurisdictions. Having watched the video of Eric Garner’s a rest I think it is very hard to argue seriously that the amount of force used by the apprehending officers was justified. Furthermore, the question presented to a grand jury is not whether the officer is in fact ultimately guilty of manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt. Grand injuries are tasked with ascertaining whether there is a lower burden of proof: probable cause. Based on the video evidence it seems that there is sufficient evidence to find probable cause for an indictment for manslaughter. I am open to the possibility that there is a nonpublic evidence which would contradict this conclusion, but if there is I think as a matter of prudence it would be advisable on the part of the prosecutor to follow the example of his colleague in Ferguson Missouri and make public the evidence which was presented to the grand jury.
Under normal circumstances, cutting off the oxygen to a man’s brain via a chokehold will make him unconscious but not immediately kill him, right? Isn’t there a grace period between the moment a man goes limp and the moment you have held on long enough to kill someone?
A headlock is not deadly force.
The art work is just so priceless.
James abrupt transition to the Harry’s ad provided an interesting contrast his usual smooth work. It made me think that unlike old time radio ads where Burns and Allen would naturally talk about wanting a cup of coffee and smoothly segue into talking about Maxwell House this was more like an episode of Kojak where a thug hits a cop over the head and suddenly we’re hearing about laxatives.
You appear to be saying that whenever a suspect who does not pose an immediate threat to the arresting officer dies in the course of an arrest, the officer has committed a crime. I believe this is, as a matter of law, simply untrue.
Salvatore, I would agree that we should not automatically assume that the grand jury didn’t make the wrong decision. However, there should also be a strong presumption that the grand jury made the correct decision because its members were in possession of information not available to those who simply viewed the video. To come to the conclusion that the grand jury erred requires us to assume, without evidence, that its members either were offered perjured/incorrect testimony by prosecutors or were incompetent, corrupt or racist in the performance of their sworn duty. That may, in fact, turn out to be the case, but it’s going to take more than I’ve seen to date to overcome my presumption of the integrity of the grand jury process.
Albert- A headlock is not necessarily deadly force, but it is when it results in a death.
Basil- That’s a reasonable position to take,but I have ttyee areas where I am in slight disagreement with you.
First, I don’t think it is at all necessary to assume corruption or various intent on the part of the prosecutor in his presentation of evidence to the grand jury. The grand jury could have simply made a mistake.
Second, I don’t think it is at all necessary to assume that the testimony provided by the officers to the grand jury was perjured. It could simply be in accurate or on persuasive. There is no requirement in our legal system that the testimony of police officers be granted greater weight than other forms of evidence and The video evidence which we have all seen seems to contradict any possible claims by the officers that the level of force used was necessary due to any threat posed to the officer safety by Mr. Garner.
Third, have some limited experiences with the grand jury process and while I do not question its integrity I do have serious doubts it’s fallibility and (in some cases) its integrity. In practice, grand juries tend to return the result the prosecutor wants in a particular case, due to the fact that only the prosecutor presents evidence to the grand jury. For example: Texas Gov. Rick Perry Rep. Tom DeLay, Senator Kay Bailey Hutichison, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, and former Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney Scooter Libby were all indicted by grand juries. While I t’s not quite true to say that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to invite a ham sandwich it is very much the case of a prosecutor’s view on whether or not an indictment should be returned is often the deciding factor in the conclusion a grand jury reaches.
This brings us back to my basic point. I am not arguing that the grand jury in the Garner case made the wrong decision in determining not to return an indictment, but I see no reason to justify taking the grand jury’s decision as being authoritatively correct. I’d also like to reiterate my fear that if exculpatory evidence was in fact presented to the grand jury it is in the public interest for that evidence to be released to the public.
Also, our alerts not working for anyone else?
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