Limits on the right to marry?

New England Patriot's Tight End Aaron Hernandez and fiancé Shayanna Jenkins

In a year filled with debates about marriage and the Constitution, should Aaron Hernandez (pro football player charged with murdering Odin Lloyd) be allowed to marry his long-time girlfriend and alleged fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins?

Under MA rules of evidence, 'spouse shall not be compelled to testify in the trial of an indictment, complaint, or other criminal proceeding brought against the other spouse.'

If Hernandez is allowed to marry Jenkins it could bar the prosecution from compelling Jenkins to testify against Hernandez. Authorities from Bristol County say they will not allow nuptials to be exchanged so long as Hernandez is being held on remand.

Is this bar to marriage legal under a Constitutional right to marry theory? Could Hernandez pursue an interlocutory appeal on the basis of the right to marry?

Don’t blame tools for murders caused by mentally ill individuals

Matt Soper

Take your pick: knifings in China, bombings in Syria, shootings in the United States: Who’d have thought an elementary education is about survival? This past week saw 20 students murdered in Connecticut, 22 students stabbed in central China and 29 students killed by a mortar in Damascus.

Opponents of guns have quickly taken to the bully pulpit to point out the Second Amendment’s barrier to domestic security. What if guns are illegal or it’s illegal to run a plane into a skyscraper or bomb a school or stab innocent children? Does a law make “bad stuff” go away?

Evil does not exist within a gun, a plane or a box cutter-knife. Evil exists in the malicious minds and actions of those who turn thoughts into deeds. The real crazies in society will accomplish their evil deed regardless of if the actions are illegal, the implementation device is illegal or the geographic location is marked a “safe zone.”

Connecticut has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, yet a strict law doesn’t stop a thief. Adam Lanza broke state laws of theft, murder, entering a school zone with a dangerous weapon and concealing a firearm. Lanza was guaranteed no one would be able to shoot him for a long while, as he was in a “safe zone.”

No one talks about the Colorado Springs shooting of 2007, in which a mass-murderer began shooting parishioners in a church. That’s because a member of the congregation shot the murderer before the act progressed to the international news stage.

When can the conversation move from the tools used to harm innocent victims to the perpetrators and mental health in America?

As early as 2008, a school psychologist noted that Lanza cannot feel pain emotionally. Likewise, Jared Loughner, who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was deemed unfit to serve in the military for mental health reasons. James Holmes, the perpetrator of the Aurora theater murders, dropped out of neuroscience for severe depression and mental disturbances. Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold expressed tremendous warning signs of mental issues through their numerous blogs and membership in the “trench-coat mafia.”

Additionally, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who used bombs instead of guns to further their evil acts in Oklahoma City, were recognized as early as high school as suffering severe psychological conditions and being unable to express emotion. Society can wonder why mass murderers, such as Lanza, Loughner and Holmes, along with Harris and Klebold and McVeigh and Nichols, do not respect current laws. But society should be reasonably certain that these characters won’t respect future laws.

Of these, the only perpetrators who acquired their weapon legally were McVeigh and Nichols. They purchased fertilizer from a local farm coop. By the way, their bomb killed 169 and injured nearly 700 in Oklahoma City.

Real crazies don’t heed legal restrictions, They will accomplish their evil deeds regardless of the lawfulness of their weapon or act. Focusing on gun control is like blaming condom malfunctions for unwanted pregnancies.

When does society begin the conversation of focusing on people and mental health and not on the tools used for evil acts?

While a famous Harvard Medical study found no direct correlation between video games and adolescents’ increased aggressive behavior, the University of Washington’s Psychosocial Epidemiologic Department has found a correlation between a pattern of video game play and aggressive behavior, such as school shootings. It seems reasonable for society to look more to the root causes, such as mental health, PTSD and the increase in violent video games and films.

The shootings across the United States — from Oregon to Colorado to Connecticut — have brought the issue of what can society do back to the forefront. Unfortunately, the public debate is gearing more toward the tools used by perpetrators of mass murder rather than focusing on the root causes.

If our society truly cares about preventing future mass shootings, then the debate needs to look to mental health and aggravating factors such as violent video games and films.

Matt Soper is a resident of Delta County and an alumnus of Colorado Mesa University and the University of Edinburgh’s School of Law. He is earning a post-graduate degree in law from the University of New Hampshire. Contact him at matthew.soper@law.unh.edu.
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Published in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Tuesday 11 Dec. 2012, p. A4 <http://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/articles/dont-blame-tools-for-killings-8232caused-by-derang>.

Is censorship without due process like security checks without probable cause?

Is the pursuit of safety worth relinquishing essential liberty? Civil liberties are being eroded at an alarmingly fast rate. Newspapers have been filled with examples of human rights being trampled in the name of protection and security. 

Wikipedia, Reddit, and approximately 7,000 smaller websites recently coordinated service blackouts to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) which were being voted on in the US Congress. The bills would have given law enforcement the ability to protect digital private property rights by blocking web content which might violate US law. The legislation would have threatened the 1^st Amendment right of free speech and allowed the federal government to censor certain websites without due process of law.

America’s government has lulled its citizens into a false sense of security. Flying is no longer merely about traveling from one city to another, but involves queuing for what feels like ages, placing all liquids of three ounces or less into quart sized bags, and stripping shoes, coats, and belts, along with all other loose objects, into a tray for scanning. This is followed next by the preverbal walk through the metal detector and/or body-scanner, and for the ‘lucky’ few – full body pat down by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer. For those refusing, they get the Rand Paul treatment. Flying in the ‘free world’ has become an expo of liberty in derogation.

Al-Qaeda has single-handedly eroded our essential liberty by giving governments a tool to prey on citizens - FEAR. In the name of security and safety, our government has chosen the means by which to protect us, the people, from terrorists. Fear has led to a proliferation of the “security industrial complex”.

The rise of the military [security] industrial complex: A recent report out of the UK put the Homeland Security Industry at a global market valuation of nearly $200 billion per annum. Despite the killing of al-Qaeda CEO, Osama bin Laden, economic woes and growing national debts, aren’t holding governments back on funding counter-terror activities. People have begrudgingly said government knows best and accepted a world with security checks, surveillance systems, and restrictions on travel and personal effects.

In spite of our government’s efforts, are we safer today than we were prior to September 11, 2001? The Department of Homeland Security can cite numerous cases of would be terrorists who have been disrupted in their plot to harm Americans. The Justice Department has deported, extradited, or tried dozens of terrorists. Yet, through all these interventions and billions of dollars spent both at home and abroad, America is as much at risk today as it was eleven years ago. The 9-11 Commission Report points out measures were in place to impede such attacks; however, an ‘infallible’ bureaucracy failed to react timely to overt indications of threats.

The most important change since 9-11 has been the securing of the cockpit door to prevent turning a plane into a ‘guided missile’. Studies have shown if terrorists cannot enter the cockpit and take control of the plane, then the worst damage they can inflict is bodily harm to passengers or blowing up the plane. People who become victims have a right of self-defence and tend to react if life and limb are in imminent threat. The best example is United Airlines flight 93, where the passengers reacted to the suicide hijacking by rushing the cockpit. The most lethal weapons in the war on terror is individual people, everyday heroes, not a government willing to use fear to erode personal freedoms and liberties.

The only way to stop the proliferation of the ‘security industrial complex’ is to stop feeding it! I want a leader who isn’t afraid to admit our government has lulled us into a false sense of security. I’d rather accept the risks of freedom, and have more freedom than the protection of an overreaching, ineffective and ever centralized bureaucracy.