Legitimate Rape

Its election day and we can only hope that the Republicans will prevail here in Iowa so that we can then have an intelligent discussion of rape. Our criminal code does not distinguish between legitimate rape and illegitimate rape which is a legitimate concern-hopefully not being unduly playful with the wording. This being a serious subject and one that needs clarification, readers should not believe for an instant that I am not serious when I say we need clarification which clarification should be enacted this next legislative session. Too many men are subjected to prison and requirements of life-time sex offender registration where the rape has not been legitimate. Is one "No, I don't want to have sex", enough to classify the sex act rape. Should the person being raped be required to say it three times? If one of the sex partners is immobilized by ropes, handcuffs, or other devices, can we call this legitimate rape? The popularity of the book Fifty Shades of Gray would seem to indicate that this would not be legitimate rape. If one of the sex partners is drunk, should this be classified as legitimate rape? It would seem to me that the whole purpose of getting drunk would be to have sex especially in a frat house or some like establishment. We need clarification. The police and prosecutors need better guidance as to what may be deemed legitimate and what illegitimate. There are instances where women have been charged with rape and in most cases these are instances of illegitimate rape. The latest example to read about in the papers is the female teacher having sex with high school boys. Being a man myself and having once been a high school student, it is difficult to think that I or any of my friends would have objected to having sex with an attractive, young high school teacher. From what I gather from the Des Moines Register, this young, attractive, female high school teacher is being prosecuted for sexual abuse and faces prison and sex offender registration. This is but one more example of what should be considered illegitimate rape. The new legislature must immediately put together a study committee to examine the current laws on this subject and make recommendations for changes. I would advise strongly against inviting experts, social workers, sex counselors, prosecutors, or police to be on the committee for they usually have an economic interest in the number of people prosecuted for rape. The committee should only consist of legislators and ordinary citizens who have no economic interest in the matter.

To End Welfare

As I have argued previously, crime is an economic activity. The distribution of illegal drugs certainly qualifies as does most other illegal conduct. Property crimes are a major contributor to the economic life of the nation: theft, fraud, forgery, burglary, robbery, to recount just a few. Congress has in its power to increase the incidence of property crimes ten fold with the correct legislation. We should discontinue disability payments to those unemployable for whatever reason they might have such as mental or physical disabilities. Schizophrenics find it difficult to maintain employment-of any kind. People of below marginal intelligence find it difficult to keep a job for any length of time. And of course, substance abusers are notoriously unfit for the job market. There are many, especially Republicans, who continually bemoan the handouts to these people. They should work for a living just like us responsible citizens. I am in agreement with those who wish to terminate disability payments, welfare for women who keep having illegitimate children, food stamps, and other forms of free handouts to ne'er-do-wells. By ending these nefarious forms of redistribution of wealth, we would have an veritable explosion in crime, especially property crime and drug dealing. It would be an immense benefit to the economy. The money spent to replace what was stolen, burgled, robbed, and otherwise taken illegally, the money spent to hire law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, jailers, prison guards, counselors, social workers, probation and parole officers, clerks of court, the increased insurance premiums, the construction of additional jails and prisons would be far in excess of sums doled out to the unemployable. One might think that the return of begging and the vast increase in homelessness would be a significant problem. Not so. Our legislatures would bring back the crimes against begging, panhandling, loitering, and other infractions meant to keep the miscreants off the streets. Its very annoying to have people come to your door begging for food, or rushing up to you as you exit your vehicle requesting they be allowed to wash your windshield for a few bucks, especially if they have children tagging along. If children are found on the streets, we have an army of social workers able and willing to snatch them up and file children in need of assistance petitions based upon neglect. These parents will be unable to fulfill the numerous requirements imposed on them for the return of their children such as court appearances, parenting classes, substance abuse counseling, and in no time at all a termination of parental rights petition will be filed and the parent-child relationship be permanently severed allowing some deserving family to adopt. Complaints about burglary, home invasions, robbery, pick pockets, shop lifting, etc. will not be tolerated. Homes must be burglar proofed, security cameras must be purchased, razor wire must be installed--money must be spent. The Gross National Product will jump from the now measly two percent to four or five; jobs will be created; the deficit shall be reduced: taxes will decrease. All will be for the good.

Trivial Pursuit

There should be commenced a contest among law enforcement agencies such as police departments, sheriffs, high patrols, etc. on which agency can give citations for the most trivial infractions. A central state agency should be created to monitor the contest and award prizes which prizes would be substantial enough that the various law enforcement agencies would participate. The prizes probably should be monetary as well as the granting of public accolades to those individual officers who have issued the citations for the most trivial offenses and to the local agency whose officers have issued the most. An issue that should be decided in advance is whether both arrests and citations should be considered. It would seem appropriate that an arrest would be worth two or three citations considering the inconvenience to the officer making the arrest. It takes a substantially longer time to arrest someone, transport them to the local jail, and fill out the necessary reports than it does to simply write a citation. An officer could be writing numerous citations during the time it takes to arrest one person. Possibly we should count an arrest as ten citations--that might be the solution. Traffic citations, it is expected, would be the constant source of trivial violations. Very few citizens actually drive the speed limit. A speeding ticket for one mile over can be easily issued. Fix-it tickets for equipment failure probably should not be counted, unless, of course, the code specifically determines that the failure is a criminal violation such as head lights, rear lights, license plate lights, and turn signals. The number of traffic violations that exist is practically infinite. Sitting at an intersection with traffic control lights would bring a constant flow of citations such as entering the intersection on yellow or failure to use the turn signal. One almost gets giddy just thinking of the number of possible citations. There would be the usual grumbling though. Those officers not having traffic duty will complain. The drug task forces will be at a disadvantage. They should not despond quite yet though. Arrests could be made for one marijuana seed found during a trash rip. If a search warrant is executed and numerous articles used in the ingestion of controlled substances are found in the residence, separate charges could be filed on each item. For instance, if three marijuana pipes, two meth pipes, and four empty folds were found, nine separate simple misdemeanors could be charged along with the felonies. Although in this particular contest, felonies do not count as they are not trivial. And, further discussion could be had prior to developing the rules for the contest to determine the weight of the particular citations or complaints being filed. The goal would be to have as many law enforcement agencies and individual officers as possible participate in this contest. Making it fair to all would encourage participation. This contest of trivial pursuit would have the added benefit of helping the state treasury: it would be bountiful. The amount of money flowing into the local clerk's offices would be multiplied. The legislature would be ecstatic; it might even cause Governor Branstad to renew his effort to decrease property taxes which would be very helpful to us operating small businesses in Iowa. The contest would encapsulate the very goal of every good Republican to "get tough on crime". Only the morally deficient would complain, and they don't count. We need volunteers to organize and present a proposal to the Department of Public Safety and if legislation should be required, a spokesman could be named to present the plan to the appropriate legislative committees.

Jury Nullification

Nothing would be more ill-advised than allowing juries to think they can simply ignore the law and find a defendant not guilty. Juries are instructed that they must follow the instructions as given to them by the judge and any indication of insurrection should be immediately addressed. In this great republic of ours, we delegate the authority to make and enforce laws to our elected representatives and any sign that the general public might not agree with a certain enacted crime should be dealt with as it occurs. No indication should be given during a criminal trial that the law was enacted for the benefit of just those chosen to decide the case; and it makes not a whit of difference if the jury agrees with it or not, they must find the defendant guilty. Anarchy would result if juries were free to find defendants not guilty simply because they had the notion to do it. Many a defense attorney has wanted to stand in front of a jury in closing argument and argue that the crime for which the defendant is being prosecuted is really stupid and the twelve people deciding the case can find him not guilty whether he did the act or not. I suspect a mistrial would be instantly declared, the attorney either held in contempt or severely reprimanded, and the defendant required to go through the entire process a second time--probably with more compliant defense counsel. It is an unfortunate fact that a jury trial is the single, only, specific instance of a citizen having a direct say in what the law should or should not be. And I say unfortunate advisedly. No small group of citizens, such as a jury, should be able to nullify the power of either the state or the federal government. In any other form of insurrection, the group would be instantly jailed and charged with some crime or another and be held to account. As a jury, they can do whatever they want and nothing can be done about it. We need to fix this. We need our legislatures to address this issue and enact some sort of crime whereby jurors can be prosecuted if they do not follow jury instructions. If a legislative body takes its valuable time to pass a law, and the multitude of law enforcement agencies extant make the effort to enforce it, we can't have a group of twelve people ignoring it. Too much time, effort, and money has gone into the process.

Prescription warning

I recently took the deposition of a task force officer as a result of a raid on a residence with full ninja outfits, battering ram, and other accoutrements of home invasion and during the course of his testimony he indicated that he took a bottle of pills and for which the resident was charge with Possession of a Prescription Drug without a Prescription. Even though the prescription was to a family member whose name was on the search warrant and presumably thought to live there, but was not present at the residence during the entry and subsequent search, the resident who was present, also named on the warrant, was charged with Possession of a Prescription Drug without a Prescription in violation of 155A.21 of the Iowa Code which states: "A person found in possession of a drug or device limited to dispensation by prescription, unless the drug or device was so lawfully dispensed, commits a serious misdemeanor." Other than for the fact that the section is barely intelligible, a prescription label appeared on the bottle indicating lawful dispensation. The most difficult part of this to understand is why the resident would be charged with a violation of 155A.21 or charged at all for that matter. What is it in the character of the charging officer to file it? Are we so anxious to charge people with crimes, thereby being able to define them as criminals, that law enforcement will use any method possible to do so? If this were a stand alone charge, the resident would be subject to jail, cost of bond, cost of legal defense, disruption of activities for court appearances. A word of warning to all of you who have recently departed children whether through college, marriage, job, or whatever reason, you better check your medicine cabinets for according to the local drug task force you are committing a crime and are subject to arrest. Not only are you subject to arrest but you probably will be arrested and find yourself on an escorted trip, in handcuffs, to the local jail. In the first place, section 155A.21 states that there must be a valid prescription. In this instance there was and it was apparent. So where is the violation? Secondly, the code section does not indicate in any way that the one person can not hold the prescription medication of another person. So where is the crime here? There is no crime and someone associated with the drug task force should know it. It is difficult to understand.

PBS

After living through another presidential election campaign, I am afraid that I must join the Republicans in a call for an end to the funding for public television. The idea that there should be television channel available to the public which presents fact rather than opinion is antithetical to sound policy and contrary to those of us who rely on the ignorance of the general population. Without an ignorant population we would be in a real mess. People would ask questions which are always anathema to the goal of a sedated citizenry. The organic produce industry would disappear as quickly as it arose; biblical scholars would be abused; Wolf Blitzer could possibly be pummeled in the street. As I said it would be a mess. We must encourage our friends and neighbors to watch Fox, CNN, or MSNBC depending upon their political persuasion. If they want to to change one canned opinion for another, have an epiphany of some sort, changing from one of the three channels to another should suffice allowing them the satisfaction of believing they have given some thought to whatever opinion they may now hold. A corollary to ending the funding for PBS is the mandate to berate our educational system for producing dunderheads and numbskulls. We must maintain the constant barrage of disillusionment with our public school systems. This has two salutary effects: first, it maintains the illusion that we want an informed and thinking public, and secondly, it allows us to produce more MBA's who with a master's degree, believe themselves to be educated having learned to read an organizational chart of a large corporation. Many of the children that I observe upon graduating from a public high school can barely speak English let alone a second language and writing anything beyond their age and whether its a nice day or not is utterly beyond their capacity. I may be alarmed unjustifiably and remain hopeful that all is not lost. Few people I speak with have ever heard of PBS let alone watched it. The same applies to 60 Minutes which occasionally offers something of substance. Neither can compete with the inanity of Nickelodion or the Disney Channel to which our children watch each evening after a stimulating day at the local public school. We may be safe whether PBS stays on the air or not; but let's not take the chance. Encourage your congressman after this next election to cease the funding for anything that even hints at an objective view of the world or that contains facts on which to base an informed decision for whom to vote.

A Growth Industry

Looking at crime as a national disgrace or a plague upon us is wrong, very wrong. Crime is a major contributor to GNP. It is a vast industry reaching from coast to coast employing hundreds of thousands of people. I can't say that I have come across statistics on the employment from crime, but it must be a significant percentage of the total economic activity of the country. This alone should make us stop and think about the attitude we all seem to have about crime. The prevailing opinion is that we should do whatever we can to stop crime; to encourage all citizens to be law abiding and productive members of our society. This, of course, is rubbish. The people who are involved with crime and make their living from it numbering in the hundreds of thousands if not millions need more crime; their livelihood depends on it. Let us enumerate some of the occupations that would be affected if crime were suddenly to disappear. Jailers and prison guards would be the first standing in the unemployment line. There are a vast number of these folks in that we have several million of our citizens in jail or prison. In addition, if no one is in jail or prison, the jails and prisons stand empty, a waste of valuable resources. And let's not forget probation and parole officers. Since we have tens of millions of our citizens either on probation or parole, those monitoring their behavior and directing their activities will no longer be employed. Then we have the people paid to arrest those committing crimes; paid to ensure us as citizens do what we are told. These include city police, county sheriffs, highway patrols, departments of criminal investigation, departments of public safety, clerks of court, DNR officers, the FBI, DEA, ATF, postal inspectors, secret service, ICE, the border patrol, U.S. Marshals, and others I have either forgotten or never heard of. These people would not have jobs; they would be unable to send their children to the colleges of their choice, buy cars, or have a nice house. It would not be pretty. And don't forget the counseling industry. We have anger management classes, drunk driving classes, sex offender treatment, substance abuse counseling, cognitive training classes, outpatient treatment, inpatient treatment, halfway houses, AA, NA, and a host of therapies involving psychologists and social workers plus psychiatrist for medications. The demand for these services would approach zero without crime and the courts. Criminal defense attorneys, such as myself, would be out of work as would be the prosecutors and many judges. Without crime, the courtrooms would be empty most days. This brings us to the title of the piece-"A Growth Industry". We, who are involved with crime, should not despair for the legislators are there. Each year more crimes are added to the laws of each city, county, state, and the United States. Each year there are more people in the United States. Consequently each year there is more crime; the courtrooms are fuller, and all of us who are involved in crime have more to do. It is a wonderful situation. When I make the statement to someone that we need more crime, they take it as a joke or an irreverent comment. Not so. I am perfectly serious. Crime is good for me, good for the State of Iowa, and good for the country. Its time we changed our thinking on the subject.