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24 May 2012
HOME
Natural Remedies
CDC Greed
(won't answer the FOIA)
ELISA = arbitrary cutoff.
Disclaimer
Overview
TUSKEGEE - By Jerry Leonard
1998, CIA Oilmen & Israelis plan to overthrow
Saddam for the oil.
Bush/Gore Oil/War-(Oct,2000)
Bush's own explainer (Oct
2000) re:
Iraq Oil
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http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/06/pzn.00.html
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: In what is believed to be one of the first cases of its kind, a
Connecticut woman has been convicted of contributing to the suicide of a
12-year-old son. Prosecutors say Judith Scruggs had created a filthy home that
kept her son from improving his hygiene, an issue that reportedly came -- became
a constant source of ridicule from his classmates.
Joining us this evening, Scruggs' attorney, Reese Norris.
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
REESE NORRIS, SCRUGGS' ATTORNEY: Good evening, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Your client was convicted on risk of injury charge, meaning that she
was guilty of intentionally maintaining an environment that put her son at risk.
Can you give me a sense of specifically what that meant?
NORRIS: Sure. In this case, it meant that basically an allegation that she had a
messy house. She was initially charged with putting his life and limb at risk.
She was found not guilty of that. And she was also found not guilty of putting
him at risk for failing to get psychological care or also for being cruel to
him.
O'BRIEN: Did you ever think your client would be convicted?
NORRIS: Honestly, no. I've never heard of anyone arrested as a result of a
child's suicide. And not one expert testified that there was anything about that
house which put his health at risk.
O'BRIEN: Did you want a plea bargain? Did you have an opportunity to plea
bargain in this case?
NORRIS: This was a case which had to be tried. Who could ask a parent to go
through the rest of the life feeling that somehow they had a responsibility for
the suicide of their child, when there had been no threats of suicide, no prior
suicide attempts?
O'BRIEN: But in fact, that's exactly what a jury found. She faces prison time.
Realistically, how much time could she get, do you think?
NORRIS: The maximum term of imprisonment for this offense is 10 years, but we
still have a pending motion before the judge to set aside the verdict.
O'BRIEN: You made the argument in court that this child, this 12-year-old boy,
was the target of truly mercilous bullying from children, other children in his
class. Apparently the jury did not buy that. Why do you think that was the case?
NORRIS: It's hard to believe, because the prosecutor agreed with me in his final
argument that Daniel was the subject of bullying. And so it was not even
contested between the two sides. So if the jury didn't accept it, that's
impossible to understand in this case.
O'BRIEN: Mrs. Scruggs is a single mother who worked two jobs to keep her kids
fed. You have said that you think this is going to set a dangerous precedent.
What kind of precedent do you think it sets?
NORRIS: Well, I think it's a dangerous precedent when the police come into
someone's home, and now we're going to be the judges of how good a housekeeper
they are. You have got to understand that although there were clothes in this
house, not one officer said they examined the clothes, and in fact the defense
witnesses testified that there were clean clothes. There was certainly no
contrary evidence introduced at trial.
O'BRIEN: All right. Reese Norris, nice to have you. Thanks for joining us. We
certainly appreciate it.
NORRIS: You're quite welcome.
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