If you've been raised doing it your whole life, yeah, I can see not knowing any better. It's just like any other learned behavior. If your parents tell you to act a specific way in a specific situation, then that's what you're going to do.
BATAVIA, Ohio - A woman accused of leaving her 3-year-old foster son bound in a closet, where he died, declined on Tuesday to tell her story on the witness stand.
The defense rested in Liz Carroll's murder trial after presenting only one witness.
Defense attorney Gregory Cohen said later there were fears that Carroll might not be able to handle a vigorous cross-examination.
"You can't put someone who appears to be a beaten-down wife against two experienced prosecutors," Cohen said, after the jury was dismissed for the day.
The defense has portrayed her as a compliant wife intimidated into going along with her bully husband and his live-in lover.
Prosecutors allege that Marcus Fiesel, the Carroll's developmentally disabled foster child, was left behind purposely in August when she and her husband went to a family reunion in Kentucky.
The only defense witness was Carroll's uncle, Ronnie Sims, who helped establish a timeline for when the Carrolls and their live-in companion arrived at the reunion and when they left the next morning.
Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors had Carroll's Aug. 28 statements to a grand jury read aloud in the courtroom. She initially stuck to her story that the boy had disappeared in a park, but subsequently told the grand jury that she knew he had died in the closet at home.
Carroll, 30, is charged with murder because prosecutors say she caused Marcus' death, though unintentionally, by leaving him bound in a blanket and packing tape.
Cohen told Judge Robert Ringland that the decision not to have Carroll testify was made after he conferred privately with her.
"She was satisfied with the decision," Cohen said afterward. He declined to say whether he had advised Carroll not to testify.
Her husband, David Carroll Jr., is to be tried separately next month. The Carrolls' companion, Amy Baker, was the prosecution's main witness in the trial.
Baker has not been charged, but acknowledged in testimony Monday taking part in helping burn the child's body. She said she accompanied David Carroll when he allegedly burned the body and dumped the remains in the Ohio River.
Prosecutors agreed not to prosecute Baker in exchange for her testimony, but have told jurors that she will not get immunity if she had any hands-on involvement in the boy's death.
Prosecutors have acknowledged that Marcus was hard to handle and needed constant attention.
Baker testified that when they went to the reunion for the weekend, the Carrolls bound Marcus, as they had done before when they wanted to run errands, and that the child was screaming when they left but was dead when they got home.
The defense contended that Baker was responsible, that she was the controlling, manipulative one who called the shots after she had an affair with David Carroll and moved in with the couple.
The Carrolls have pleaded not guilty to murder, kidnapping, involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault and child endangering. The case has led to calls for reform in Ohio's foster care system.
The Carrolls also face trial on lesser charges, including perjury and inducing panic, in neighboring Hamilton County, where they initially said the boy wandered away or was taken from a public park.
In her grand jury testimony, Liz Carroll initially said her foster son and three other children with her had romped in a park in suburban Cincinnati, but that he was gone after she passed out.
Under questioning, she acknowledged that she knew he was dead but said she didn't intend to harm him.
The lone defense witness testified that the Carrolls and Baker joined in games and appeared to have fun at the reunion but left hurriedly after David Carroll told him there was an ill child at home.
"He said something about he had gotten a phone call that his foster kid was sick," Sims told the jury.
Closing arguments were scheduled for Wednesday morning in Clermont County Common Pleas Court.
She was later sentenced to 54 years to life in prison.
Onondaga County Court (WSYR-TV) – A Fayetteville-Manlius student pled guilty Wednesday to assault, after being charged with giving a teacher’s aide a marijuana-laced brownie at school.
18-year-old Corrine Prigl, of Fayetteville, pleaded guilty before Onondaga County Judge Anthony Aloi to a felony count of second-degree assault. She admitted giving the aide a brownie laced with marijuana in October.
Aloi has promised Prigl a sentence of five-years probation and youthful offender treatment, which will remove the felony conviction from her record.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - When a few classmates razzed Rebekah Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, "Do you have 10 moms?" she shot back: "That's so gay."
Those three words landed the high school freshman in the principal's office and resulted in a lawsuit that raises this question: When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out?
After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa's Maria Carillo High violated their daughter's First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase "which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture," according to court documents.
Testifying last week about the 2002 incident, Rice, now 18, said that when she uttered those words, she was not referring to anyone's sexual orientation. She said the phrase meant: "That's so stupid, that's so silly, that's so dumb."
But school officials say they took a strict stand against the putdown after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.
"The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment," the district's lawyers argued in a legal brief. "In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase 'That's so gay' ... was a reasonable regulation."
Superior Court Judge Elaine Rushing plans to issue a ruling in the non-jury trial after final written arguments are submitted in April. Her gag order prevents the two sides from discussing the case.
A confusing set of terms
Derogatory terms for homosexuality have long been used as insults. But the landscape has become confusing in recent years as minority groups have tried to reclaim terms like "queer," "ghetto" and the n-word.
In recent years, gay rights advocates and educators have tried teaching students that it is hurtful to use the word "gay" as an all-purpose term for something disagreeable. At Berkeley High School, a gay student club passed out buttons with the words "That's so gay" crossed out to get their classmates to stop using them.
Rick Ayers, a retired teacher who helped compile and publish the "Berkeley High School Slang Dictionary," a compendium of trendy teen talk circa 2001, said educating students about offensive language is preferable to policing their speech.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this girl didn't even know the origin of that term," he said. "The kids who get caught saying it will claim it's been decontextualized, but others will say, `No, you know what that means.' It's quite talked about."
Rice's parents, Elden and Katherine Rice, also claim the public high school employed a double-standard because, they say, administrators never sought to shield Rebekah from teasing based on Mormon stereotypes.
Daughter singled out, parents say
In addition, the Rices say their daughter was singled out because of the family's conservative views on sexuality. They are seeking unspecified damages and want the disciplinary notation expunged from Rebekah's school record.
Eliza Byard, deputy executive director of the New York-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, said nearly nine out of 10 gay students her organization surveyed in 2005 reported hearing "That's so gay" or "You're so gay" frequently.
"It bothers them a lot," Byard said. "As odd or funny as the phrase sounds, imagine what it feels like to be in a setting where you consistently hear it used to describe something undesirable or stupid, and it also refers to you."
She said it is OK to discipline students for using the phrase after efforts have been made to educate them.
"The job of a school is to deal proactively and consistently with all forms of bullying, name-calling and harassment," she said.
Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization, agreed "That's so gay" carries a negative meaning and said he would not want his children to say it. But he said formal discipline is not the answer.
"Reasonable people should say, `Let's put a stop to this kind of search-and-destroy mission by school officials for everything that is politically incorrect,'" he said.
So, a student gets punished for a "homophobic slur," but the other students don't get punished for mocking her religion? God bless America.
I yell at kids for saying "that's so gay" all the time for completely unrelated reasons. I mean, seriously, that phrase was old before I got into high school and that was YEARS ago now. I'm disappointed in today's kids for being so pathetically incapable of coming up with their own offensive slang terms. How are they suppose to make their parents be out of touch?! Besides, that particular phrase wasn't a very good one. I swore at one point that uttering it lowered a persons IQ instantly.
My mom used to use gay whne she was a kid, but then again, that was the fifties. I agree with X, we as a generation need to get our own goddamn derogatory terms.
Hey! Don't completely condemn its use! Satire, anyone? Or when actually describing someone who is homosexual who you don't like! Not all gay people are nice, you know.
I wish people would realize that the actual word used is far less important than the meaning behind it. If we faze out the "offensive words" with less offensive words, then they will become the worst words and carry just as much hate as the taboo words of the previous generation. They don't like the kid saying it because it can sound derogatory towards homosexuals. Ok, let's replace it with the real word. "That's so homosexual" doesn't make sense. It's because the damn word doesn't mean homosexual in that context. If she said "that's so lame" she'd have been ok. WHy? That's even more offensive. That's singling out people with physical dissabilities. But I guess they just never complained enough to get that word black-listed. I'm getting closer and closer to becoming a hermit. People piss me off.
I sure do. I wanna see the teacher or whoever who heard someone being teased about religion and did nothing. But when they heard "That's so gay" they decided the shit had hit the fan and it was time for action.
That's bollocks. Incest is not right, and should be punished, mainly because of the fact that the children will have a good chance of ending up with disabilities due to the reduced gene pool. Why should these kids have to suffer with the possibility of having a reduced quality of life because their parents are related?
"Uncle-Daddy, brother-cousin Eric called me a 'retard'. Can I press charges?"
Forgive me if this is inappropriate:
"They met for the first time in 2000 shortly before their mother died of a heart attack."
I guess she was the first one to find out about them.
See, if these two had grown up together, they would have had their incest in secret, just like everyone else. But no, they met as adults, when indiscretions are more severe and more difficult to cover up.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. Jan 25, 2007 (AP)— Six girls at a rural high school were charged with homicide conspiracy after their principal found a list of 300 names and officials discovered online postings suggesting they kill people, authorities said Thursday.
School officials said the list, discovered in a classroom trash can, mostly named students and faculty members but also included Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and the Energizer bunny.
I draw your attention to the fact that this list was found IN A TRASH CAN.
It's pretty messed up that they're actually charged with a crime, but if the school did nothing, and one of those girls hurt somebody, and it went out on the news that they found a list earlier and disregarded it, the shit would really hit the fan.
Students Arrested Allowed to Go Home
Rachel Remele
January 26,2007
Six Sequatchie County, Tennessee freshmen girls, facing charges for writing a so-called hit list will not return to classes. The girls had a hearing today in Putnam County, where they've been in a detention center since their arrests Wednesday. The District Attorney says the judge allowed the girls to go home. But, they must undergo mental evaluations and cannot have access to guns. They will still be in school, but not on the high school campus. Teachers found the list of nearly 300 people in a trash can this week. Police connected it to a posting on myspace.com, suggesting the girls kill everyone on the list. Police say the girls listed some celebrities, but 90 percent of people on the list, are teachers and students. It even included the President, which brought the secret service in to investigate. Police Chief Clint Huth said there was NO evidence the girls had weapons, or planned to carry out the threat.
Comments
She was later sentenced to 54 years to life in prison.
Finally, a fucked up story that ends with at least some justice.
So, a student gets punished for a "homophobic slur," but the other students don't get punished for mocking her religion? God bless America.
Add more to this list, my fearless friends!
Hooray for good judgement.
Unless of course you're a scientologist.
Forgive me if this is inappropriate:
"They met for the first time in 2000 shortly before their mother died of a heart attack."
I guess she was the first one to find out about them.
I draw your attention to the fact that this list was found IN A TRASH CAN.
Students Arrested Allowed to Go Home: