December 1, 2014 at 1:49 P.M. I am limited to 45 minutes per day (or a little more, if I am lucky) on a library computer.
I continue to be denied access to the Internet from my home, illegally. As a result, it may take a while to complete and publish the essay that appears below. A number of sources will be added to this essay in the days ahead.
The total number of pages sent to Mr. Vance by overnight mail is 60. The package was sent out on December 3, 2014 and is guaranteed delivery by 12:00 noon December 4, 2014. The tracking number is EK 579841140US.
With the posting of this information I anticipate that both persons assigned to intercept this mail and those expecting the items will be on notice. I am sure that the authorities in New York are aware of my situation and the grave threats posed by that situation. This has been true for some time. There is simply no plausible denial at this stage of the "matter." ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
I have kept all originals of the items sent, again, and there are hundreds of additional pages indicating computer crimes and other crimes committed against me (and others) by the persons behind these various "communications" to me. Many of the hackers seem to be using New Jersey or federal government computers.
Thomas Erdbrink, "Iran Grants Bail to Woman From Britain Held 5 Months," The New York Times, November 24, 2014, p. A4. ("A British-Iranian woman detained in Iran since June, whose case attracted international attention after her family said she had been arrested for trying to attend an all-male volleyball match, was released on bail on Monday." The proposed execution of Mr. Panetti is a greater injustice than the absurd imprisonment of this woman in Iran. Amazingly, even the granting of a stay at the eleventh hour has been opposed by Texas law enforcement officials.)
Emma G. Fitzimmons, "Boy Dies After Police in Cleveland Shoots Him [sic.]: 2 Officers in City Are Placed On Leave," The New York Times, November 24, 2014, p. A12. (A 12-year-old African-American boy, Tamir Rice, was shot and killed by Cleveland police officers because he was playing with a toy gun. On the same day numerous white children played with toy guns, but not one of them was shot dead by police. Very few fat white persons have been strangled by police on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The unobjectionable and inspiring words of Mayor De Blasio concerning the Garner incident have provoked a weird over-reaction from police who feel embattled. NYPD is probably the best in the country. Racism in New York exists, but is nothing like what is found elsewhere in the country. Given the controversy over the non-indictment of a police officer in the Garner case, a tactful silence from police officers is probably wisest.)
Erick Erickholm, [Eric Holder?] "Court Upholds Marriage Bans In Four States," The New York Times, November 7, 2014, p. A1. (The U.S. Supreme Court will need to resolve contradictions between the Circuit Courts on this controversial issue.)
Stephanie Clifford, "A Nominee for Attorney General: Praised for Substance, Not Flash -- Woman in the News Loretta Elizabeth Lynch," The New York Times, November 9, 2014, p. A1. (Regrettably, the G.O.P. will play politics with this appointee's nomination process. The delays will be substantial to allow for the "arrival" of the Republican majorities. Everything I have heard suggests that Ms. Lynch is an excellent candidate for U.S. Attorney General.)
Benjamin Mueller, "New York Prosecutor Accused Of Attacking Woman at a Bar," The New York Times, November 9, 2014, p. A29. (A strong supporter of Israel and "Terry Tuchin," ELI CHERASKY, 35, a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney -- perhaps he is assigned to the mail room? -- was charged with misdemeanor assault, threatening, and harassing a young woman. This is "demeaning to women" and part of the alleged "patriarchy" in our society. Also allegedly, however, the matter will be "taken care of" for this person by his colleagues -- including, possibly, Mr. Bloomberg's "old friends" at the District Attorney's office. Prosecutors and police officers seem to get very special treatment when they commit crimes, especially against minority men. This is what people object to in the legal system. New York is better on these issues than most other places, but it is not perfect.)
Charlie Savage, "U.N. Commission Presses U.S. On Torture," The New York Times, November 14, 2014, p. A6. ("In a two-day presentation in Geneva, the American delegation acknowledged that the United States had tortured terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks." The U.S. legal team would not deny on the record that psychological torture and censorship tactics are used on dissidents in the United States nor speak to the issue of torture in American prisons. "Psychological Torture in the American Legal System" then "Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal" and "Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meaning(s) of Prison.")
James Risen, "Psychologists to Review Role in Interrogations," The New York Times, November 14, 2014, p. A6. (U.S. psychologists defend the U.S. torture protocols that involve so-called "touchless torture." "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "American Doctors and Torture.")
Douglas Martin, "Tomas Young Dies at 34; Faulted Iraq War in Film," The New York Times, November 17, 2014, p. A23. (Tomas Young is an eloquent symbol of protest against the disaster that is Iraq today.)
"Manhattan D.A. Addresses a National Problem," (Editorial) The New York Times, November 19, 2014, p. A25. (Will Mr. Vance deal with matters brought to his attention by me -- some may concern this very national problem, rape -- before an innocent person in New York is injured, or worse? I hope so. An overnight mail receipt number for the package sent to the D.A.'s office, for the second time, has been posted here. Hackers continue to attack printers and computers used by me at the NEW YORK Public Library that is also used by others. "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
"Horror in Israel," (Editorial) The New York Times, November 19, 2014, p. A25. (More attacks are expected in reaction to the Israeli claims of 1,000 acres of seized lands and events in Gaza as the French Parliament and other national legislatures recognize the nation of Palestine. Among the countries now recognizing Palestine are a number of European and Latin American countries. This is not the path to peace.)
The size of letters may be increased and other deformations of this text must be expected at all times. Insults, threats, and/or other violations of fundamental rights should be directed at me, not at my family members or other innocent persons in New York City whose safety and welfare should concern the District Attorney, Mr. Vance, also Mayor De Blasio as well as Mr. Bratton.
"Will Texas Kill an Insane Man?," The New York Times, November 24, 2014, p. A28.
David Montgomery, "Justices Urged to Intervene in Execution of Texas Man," The New York Times, December 2, 2014, p. A14. (So far, the United States Supreme Court seems to have no problem with the execution of Mr. Panetti. The matter was sent back to a Circuit Court panel that has granted a TEMPORARY stay, but has not yet resolved the underlying issues. I will continue to research this matter which the United States Supreme Court must address at some point. "The Wanderer and His Shadow.")
Edward Bennett Williams, "Punishing the Sick," in Eugene V. Rostow, Dean of Yale University's Law School, Introduction, One Man's Freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1977), pp. 245-264.
Joshua Dressler, "Insanity," in Understanding Criminal Law (Mass.: Lexis, 2006), pp. 363-392 (2nd Ed. 2014?).
H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University/Clarendon Press, 1968).
"In Defense of Battered Women Who Kill," 13 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 518 (1993). ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.")
Michael S. Moore, Law and Psychiatry: Rethinking the Relationship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
Gerry Spence, Of Murder and Madness: A True Story of Insanity and the Law (New York: Doubleday, Inc., 1983), entirety. (The best full-length work I have read dealing with insanity in the criminal law process from the point of view of a great trial attorney, who first exonerated his client using the insanity defense and then had the same client found sane so as to win his release from a mental institution.)
Victor Tadros, Criminal Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 322-347 ("Excusing the Mentally Disabled").
Susan Wolf, "Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility," in G. Watson, Ed., Free Will 2nd Ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). (Professor Wolf is a philosopher and law professor as well as a leading expert on legal ethics. This essay is much-reproduced and is found in many anthologies.)
"On December 3, Texas plans to execute an inmate named Scott Panetti, who was convicted in 1995 for murdering his in-laws with a hunting rifle. There is no question that Mr. Panetti committed the murders. There is also no question that he is severely mentally ill, and has been for decades." (emphasis added!)
One aspect of the U.S. criminal law system which, for some reason, remains controversial is the existence of something called "the insanity defense."
The insanity defense is not some "trick" devised by criminal defense lawyers to get guilty people off.
Rather, the hallowed insanity defense involves a pretty basic recognition that responsibility and social deterrence are essential components of legal punishment, so that the absence of these elements makes "punishment" meaningless or absurd.
The notion of being "guilty" of something also depends on moral concepts structural to the legal system's rules as well as definitions of criminality. ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
"Insanity" -- which is a legal and not a scientific or merely psychological category -- is an "excuse" to the commission of a crime focusing on the mental state of the agent as opposed to "events" taking place in a particular scenario that would otherwise certainly be criminal.
Fortunately, it is not usually required that defense lawyers, prosecutors, or judges be sane. However, to be convicted of a crime an accused person must be sane, or sufficiently sane as to be capable of the necessary "relation" to his or her "actions," or deeds.
There is usually a highly specific degree of intent defined by law for the commission of identified or so-called "specific intent" offenses, like kidnapping, murder, or rape.
Murder, for instance, requires "malice aforethought," "deliberation," "planning," or other detailed mental states prior to, or accompanying, the killing of another human being as well as (and/or) actions that cause the death of an "intended" (foreseeable) victim.
In the language of the common law tradition this requirement specifies that there must be mens rea (mental state) as well as actus rea (action or deeds) prohibited by law.
If a person has NO awareness of the nature of his or her actions, nor even any sense of who or where he or she is, "punishing" that individual for an alleged crime -- or proven "event" as opposed to a "crime" -- is comparable to accusing your refrigerator of a crime, or the medieval practice of charging lower animals for legal offenses.
It is morally absurd to "punish" inanimate objects or lower animals under the rubric of the criminal law system that is designed for persons capable of being held responsible for their actions. ("A Doll's Aria.") Edward Bennett Williams notes:
"Jacques Ferron was charged with the felony of sodomy with a she-ass at Vancres, France, 1750. ... What makes the prosecution noteworthy by our standards is that the animal was tried along with Ferron as con-conspirator in the crime. If convicted, the animal faced execution for the crime." (See the film The Advocate.)
In a number of witchcraft trials animals accused of acting as "familiars" were indicted along with women charged with witchery.
The animals' (usually cats) in these witchcraft trials that failed to "testify" in order to save themselves were deemed to reveal magical control by a demon or witch and, hence, (usually) the accused woman's guilt. If they testified, however, then the woman with a talking cat was clearly a witch who would be killed after torture. ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
The punishment for witches was burning at the stake. No doubt this punishment ensured that the women learned their lesson.
In the absence of all agency by a person, or any blameworthiness for an action by the accused, there is a moral equivalence that arises between executing a mentally ill person and, for example, sending a cat to prison for killing a mouse, or killing a woman who owned a cat for being a witch:
"During his capital murder trial, at which Mr. Panetti was inexcusably allowed to defend himself, Mr. Panetti dressed in a cowboy suit and attempted to subpoena, among others[,] John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ. A standby lawyer said his behavior was 'scary' and 'trance-like,' and called the trial a 'judicial farce' [worthy of New Jersey?] ..." ("New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?")
For prosecutors to suggest that such an incompetent individual should be EXECUTED -- when he may not even have been fit to stand trial -- and for them to go out of their way to "fail to notify" the man's appointed counsel of this planned execution on the grounds that there was no formal legal requirement that they do so, speaks of a crass and brutal insensitivity (or even inhumanity) that merits ethics sanctions. (Again: "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
Anyone with legal training in America should be ashamed that such a hideous spectacle and utter barbarism is taking place ostensibly under the structure of our legal system and the U.S. Constitution. ("Prosecutorial Misconduct" and "Ape and Essence" then "Primates and Personhood.")
I am not aware of a civilized society in the world that would punish with the ultimate criminal sanction any human being who is literally UNAWARE of the nature and consequences of acts performed by his or her physical body on a particular occasion.
Without the intention to perform the "actions" that are deemed criminal -- whether the person is mentally ill, under hypnosis, or unconscious -- there is no basis for moral blameworthiness or legal liability. ("Richard A. Posner On Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")
This does not mean that the individual will be permitted to continue killing innocent others, but that he or she is a candidate for involuntary confinement to a mental institution for treatment. If and/or when there is genuine recovery, the confined person can be placed on trial. Texas has decided to ignore such "niceties" and "quibbles."
"Noting Mr. Panetti's 'well-documented history of mental illness,' the [federal] court held that capital punishment serves no retributive purpose when the defendant's understanding of crime and punishment is so distorted that it has little or no relation to the understanding of those concepts shared by the community as a whole."
