Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Carolyn Paulsen-Riat Charged with Assault for Shocking Husband with Table Saw
Carolyn Paulsen-Riat of Olympia, Washington is accused of Assault for allegedly re-wiring her husband’s table saw and causing him to receive an electrical shock. According to an article in The Olympian, after the man was shocked he confronted her and she “told him that she had tampered with his tools by switching the positive and negative leads… to intentionally harm him.” Many people who commented in the online article were upset that the judge decided to release this woman on her own recognizance. Others in the comment section offered the opinion that if a man had been the defendant, that he would have been held on high bail. Paulsen-Riat has been charged with Assault 3rd Degree and Malicious Mischief for vandalism allegedly done to her husband’s property. Her husband told police detectives that the table saw carried 220 volts, and the “arc from the plug adapter knocked him into some boxes located along the wall of the work shop….” According to the article by reporter Jeremy Pawloski, the husband did not need medical attention.
It is interesting that Paulsen-Riat was charged with Assault Third Degree. Under RCW 9A.36.031 the offense of “Assault Third Degree” means the defendant is accused of committing the following actions: “With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm to another person by means of a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm” or “with criminal negligence, causes bodily harm accompanied by substantial pain that extends for a period sufficient to cause considerable suffering.”
So do the prosecutors really believe that Paulsen-Riat acted with intent to harm her husband? The crime she is charged with alleges that she negligently harmed her husband. Under Washington’s sentencing guidelines, Assault Third Degree is classified as a “non-violent” crime, and for a first-time offender the sentencing range is 1-3 months. To increase the charges to Assault 2nd Degree under RCW 9A.36.021, the prosecutors would have to prove that the re-wired table saw amounted to a “deadly weapon.” (In pertinent part Assault Second Degree is defined as when a person “intentionally assaults another and thereby recklessly inflicts substantial bodily harm” or “assaults another with a deadly weapon“.) For Assault Second Degree, the standard range of incarceration is 3-9 months with a potential weapon enhancement of 18 months.
It sounds as if this table saw would need to be analyzed by an expert. Despite what you see on TV shows such as C.S.I., usually assault crimes are pretty run-of-the-mill and are not committed by particularly imaginative means. That is not to say that assaults cannot be unusually cruel or brutal, just that they are committed in the conventional way. And the conventional way is immediate, hands-on force with a knife or other typical weapon. There were a few interesting comments about the electrical aspect of this posted by readers:
Crossing electrical leads on 220 cannot produce a shock. Shorting directly to ground can produce an arc
and
You would not be [electrocuted] by “switching the positive and negative wires” on a 220 volt appliance. There are not “positive and negative” wires on a 220 appliance — both of the main wires in 220 are hot, so reversing them would do nothing at all, and the appliance would still work as intended. Unless she switched one of the two “hot” wires with the ground wire, in which case it could have shocked him briefly, before the circuit breaker would blow.
These comments presumably were made my people who were not electricians. It would be interesting to hear what an electrician would say about what it would take to harm or even shock someone through this alleged way. The police allege that Carolyn Paulsen-Riat did admit to tampering with the wires, but it is unclear what her intent was. At the time, she is alleged to have vandalized some of her husband’s property. Is it possible that her intent was simply to damage her husband’s table saw? The facts of this case are so unusual that it is hard to know what to make of it.
As you can see the judges are restrained by certain sentencing guidelines for Assault Third Degree and Assault Second Degree. In Washington, the legislature came up with these guideline, and minimum and maximums. It used to be that the judges had broad discretion to sentence within a broad range of 0-5 years or 0-10 years. Now it is hard for judges to come up with the sentence that they feel is appropriate. The purpose of having mandatory sentencing is so similar offenders are treated the same. But how do you compare the facts of this case to “similar” cases?
Seattle Residents Blase about Coyote in Magnolia Neighborhood
Last September I blogged about a mountain lion that made its home in Discovery Park in Seattle. See post. Now the talk of Seattle is about a coyote that has taken up residence in the same area. See article in the Seattle Times. The coyote lives in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, and the sightings and photographs are being tracked by Loree Schoonover, editor of the Magnolia Voice, a community blog. Apparently Seattle residents have grown a little blase about the coyote and do not really fear the animal. Sean Carrell, of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife states that it is rare for coyotes to attack pets or people, but it does happen. According to the article in the Seattle Times, Sean Carroll stated: “There are so many greenbelts that provide avenues for these animals to travel that it’s not uncommon to see them in a highly urbanized environment….” Mr. Carroll’s comment is interesting. A “greenbelt” is a corridor of land through or surrounding a populated area to provide wildlife habitat or hiking opportunities. In Washington’s Growth Management Act, in RCW 36.70A.110, state law provides: “Each urban growth area shall permit urban densities and shall include greenbelt and open space areas.” Looking at a map, it is pretty hard to see any greenbelt in the area that would be a natural pathway to Discovery Park.
View Larger Map Discovery Park is at the end of a peninsula and the coyote would have to come up through Seattle’s downtown, or from the North and swim across the ship canal. I don’t really have any counter explanation. Seattle for some reason seems to really attract its fair share of random wildlife, and local residents are often at a loss of how to respond. When I lived in the Leschi neighborhood of Seattle at the far end of Yesler Way, an opossum wandered up from the park, and my neighbor thought it was a rat.
I guess it would be fine if Seattle coyotes remained in the parks and ate opossums, but the coyotes have been known to do some pretty crazy things. One time in 1997, a coyote entered the Federal Building in downtown Seattle and rode the elevator. (See source.) In Portland, Oregon, a coyote ran into an airport and later left the area by train. (source). In rural Eastern Washington, where I live now, such close encounters with wildlife are often attributed to habitat encroachment by humans. You do not hear such arguments from the Fish and Wildlife Dept with respect to the Seattle animal encounters.
Prosecutors vs. Judges: Jim Hagarty of Yakima County takes issue with District Court Judge Ralph Thompson
Let’s face it, courts are busy places, sometimes chaotic, and usually short-staffed. Defendants, victims, witnesses, and jurors all wait for their cases to be heard. And the situation usually isn’t improved when a prosecuting attorney flat out refuses to work with a certain judge. This was the case with Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Hagarty as announced last week in the Yakima-Herald. Jim Hagarty wrote in a letter that Judge Ralph Thompson’s decisions created a question of whether the state would receive “a fair opportunity when litigating cases in his courtroom.” Jim Hagarty announced that he was asking to have this judge prohibited from hearing any case in which the prosecutor’s office was a party. Under court rules, this practice is called an “affidavit of prejudice”, and can only be done to a single judge before he or she has made a decision in the case. Now the question is raised: Since the voters elected Judge Ralph Thompson to hear cases, is it really proper for the elected prosecutor to reject the will of the voters? Is it fair for Jim Hagarty have Judge Thompson’s work load shifted over to the other already busy judges? Seattle University law professor John Strait, an expert in legal ethics, addressed the issue. He indicated that he thought such actions [such as the step Jim Hagarty took] inappropriately deprives voters of a judge they elected to serve them. He explained “I think that raises separation of powers issues. I don’t think the prosecution should get to trump the elected judiciary’s function in that manner….”
The article in the Yakima-Herald paraphrases the problem that Jim Hagarty had with Judge Ralph Thompson’s decisions. I expected that the issues would be some pretty significant disagreements, and instead the disputes seem pretty petty. The number one reason for Hagarty’s decision was an incident last January where the judge found a driver not to have committed a traffic infraction. The Trooper complained to the prosecutor that the decision left him “dumbfounded.” The second reason was that Judge Ralph Thompson would not agree to a request for a continuance of a case. Prosecuting Attorney Jim Hagarty was just appointed to the position in January. Maybe when his deputies complained to him, he should have told them to develop a thicker skin about such things. Additionally, it seems as though the prosecutors should have considered filing an appeal or a writ of review. Jim Hagarty complains that the judge has a lack of legal knowledge. It does seem that the bulk of the Judge Thompson’s experience is in civil work. However, if this is the case the proper recourse is for the prosecutors to educate the court on the law through the drafting of legal memoranda and citing to legal precedent. Too often prosecutors, and defense lawyers for that matter, fall in the rut of relying on canned briefs for routine matters, and are unwilling to hit the law books to research a new issue.
It will be interesting to see how the other judges cope with the increased workload. I just read in the Yakima-Herald last month that Yakima County had the highest homicide rate in over 20 years. See article. It seems like the courts will be pretty busy. You have to wonder why with his hands full with homicide cases, that Jim Hagarty would get involved in some snit his deputies are having with judges in traffic court. Jim Hagarty is not the first prosecutor to attempt to prohibit a Judge from hearing criminal cases. In 1984, Spokane County Prosecutor Donald Brockett grew frustrated with the adverse pre-trial rulings of Judge William Luscher in a murder case. When Judge Luscher ultimately acquitted the defendant, Don Brockett resorted to the same steps Hagarty did. Brockett eventually backed down after a newspaper editorial questioned the practice.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng never filed such affidavits of prejudice reasoning that it was the will of the voters to put or to keep the judge into office, and it would be wrong to override the will of the electorate. I understand that the Attorney General’s office has the same view. Maleng’s successor Dan Satterberg has a different view and has challenged Judges Peter Nault, and Victoria Seitz. Additionally, the prosecutors for the City of Bellevue similarly challenged Judge Frank LaSalata for ruling against them and not imposing the fees they requested. For an in depth discussion on this issue in King County, see an article by attorney Kennet Phillipson posted here. Closer to home, Okanogan Prosecuting Attorney Karl Sloan has raised eyebrows with the frequency with which he has filed affidavits of prejudice against Judge Jack Burchard. Judge Burchard is the only elected superior court judge in Okanogan County. I have notice in my practice there that this issue has slowed down the criminal courts somewhat as there is sometimes a delay in waiting for an out-of-town judge to hear cases. It remains to be seen if this practice of Karl Sloan’s is a temporary thing or if it will continue. If it continues, it will be interesting to see how the voters react to their elected judge being barred from many of the cases in Okanogan County.
Elk Hunting Methods Controversial
I didn’t see it in the Spokesman-Review online, but the West-side online newspapers were lit up today with a controversial elk hunt in Concrete, Washington. It started at ten this morning when the Skagit Valley Herald posted an article about a group of bow-hunters who killed six elk in a farmer’s field. You pretty much need to read the article to understand the matter, but basically the farmer let any hunter shoot elk in his pasture. The elk just ran around from one end of the fenced area to the other while unskilled hunters shot the elk with arrows. It happened right within a few feet of the state highway 20, and I am sure it attracted a lot of attention. It is interesting that the Skagit Valley Herald had a reporter on scene but did not post any photographs online. To truly understand the spectacle from a visual point of view, you need to see this site. The site is a series of photographs posted on SmugMug.com, a service similar to Flickr.com. The photographer posts captions explaining what he or she saw. The photographer mentions that he or she removed certain photographs at the request of people in the pictures. This is interesting because the photographer had no legal duty to do so.
I don’t know a lot about hunting, but the incident raises a lot of questions. I guess the background to the story is that the State Fish and Wildlife Department authorized additional hunts in the area because the elk herd was posing a danger to vehicle traffic. Elk are much like moose in that they are large animals with a high center of gravity that pose a deadly threat to motorists. The use of private hunters to address a problem through special hunts seems to be the way the State handles such concerns. I remember that in the city of Republic, in Ferry County, it was suggested that nuisance deer be removed through the same manner. The city opted instead for the deer to be relocated to the Colville Indian Reservation. That was probably a wise choice because I am sure the local residents would not appreciate bow hunters’ messy work within city limits.
What do people think of this elk hunt? The game agent who was quoted indicated that he did not like the activity but that it was legal. How should the laws be changed? Is it even possible to craft a law that spells what sort of hunts would be unsporting?
Shoplifting in Spokane County: the Crime and Punishment
What is the proper punishment for shoplifting? David Warriner, an unemployed man, stole four cans of sardines, shaving cream and razors from a Rite Aid in downtown Spokane, and he was sentenced to 29 months in prison. See article. A day later in the newspaper, I read about Father Tim Jones’ opinion on shoplifting. See article. Father Tim Jones created a stir by offering the following advice to the desperately poor:
“My advice as a Christian priest is to shoplift…. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither. … I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses — knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices….”
What would Father Tim Jones say about a 29 month prison sentence for stealing sardines? Certainly Rite Aid would qualify as one of the “large national businesses.” Spokane Deputy Prosecutor David Stevens sought the lengthy sentence on David Warriner because of Warriner’s extensive criminal history. In fact, Warriner was originally charged with Burglary – not because he broke in to Rite Aid, but because he had been asked not go into Rite Aid again, anywhere in the country. This arguably would meet the elements of burglary under RCW 9A.52.030 which defines the crime as entering a building unlawfully with the intent of committing a crime therein. David Warriner entered a plea deal down to felony theft second degree, even though the items he stole were just worth $32.
The ethics of what a suitable punishment is for such a crime create an interesting issue. However, I will leave that for others to debate. My question is this: Can we as a society really afford to house a man in prison for 2 1/2 years simply for stealing sardines? Is it good judgment for a public official to decide to expend the State’s resources to punish David Warriner in this manner? The legislature has been forced to release violent criminals back onto the streets due to budget restraints. It used to be that inmates only received 1/6 to 1/3 “good time” off their sentence. Olympia has now been forced to give most inmates 1/2 time off their sentence for good behavior. When a prosecutor seeks a certain sentence for a defendant, this does not occur in a vacuum. Any inmate serving 2 1/2 years for stealing sardines is taking up a prison bed that could be used for a dangerous sex offender. It may be that prosecutor David Stevens had his reasons in this particular case, but I use this instance to discuss the greater problem that I see, prosecutors often not looking a the bigger picture. (Last month, I blogged about prison sentences and budget cut backs here). When I looked up the Washington sentencing guidelines, it appears that David Warriner faced a standard range of 22-29 months. Judge Maryann Moreno had the discretion to sentence Warriner to only 22 months in prison, but decided on a sentence of 29 months. The Judge explained to Warriner: “Your past history is the reason why you’re going to prison …. We generally don’t send people to prison for this type of crime unless they come in with a history like yours.” The article did not mention who Mr. Warriner’s criminal defense lawyer was.
What do you think? Should Judge Maryann Moreno have considered a lighter sentence? Shoplifting usually receives a punishment of anywhere from a day or two to maybe thirty days. What about other minor crimes such as fishing without a license, or possession of drug paraphernalia, or public intoxication? If a person has a lengthy record, should the prosecutor in Spokane County seek to impose the maximum punishment allowed by law?
Police Shoot Murder Suspect in "Rear Torso"
I read in the Olympian yesterday an article reporting that police had shot to death murder suspect John C. Vu. The article explained: “A deputy saw Vu and yelled at him to stop, but Vu continued to flee. The deputy fired one shot from his .223-caliber rifle about 3:30 p.m., striking Vu in the rear torso – likely because he was running from the deputy, [Sheriff’s Deputy] Chamberlain said.”
I had to think for a minute what “rear torso” meant. Why was it that the police did not want to say that the deputy shot Vu in the back? The law seems pretty clear that if the police goes to arrest a murder suspect and the suspect refuses to stop after being warned, than that officer is entitled under RCW 9A.16.040 to shoot the fleeing suspect. It was once the law of this country that police officers could shoot any fleeing felon until the U. S. Supreme Court ruling of Tennessee v. Garner. In that case the court prohibited the use of deadly force unless “the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
But despite the law, I guess it did not seem very good to say that the police officer shot a man “in the back”. Vu was a gang member with a felony warrant out of California. The odd thing about the article is that when it later describes how John C. Vu was wanted for murder, the article describes how Vu killed the man by a inflicting a “gunshot wound to his back.” Shouldn’t the reporter have used the same terminology to describe both shootings?
Is this “rear torso” a phrase we can expect to see in the future? When I googled the phrase “in the rear torso” + “shooting” or “shot”, this article was pretty much the only instance of when such a phrase was used.
Juror Bias Warrants New Trial in Case with Lawyer Mark Kamitomo
Spokane Attorney Mark Kamitomo represented a woman who claimed to have been the victim of medical malpractice. The jury disagreed. Later it came out that the jurors belittled Mr. Kamitomo during deliberations by referring to him as “Mr. Kamikaze” and “Mr. Miyagi” (a character from the film Karate Kid). One juror said that the jokes about Mr. Kamitomo’s name were almost appropriate because the day was December 7th, i.e. Pearl Harbor Day.
The jury deliberations were in private, but one juror, a professor at WSU, came forward to report this to Mr. Kamitomo. Mr. Kamitomo filed a motion for a new trial, which was granted by Judge Austin, and this decision was affirmed on appeal Thursday. See article in the Spokesman-Review.
On one hand you have to feel a little bit bad for the doctor who was found to be “not negligent” and who will now have to face a new trial through no fault of his own. However, there were some comments that the doctor’s lawyers made that have to make you wonder. First the defense lawyer characterized Mr. Kamitomo as playing the “race card”, and then at the court of appeals, the doctor’s lawyers suggested that the words “Kamikaze” and “Miyashi” are complimentary. Mr. Kamitomo’s father was interned in a camp during World War II — I am not really sure it is fair to ask Mark Kamitomo to have a sense of humor about this. Good attorneys should always be prepared to win or lose any case, but if it is clear that juror bias played a role in a decision, the loss should not be just shrugged off. Trial lawyers always have a heck of a time selecting jurors who will be unbiased. As a criminal defense attorney, I am often faced with representing a client who is of a different ethnic background then a mostly all-white jury pool. When you ask the jurors about any biases they have, they usually just stare back at you blankly. When granting a new trial, Judge Robert D. Austin explained “people are never forthright with their prejudices … rarely, if ever, will people disclose that.” I would imagine that it would be quite awkward for a non-white attorney to question jurors about any biases they might have. Jurors sometimes seem to take offense that they are even being asked questions like that.
In my practice, I sometimes represent Tribal members who are being charged in state court with various crimes. There is always a concern on my part and the part of the client when we conduct jury selection. I thought of this the other day when I viewed a video clip of an interview with Jaimee Grubbs. Jaimee Grubbs allegedly had an affair with Tiger Woods, but the interview largely dealt with her feelings about Native-Americans. See clip. Jaimee Grubbs grew up in Coulee Dam, a town bordering the Colville Indian Reservation. She lived in an area where State Courts draw their jurors from. Jaimee Grubbs characterized the Colville Indian Reservation as “ghetto” and explained: “They get their free money, they drink and that’s all that matters.” She said that she will never date a Native American man. “They fought, they drank. They are very aggressive….”
Jaimee Grubbs made these comments as part of an audition tape that she did not anticipate would be made public. How would Jaimee Grubbs have answered the same questions if she were on a jury panel? Would she have been as forthcoming in a court of law, with an Indian defendant and his family present?
Back to the case with Mark Kamitomo. Am I the only one who is surprised that the newspapers printed the names of the jurors who allegedly made the racial comments? Aren’t jurors entitled to a little more privacy about comments that they make during deliberations? I don’t have any problem with calling out individuals who make such statements publicly, but traditionally the misconduct of jurors is handled with a little more anonymity. Serving on a jury is compulsory, after all. Wouldn’t the printing of juror names in this case make it less likely that a potential juror in the future would confess bias during jury selection? Should Judge Austin have directed the lawyers not to refer to the jurors by name in the court pleadings?
March 2013 Update: The case went to a retrial with a new jury. This time Mark Kamitomo won a verdict of $813,000.00.
The Ability of Indian Tribes to Punish at Issue in the News
At least in Washington State, if a tribal member commits a crime on tribal land, he or she will either be prosecuted in Tribal Court or Federal Court. In Tribal Court the sentences are generally limited to one year, while in Federal Court the punishments can be up to life in prison. While the federal punishments are stiff, the federal government rarely takes cases into federal court. This issue was addressed in an interesting article by K. C. Mehaffey of the Wenatchee World. In the article, the authorities in Nespelem (with the Colville Tribe) are quoted as sharing their frustrations that federal authorities are too slow to take a case federal. In my experience county prosecutors in Ferry and Okanogan Counties feel the same way, and have felt this way for a long time. The federal courts just don’t carry the same volume of cases.
For many cases Tribal prosecutors would like to see more than 1 year in jail. Up until today, I always took it for granted that judges were free to sentence a defendant to one year per count. I have seen some defendants be sentenced to more than one year for a complaint that alleges more than one offense. I read a court decision today that suggests that a defendant in Tribal court can only be sentenced to one year total. I received an email from an attorney who directed me to a post in Turtle Talk , a blog about Indian law and politics. In this December 16th post, the blog discusses the case of Miranda v. Nielson. In this case, the defendant Beatrice Miranda brandished a knife and threatened to cut two people. She was convicted in a trial in Pascua Yaqui Tribal court of eight counts alleging aggravated assault, endangerment, threatening or intimidating and disorderly conduct against two separate victims. She was sentenced to 910 days in jail (i.e. over one year). The magistrate interpreted the 1 year maximum in the Indian Civil Rights Act as meaning 1 year per “criminal transaction” no matter how may counts are alleged. Because a defendant in Tribal Court is protected by the Indian Civil Rights Act rather than the U.S. Constitution, Congress sought to limit the punishments that tribes could inflict. The court noted that one of the rights that a Tribal member does not have under the Indian Civil Rights Act is the right to an attorney at public expense. Beatrice Miranda was not represented by an attorney at her trial.
Congress is currently considering enacting the Tribal Law and Order Act which would allow Tribes to begin handing down sentences of up to 3 years in jail. Much of the motivation seems to be the perceived inability of Tribes to protect Indian women from sexual violence due to jurisdictional problems, see e.g. the Amnesty International article on the subject. At issue are the rights of the individual tribal member versus the powers of the tribe to self-regulate. When I read the blog post about the Miranda case on Turtle Talk, I noticed that there was only one comment posted. The blog is out of Michigan, but the comment was by attorney Brent Leonhard, who served as a public defender with the Colville Tribes around the same time I worked as a prosecutor for nearby Ferry County. Brent states that he disagrees with the judges decision in the Miranda case that only one year can be imposed.
What does everyone think? Should a Tribe be able to impose more than one year for a defendant? If so, does it worry people that Beatrice Miranda did not have the right to an attorney at public expense? The Colville Tribe does provide an attorney (or spokesperson) at public expense. Would it be fair to require this of all tribes if Congress allows punishments of up to three years?
Is Jay McCloskey the Right Choice for U.S. Attorney?
Jay McCloskey, a former defender of oxycontin and its manufacturer, is being considered for the position of U.S. Attorney in Maine. Marianne Skolek and others are raising questions about this.
Before we turn to Jay McCloskey, let’s review where we are on this oxycontin problem in Washington. We talked in earlier posts about the rash of pharmacy robberies in Washington and how the company that manufactured oxycontin plead guilty to a felony and was fined over $600 million. Purdue Pharma illegally marketed oxycontin as a safer alternative to percocet and vicodin, and told doctors that oxycontin posed a lower addiction risk than those drugs. See earlier posts here, and here. Part of the way that Purdue Pharma’s executives avoided jail time was by paying former prosecutors, like Rudy Giuliani, over a million dollars to go lobby the federal prosecutor that was prosecuting Purdue Pharma. Another “consultant” for Purdue Pharma was attorney Jay P. McCloskey, who is now under consideration as a potential appointment U.S. Attorney in Maine. I heard about this story through Marianne Skolek’s column in the Salem-News.com. Marianne Skolek remembers McCloskey well. The consideration of Jay McCloskey as a prosecutor is raising eyebrows among people who remember his role in defending Purdue Pharma.
Jay McCloskey used to work as a federal prosecutor in Maine, and witnessed the ravishes of oxycontin on local residents. But later when hired as a consultant to Purdue Pharma, he defended the company. See his testimony. Jay McCloskey suggested the following strategy for defending the company: “You need to have somebody who has clout to get in the door to legitimately make your presentation” (meaning Giuliani apparently)- see story. The irony of Jay McCloskey defending Purdue Pharma as a criminal defendant wasn’t missed on the local Maine papers who quoted him as saying he had “no regrets”.
By all accounts, Purdue Pharma got off pretty easily in their plea bargain with federal prosecutors. Even the judge noted this. Shouldn’t prosecutors strive to treat defendants fairly? Defendants with better financial resources always seem to do better in this country. Shouldn’t Jay McCloskey have to explain his position to the people of Maine?
Threats to Family of Haitham Joudeh Remain on Comment Section of Newspaper Website
I blogged yesterday (see here) about the discrimination that Haitham Joudeh is facing in North Idaho from inside and outside of the establishment. His truck was recently vandalized with swastikas. I mentioned some threats that someone had posted in a comment section of an article in CDApress.com. I guess I was hoping that someone was monitoring this on the weekend and the threat would be removed. The threat from a local under then alias “idabilly” read:
idabilly wrote on Dec 5, 2009 8:31 AM:
2. Dude didn’t get his way on the Mica Flats deal and pulls the “race and religion card.” No bueno guy- now you’re just asking for trouble, especially with our local “history.”
3. Trouble finds Dude and he keeps playing the “race and religion card.”
4. Trouble fins Dude AGAIN…. perhaps Dude should consider
moving to California for the safety of his son.
**Idaho Native, your comments about the white man are the
same type that got Dude in trouble here… sometimes it is better to keep your head low and mouth shut even when you are right.