Pedophile Brett Kimberlin Violates a Domestic Violence Protective Order

And Other Observations From Yesterday’s Protective Order Hearing

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

[Update: Please note that I have removed the first name of Ms. Kimberlin at her request and left only her first initial, “T.” She is, after all, a victim of sexual abuse and those kinds of reasonable requests will be honored.  While the moral right to privacy of rape victims is not absolute, it seems to be reasonably asserted here.]

So yesterday we had yet another hearing, this time T. Kimberlin v. Brett Kimberlin.  She was seeking a temporary protective order based on three things.

First, he had threatened her.  As she said in the Motion to Continue I shared with you yesterday:

Brett Kimberlin has threatened me with physical harm if I should ever seek custody of my children, saying that “you will see what will happen to you” if I tried to lawfully obtain custody.  Given his past as a violent bomber, I take those threats very seriously.

Second, she is seeking a protective order based on his sexual abuse of her.

On Morality and the Law

There has been an increasing debate about the role of morality in the law.  Can moral revulsion alone justify a law?  A libertarian might say, for instance, that as long as everyone is a consenting adult and no one is hurt (except consenting adults), people should be allowed to do whatever they want.  In other words, unless you can show some kind of harm to a third person who is not a consenting adult by certain conduct, you can’t ban or regulate that conduct.

By comparison, liberals often claim to believe this but in practice do not.  Either they really don’t believe it, or they define the concept of harm so broadly, that it really encompasses almost anything.  So we have Mayor Michael Bloomberg can declare that what consenting adults do in their bedroom is no one's business but their own... unless they want to drink a large soda.

Meanwhile, conservatives insist that morality can be the basis of law.

So who is right?

Well, let me give you an example of this: the law of incest.  Yes, it’s an icky subject but in a way that is precisely why this is a good place to discuss whether law is based simply on third party effects or not.

My Official Response to Brett Kimberlin’s Latest Charges

As you might have heard, new harassment charges were filed against John Hoge* and I.  So this is my official response, below the fold, in video form:

Brett Kimberlin is a Pedophile

And Other News From the Rockville Courts Today

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

[Update: Please note that I have removed the first name of Ms. Kimberlin at her request and left only her first initial, “T.” She is, after all, a victim of sexual abuse and those kinds of reasonable requests will be honored.  While the moral right to privacy of rape victims is not absolute, it seems to be reasonably asserted here.]

By now you might have heard it from Robert Stacy McCain’s long post at Viral Read.  Or at American Power.  I witnessed much of what happened today (July 29), but I have not been able to sit down and write about it until now.

I am not going to sugar coat it, be coy or hold back in this.  I have spoken personally with his wife T. Kimberlin as I helped her prepare to do legal battle with her litigious husband Brett Kimberlin and I believe her.  There is too much smoke now, for there not to be a fire.  The story she told me did what I previously thought impossible: she lowered my opinion of Brett Kimberlin.

But she convinced me of the truth of the matter.  Brett Kimberlin is a pedophile.  He has lived his “teen dream” of “fucking a teenage girl.”  Indeed he has dreamed of girls who are not even teenagers.  And he needs to be stopped.

The basics of it is covered in a “Motion to Continue Protective Order Hearing” that was filed the afternoon.  You see, today there was supposed to be a final protective order hearing, where Brett was falsely accusing T. of presenting a danger to her own daughters.

But Brett’s presentation was less than impressive.  If you believe him—and really, dear reader, why should you?—at worst she slapped each daughter once and yelled some.  That seems to be within the zone of acceptable discipline for a parent to give their children.

T. had a plan to ask for a continuance to give her time to get a lawyer, but before she had a chance to speak to the judge or present her motion, the judge granted a continuance, but only of half the time she was hoping for.  So later that afternoon, she filed for the full time she was hoping for.  And yes, she allowed me to have a copy of it.

Now, normally in this situation, I would just dump the entire document into Scribd and be done with it, with a few redactions.  But frankly a great deal of it is very familiar to you and some of it is not very interesting and other parts are things she doesn’t want to put out on the internet and I want to respect her wishes.  I will say that unlike Brett Kimberlin, the well-being of her children always seems to be paramount for T. Kimberlin.  So I will only excerpt it, starting after a discussion of his criminal past in general, where she tells the court the following:

I met Brett Kimberlin when I was fourteen years old in Ukraine.  He transported me to Maryland when I was fifteen years old, for the purpose of enticing me into sex and marriage.  When in Maryland and while I was fifteen years old, he had vaginal intercourse and sexual contact with me on over fifty occasions.  He was over forty years of age at the time and therefore such conduct was in violation of Md. Criminal Law Code §3-307, constituting sexual offense in the third degree, then codified as Maryland Code Art. 27, §464B.

At the same time that Kimberlin was having sex with me literally every day, my cousin [T.V.] was also staying in his house.  She was twelve at this time.  I personally witnessed Brett Kimberlin attempt to seduce her, in violation of Maryland Criminal Law Code §3-310 and 3-312, constituting attempted rape in the second degree and attempted sexual offense in the second degree, respectively.

Moreover, he married me when I was sixteen years old.  However, instead of following the procedures set out in Md. Family Law Code §2-301, Brett Kimberlin forged a birth certificate for me, falsely asserting I was at least 18 years of age.  He used that forged document to obtain our marriage license.

Further, Brett Kimberlin has long been suspected of other sexual misconduct with underage girls.  In his book, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin, veteran journalist Mark Singer wrote that Brett Kimberlin became romantically involved with a pre-pubescent girl Singer referred to as “Jessica” Barton (real name, Debbie):

For three consecutive summers, 1974 through 1976 [when the child was aged ten through fourteen], they took vacations of a week or longer in Disney World, Mexico, and Hawaii.  Sandi [her mother] couldn’t get time off from work, so on these summer trips it was just the two of them—Brett and Jessica.

Eyebrows levitated. A drug-dealing colleague had memories of conversations with Kimberlin that struck him as odd: “We’d see a girl who was pubescent or prepubescent, and Brett would get this smile and say, ‘Hey, what do you think? Isn’t she great?’ It made me very uncomfortable.”  Another recalled Kimberlin introducing Jessica as “my girlfriend,” and if irony was intended, it was too subtle to register.  To a coworker at IU-PUI, Sandi confided that Kimberlin was “grooming Jessica to be his wife.”

Page 78.  This girl was ten years old when they met, fourteen years old when Brett Kimberlin left her life.  It was believed by the police that ultimately it was his romantic love for this child that led him down the chain of decisions which culminated in the Speedway Bombings.

Indeed, I personally witnessed evidence that he had a sexual relationship with Debbie/”Jessica” Barton. He disclosed to me that she was his girlfriend and showed me pictures of them together.  In some of those pictures, Mr. Kimberlin was naked.  In others, Debbie Barton was naked.  Combined with my own experiences, and his attempts to seduce my then-twelve-year old cousin, I consider the suspicion that he had sex with this underage girl to be highly credible.

The Weiner Presser

So here we are again, Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner holding a press conference where he admits doing wrong but deludes himself into arguing that he shouldn’t resign.

Just to walk down memory lane, here’s his press conference from 2011:

Weinergate II (Update: Video of Joe Danger and Austin Danger Powers)

 Update: Joe Danger and Austin Danger Powers!  See video below!

 Well, of course appropriate caution should be exercised (though we have some verification) but a blog called The Dirty is claiming to have exclusive messages between Anthony Weiner and another woman that is not his wife.  This is the relatively safe-for-work piece on it.  And it links to some more of his alleged sexy messages and even to a blocked out new image of his penis.  I looked, dear reader, so you don’t have to and all you see is a human torso with a series of pasted images where the penis would have been.  You do not see his face.

The news in all is that all of this was allegedly after his scandal, these communications stretching into 2012.  So even after he was busted he was allegedly still doing this, and it makes us wonder 1) if there are more women out there, and 2) if there will be more women if he becomes mayor.  I think this has seriously deflated his erectoral campaign.

And as is the case with much of Weiner’s scandals, there is an element of the ridiculous involved, in that he allegedly used the fake name "Carlos Danger."

Deep Analysis of the Tampa Bay Times Stand Your Ground Database (IV)

The Last of the Fatal Cases

This is the fourth of a series.  The first three parts are here,  here and here.

The Tampa Bay Times published a database of information about people who have supposedly invoked Stand Your Ground laws.  I have been going through it to determine if it was invoking one of three unusual features of Florida legislation: 1) the abolition (mostly) of the duty to retreat, which I refer to as SYG-no-retreat, 2) the institution of the right to a hearing before trial to determine if you are immune because you acted in self-defense, which I refer to SYG-immunity, and 3) a special rule that if a person is breaking into an occupied vehicle or trying to drag a person out of one, that a person can assume that this person is facing imminent deadly force, justifying the use of deadly force in return, which I refer to as SYG-vehicle rule.  I have been going through each case and seeing if any of the relevant SYG doctrines apply, in order to determine if the case is arguably about Stand Your Ground in any form, or is it a more classic case of self-defense.

So I have already completed one hundred and eight of these in the last three posts, and now I will finish all of the cases involving fatalities.  I suggest you read my prior posts first, because I am going to refer freely to my findings there as though you had.

Deep Analysis of the Tampa Bay Times Stand Your Ground Database (III)

The Next Fifty-Four

This is the third of a series.  The first two parts are here and here.

The Tampa Bay Times published a database of information about people who have supposedly invoked Stand Your Ground laws.  I have been going through it to determine if it was invoking one of two unusual features of Florida legislation: 1) the abolition (mostly) of the duty to retreat, which I refer to as SYG-no-retreat, and 2) the institution of the right to a hearing before trial to determine if you are immune because you acted in self-defense, which I refer to SYG-immunity.  At least that was my analysis until today.  Then I noticed a third quirk in Florida law.

You see, in the process of reviewing the law, particularly Fl. Stat. §776.013, I realized a major mistake in my analysis.  Up until now, I had been stating that there were two unusual features in Florida law ushered in by the Stand Your Ground legislation.  But in fact there is a third unusual feature.  You see Florida law has a relatively ordinary presumption that you are reasonably in peril of death or great bodily harm to yourself or another, if:

The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, [or] residence... or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling [or] residence[.]

In other words, if a person is breaking into your house, you generally have a right to shoot.  If someone is dragging your child out of your home, you have a right to shoot.  At least in Florida.  Check local laws, etc.

Holy Cr*p, Batman! It’s a Superman Sequel!

It’s not news that there is going to be a sequel to this summer’s Man of Steel.  That was a simple case of math: that is, if it earned a certain amount of money a sequel was almost guaranteed.  It isn’t like E.T. where Spielberg was probably offered a billion dollars to do a sequel, but he felt it would compromise the original.  Superhero movies are made to have sequels.

But there is big news because apparently they are making it a Batman/Superman team up.  You can read all about it here and here.

The upside is it is Superman and Batman.  The downside is, let’s face it, we can predict all the beats.  Batman and Superman meet.  They will at least spar a little, if not actually fight.  Batman will win.  Why will he win?  Because he is the underdog.  The godlike alien beating the ordinary mortal is not fun.

On the other hand, it is Batman.  And Superman.  One would have to try very hard to screw that up.

Just to give you a taste of how awesome it might be, here’s a clip of the team up done years ago by the people who did Batman: The Animated Series:

Busting a Zimmerman Myth: the Seven Year Old “Suspect” (Update: McCainalanche! and Aceolanche!)

 Update: My friend “Filmladd” advised me that I am burying the lede.  Fair enough.  Here’s the lede:

On April 22, 2011, Zimmerman called the police because a 7-9 year old African American child was walking alone near a busy street and he was concerned for his safety.  What has happened since then is people have repeatedly and falsely claimed that Zimmerman called the child in for “suspicious activity” suggesting he was racist for believing this to be the case.

We now resume the original post, as is.

Update (II): Thanks for theOtherMcCainalanche!

Update (III): And an AceofSpadesoflanche!

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One myth that has grown up about George Zimmerman is that prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, he made several calls on allegedly suspicious black people and only black people.  This was seen as self-evidently racist by some.  Patterico tore apart one example of this claim, here, by pointing out that they were ignoring two key questions:

·         Were the black people he called the police on actually acting suspicious?

·         Were there non-black people he observed who were acting suspiciously but did not become the focus of Zimmerman’s attention?

But a related myth is that Zimmerman even called a 7-9 year old black boy “suspicious.”  For instance, the Daily Beast writes:

But starting in 2011, Zimmerman’s calls increasingly focused on what he considered “suspicious” characters walking around the neighborhood—almost all of whom were young black males.

On April 22, 2011, Zimmerman called to report a black male about “7-9” years old, four feet tall, with a “skinny build” and short black hair. There is no indication in the police report of the reason for Zimmerman’s suspicion of the boy.

Deep Analysis of the Tampa Bay Times Stand Your Ground Database (II)

The Next Thirty Six*

So the Tampa Bay Times published a database of information about people who have supposedly invoked Stand Your Ground laws.  I have been going through it to determine if it was invoking one of two unusual features of Florida legislation: 1) the abolition (mostly) of the duty to retreat, which I refer to as SYG-no-retreat, and 2) the institution of the right to a hearing before trial to determine if you are immune because you acted in self-defense, which I refer to SYG-immunity.  In each case, I am trying to determine if the case is arguably about Stand Your Ground in any form, or is it a more classic case of self-defense.

So I have already completed eighteen of these in the last post, and now I will do thirty six  more.  I suggest you read my prior post first, because I am going to refer freely to my findings there as though you had.

And one more thing before I start.  One thing that became obvious when studying the Tampa Bay Times’ database is that they were being very arbitrary in deciding whom they called Hispanic or not.  On one hand, they called George Zimmerman Hispanic.  On the other hand there are many people that society would almost certainly construct as Hispanic that the Tampa Bay Times are labeling white.  And there are some where you suspect that they are doing this, but you are not sure.  So expect me to note that now and then.

So let’s dive in again, again naming cases by the first victim listed.

Patrick Hutchison

White guy killed by white guy.  Misener, a 44 year old man, was on his property—but not actually in his house—when he saw Hutchison coming out of his camper.  He pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him and claimed he only fired—killing the victim—when he lunged at him.  There were no other witnesses.  Hutchison was unarmed.

Deep Analysis of the Tampa Bay Times Stand Your Ground Database (I)

The First Eighteen

Update: The second installment is here.

So yesterday we had dueling analysis of the Tampa Bay Times’ (“TBT”) database of “Stand Your Ground” cases.  On one hand you had an article in The Daily Caller that declared that Blacks benefit from Florida ‘Stand Your Ground’ law at disproportionate rate.  And reacting to this piece, the Atlantic Wire posted a piece called No, Blacks Don't 'Benefit' from Florida's Stand Your Ground Law.

Now, first the database is useful to some degree.  For instance through it I have already seen a case where a black man successfully invokes self-defense in the shooting of a white man in questionable circumstances, and is not even charged with a crime.  This is a ready answer to the claim that no black person could get away with doing what George Zimmerman did.

But the idea that you can treat this as any kind of representative sample is just plain silly.  Here’s what the Tampa Bay Times says about its database:

The Tampa Bay Times used media reports, court records and interviews with prosecutors and attorneys to identify more than 200 “stand your ground” cases across Florida. The list, though incomplete, is the most comprehensive in the state and likely includes most fatal cases.

So they are telling us that the database is incomplete.  So how can we be assured that we are getting anything close to a true picture of what is happening in Florida?  Further, in all bluntness, I don’t trust media reports on this subject.  As you will see, they get things wrong.  Just in the first eighteen, I saw them leave out significant and relevant facts in the Trayvon Martin case, label people who would ordinarily be considered Hispanic as “white,” and incorrectly suggest that assailants who tried to run a guy down in a jeep was armed only with a bat.

Final Peace Order Hearing Between Jay Elliott and Brett Kimberlin

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

[Update: Please note that I have removed the first name of Ms. Kimberlin at her request and left only her first initial, “T.” She is, after all, a victim of sexual abuse and those kinds of reasonable requests will be honored.  While the moral right to privacy of rape victims is not absolute, it seems to be reasonably asserted here.]

If you were following by twitter you probably know the basics.  Last week Jay Elliott successfully won a temporary peace order against Brett Kimberlin, but that meant he would have to come back in a week to seek a final peace order.  And like last time the language is going to get a little raw.  I know that turns off some people which is why I don’t usually go there, but sometimes it really is necessary.

The jovial figure I observed in Mr. Elliott the week before was now subdued.  I mean how would you feel after watching your girlfriend (meaning Brett Kimberlin’s wife) get arrested for bogus reasons?  Overall, Elliott seemed a little overwhelmed by events.  In all bluntness, this guy needs a lawyer.

Judge Hamilton presided and seemed to have difficulty communicating with Mr. Elliott.  He wanted proof of communication from Brett Kimberlin directed to Elliott himself and Elliott was unable for whatever reasons to summon that.  The petition was ultimately denied although he could still re-file or appeal.  There is a long history in this case of District Courts getting it wrong, and Circuit Courts getting it right.

We also heard from T. Kimberlin, which brought out a few details.  Apparently my reading of her writing was wrong.  She had been separated from Brett Kimberlin for “around eight months” and she repeated the allegations that he was visiting both of their places of employment and saying awful things about them, trying to get them fired.

Brett Kimberlin, despite being forbidden from testifying in Maryland, was able to present testimony of his own.  What he revealed is the creepy depths he goes to when he is angry at someone, trying to smear their reputations.  I won’t recount every vile thing he said about Elliott and his wife, because I suspect he was hoping Mr. Hoge and I would repeat it, but it will suffice that he made ugly, unsubstantiated and ultimately irrelevant allegations about them both, the kinds which would be familiar to anyone who has been watching how he has stalked myself, Lee Stranahan, Stacy McCain, Ali Akbar and others over the last year.  As he was defaming this man and the mother of his children, the judge actually cut him off, saying, “I don’t care about that.”  Once again, it was Brett Kimberlin who was attacking his wife, not any of us and we will not give him the satisfaction of publicizing his presumptively false accusations.

And while I won’t repeat every vile accusation, of particular interest is his bizarre accusation that Elliott was a Mormon who planned to make Ms. Kimberlin part of his polygamous harem (because he is apparently unaware that the Mormons swore off polygamy decades ago).  I have no idea whether Elliott is a Mormon... or did Kimberlin think he could make all these accusations because he has ties to Utah?  In any case, I don’t mind repeating the allegation because it is so idiotic it makes Kimberlin look bad.  And it is certainly rich that after he attacked me for criticizing Islam that he would attack Mormonism on those terms.  I mean isn’t Islam a polygamous religion (though I don’t know any American Muslims who practice polygamy)?

He also had the nerve to call Elliott a “predator.”  This from a guy who once called a ten year old girl his “girlfriend.”  But this is typical of Brett Kimberlin: accuse the accusers of doing what you actually did.  By all evidence, Mr. Elliott is just a guy who fell in love with woman who was trapped in bad marriage.

So what starts to emerge from their testimony is this.  Brett and T. separated for whatever reason around November of last year.  So, contrary to Brett Kimberlin’s story before the court last week, she didn’t run away from him on June 20.  She was already living her own life.  But she chose to go on a vacation and when Brett Kimberlin found out it was with Mr. Elliott he went into a rage.  Brett Kimberlin might have believed he was taking her to the evil Mormons, or that might be a stupid lie he told in court to make his actions seem (in his mind) more reasonable.  In all this time she had evidently been allowed to use the Toyota Highlander Brett claims is owned by one of his charities.  So he decides to try to control his wife, again, by claiming her right to use the car was revoked and threatening criminal charges if they didn’t interrupt their vacation and return it.

And Brett Kimberlin is naturally upset at Mr. Hoge and I because he hoped to use the apparatus of the state to abuse these people without anyone noticing.  Well, the world is taking notice.

Anyway, as you might suspect from the forgoing, Kimberlin won this round, but we will see if Mr. Elliot and Ms. Kimberlin end up getting the help they deserve.

And finally as a coda.  Do you remember the salacious text messages that Kimberlin claimed Elliott sent him last week?  You know, described sex acts between Mr. Elliott and Ms. Kimberlin and Brett Kimberlin read in front of his nine year old daughter?

Elliott didn’t even send them.  So Brett Kimberlin exposed his daughters to words like “sucking his dick” and “fucking your wife” and the guy didn’t even say those things.  What does that say about Brett Kimberlin’s character that he would do that?

And one more thing.  Mr. Elliott evidently is commenting on Hoge’s post on today’s proceedings.  So you might want to check it out.

So Just How Hard Should Zimmerman Have Allowed Martin to Beat Him?

So being in the trenches in the intellectual war over the Zimmerman acquittal, what has occurred to me is that the problem with Martin’s supporters, fundamentally, is an inability to feel empathy with all parties involved.  There has been a lot of talk doabout empathy in the law recently, and I don’t think it is inherently bad.  I think a good judge, for instance, needs to have empathy, not just for one party, but for all parties.  The ability to place yourselves in the shoes of every participant, in my opinion is a valuable skill that a judge should cultivate.  And a good litigator, for instance, learns to see things from the other side, if only to anticipate their attacks and prepare an appropriate parry for them.  It is no accident that the best defense lawyers tend to be former prosecutors.

I have striven to do that from the beginning of the case and indeed I have striven to do that my entire adult life.  For instance, while I disagree with the Martin’s family’s crusade against Zimmerman, I have no anger at them over it.  They have, after all, lost a child.  When a parent loses a child, they are allowed to get a little irrational.  I said that when people attacked Rick Santorum for his arguably weird reaction to losing a child, and I say the same to the Martins.  They lost a son.  You’re allowed to be a little irrational about that.

I have even tried to empathize with Trayvon Martin himself.  I don’t know if he was a bad kid, or just one who liked to seem tough, to seem “gangsta.”  Dan Collins wrote an excellent piece that digs deep into the possible motivations for why he struck first—as all of the available evidence shows.  Collins’ picture is one of understandable anger.  I mean it would still be assault, maybe even aggravated assault, but anyone who has ever been a young man knows how this is.  Mike Judge once talked about being a teenage boy and said  

It’s just this funny, awkward moment in life when you want to be super-macho and show everyone you're not a kid anymore. You wear serious, bad-ass death-rock T-shirts, but you've got to put rubber bands on your braces.

That tension between wanting to be an adult and the world still treating you like a kid can very often explode into violence.

And there is the very real possibility of Martin acting in lawful self-defense himself.  Indeed, while “Stand Your Ground” had nothing to do with the Zimmerman defense, if Martin had lived and faced charges of assault, he would have had to invoke it himself.  The evidence clearly shows that he could have run home, but instead chose to confront Zimmerman and strike him.  If Florida imposed a duty to retreat, he would have been automatically guilty of assault, if not aggravated assault.  But with no duty to retreat, if Martin was charged with assault, he might successfully pled self-defense.

Another Piece of the Zimmerman Narrative Falls Apart (Update: Aceloanche!)

Update: Thanks for another Aceolanche.

This next item presented a dilemma for me.  It comes from the Smoking Gun.  It is incredibly germane to the ongoing Zimmerman story.  But at the same time I have a history with the Smoking Gun.  Early in the Weinergate scandal I watched them dox Mike Stack.  This was part of an overall campaign of intimidation that included making him the first victim of the Kimberlin-connected SWATtings.  All Mike had done was retweet Weiner’s infamous d*ckpic.  Seriously of what relevance was Mike’s past to the congressman’s behavior?  No one deserved what they did to him.

Mike doesn’t like me very much these days, but right and wrong doesn’t change according to how nice a person is to you, and when they did that I put them forever on my “sh*t list.”  No links, no nothing.

So I will be yanking their documents from their servers.

And that is because this document is interesting.  It is the FBI’s report on its discussions with Chris Serino, the lead investigator who passed on filing charges on Zimmerman.  You will be able to read the whole thing in a few minutes, but here are some choice passages:

Serino explained to agents that the local gangs, referred to in the community as “GOONS”, typically dressed in black and wore hoodies.

In other words, Martin was dressed very similarly to the local gangs.  Again, could have been innocent, but there you go.  Which is interesting, but here is the bombshell:

He listed Sgt AUTHOR BARNS, REBECCA VILLENOVE (phonetic), and TREKELL PERKINS as all pressuring him to file charges against ZIMMERMAN after the incident.  Serino did not believe he had enough evidence at the time to file charges.  Serino also stated that Barns is friendly with TRACY MARTIN.

In other words, far from a good old boy conspiracy in favor of Zimmerman, Martin’s family had connections with the cops

Feel free to peruse the documents below the fold.  Use all the usual tricks to enbiggen them.

Continuing Fallout From the Zimmerman Acquittal

Update: Thanks to Ace for the link.

So it has been over twenty-four hours since Zimmerman was found to be not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the killing of Trayvon Martin and sadly, out of ignorance, anger, racism or just plain evil, there are people still stirring hate over the verdict.  I asked Saturday that “if [Zimmerman] should be set free, will the public accept that it cannot exact by private violence hallucinated ‘justice’ on the streets?”  There are lots of people documenting how thugs on twitter and facebook and other social media are making idiotic threats and uninformed condemnation.  That is to be expected.  But what is more serious is when people make unfounded comments on the official websites of major newspapers.

A case in point we come to the Guardian, where Gary Younge entitles his piece Open Season on Black Boys After a Verdict Like This.  Do I have to tell you that he includes a photograph of Martin from several years ago, rather than something that might actually make him look like the near-adult he had become on the night of his encounter with George Zimmerman?

So let’s fisk this mess of a piece.  Younge’s text will be in red:

I Blame Instapundit for This Debacle!

So yesterday in an act of almost sublime screwing around, instapundit bragged that he was the first person to search for the term “international cat speculators.”

And here’s an interesting thing about Blogger.  One of the thing it tells me is what someone else searched for in order to get to my site.  So if you searched on Google for “facepalm” and my blog came up and you clicked on the link, I would know it.  Mind you, I wouldn’t know who searched for it.  You are still safely anonymous in that respect, but still I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this.

That means someone searched for “international cat speculators” and then somehow my blog came up (maybe because of the blogroll on the side?), and this made someone click on my blog.

As a great man once said: heh.

George Zimmerman NOT GUILTY!!! (Update: Video and a Creepy Juxtaposition and a Legal Point)

Update (III): Finally, via Legal Insurrection, some decent video.  I’m not going to link to a specific post.  Just go over there and keep scrolling.

They do have a lot more videos.  Expect the next part of this story to be prosecutors being “Nifonged.”  And deservedly so.

Sadly we might also see a civil suit against Zimmerman.  On one hand, he really doesn’t have very many assets in the first place.  Indeed this has probably financially ruined him.  But the family might want to get the moral victory of a finding of liability.  Hopefully the family can finally understand that their son was not murdered, that maybe he did something wrong, or maybe he just made a mistake, but Zimmerman in any case did not murder their kid and shouldn’t be held liable.  But I am not sure we can count on that.

 Just a few hours ago, I said that the Zimmerman case was a test of the justice system.  George Zimmerman was the man on trial, but in a real way, we were on trial.

I mean at the risk of bragging, I called this right in the beginning.  I wrote in my first post on the subject, entitled Reasonable Beliefs: Prejudice, Myth and Reality in the Trayvon Martin Shooting (Or “Why Han Solo Had the Right to Shoot Greedo First), when I said this:

And remember folks, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt.  Bearing some surprising evidence (such as entry wounds in Martin’s back) or a confession, I don’t see how they can get there.

The evidence improved slightly since then for the prosecution, but they never got close to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  I was convinced by the end of it that this was a case that shouldn’t have been brought.  So Zimmerman’s innocence—or at least the fact they were not going to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt—was never on trial.  We were on trial.

There were two tests before us.  First could this Florida jury put aside emotion and the fear of racial strife and find him not guilty.  That test was passed.  George Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges.

Now, the question is if the public can accept this finding of not guilty.  Will there be riots?  Will there be vigilante “justice” against George Zimmerman.  Of course time will tell, but I did note something on Twitter:

Please note to vigilantes thinking of harming George #Zimmerman... He's already killed once to protect himself. Just saying'.
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) July 14, 2013

So maybe all those big talkers on twitter won’t have the nerve to step up.  But then I think maybe the jury should have followed my advice:

If I was on the #ZimmermanTrial jury, I'd wait until 6 a.m. and acquit. Potential rioters will be dead asleep about then.
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) July 14, 2013

Next up?  Bar complaints for the prosecutors.  This case shouldn’t have been brought and there are serious allegations of misconduct, of withholding evidence and so on.  Remember Nifong?  I think it is time to make another example of a prosecutor who ignored the law and went with the politics.  Prosecutorial discretion is supposed to be one of the protections against unjust imprisonment.  They had a duty to stand in the way of mob sentiment.  Instead they joined in. 

Anyway, enough recriminations for one evening.  Let us celebrate this victory and hope that the people of Florida show the dignity we have a right to expect from us.  And let us celebrate that George Zimmerman's victory.  Because truly it was our victory, too.

Update:  You can watch the verdict as it was recorded live, here.  I cannot embed this video.  What was confusing is they delivered one verdict for both charges at once.

By the way, a spooky confluence.  Seconds before the video ends, do you see what I see?:

Look closer, on the outside shot (my circle added):

Oy, what a bad juxtaposition.  I presume this was coincidental.

Update (II): This is a subtle but important legal point to be made.  Self-defense law doesn’t require a finding of fault by anyone.  Let me quote myself in a different context:

The Wisdom of the Hanging Trees: The Zimmerman Case As A Test of Our Justice System

A popular symbol of justice in America is a woman with a sword in one hand, a scale in another, wearing a blindfold.  Justice is supposed to be blind.

 

But of course it hasn’t always been.  It was at best an ideal to be strived toward but not always achieved.  One extreme example is the infamous Scottsboro Boys case.  It came to the Supreme Court a few times, most famously in Powell v. Alabama (1932).  I’ll let the Supreme Court describe what happened.

The record shows that on the day when the offense is said to have been committed, these defendants, together with a number of other negroes, were upon a freight train on its way through Alabama. On the same train were seven white boys and the two white girls. A fight took place between the negroes and the white boys, in the course of which the white boys, with the exception of one named Gilley, were thrown off the train. A message was sent ahead, reporting the fight and asking that every negro be gotten off the train. The participants in the fight, and the two girls, were in an open gondola car. The two girls testified that each of them was assaulted by six different negroes in turn, and they identified the seven defendants as having been among the number. None of the white boys was called to testify, with the exception of Gilley, who was called in rebuttal.

Before the train reached Scottsboro, Alabama, a sheriff's posse seized the defendants and two other negroes. Both girls and the negroes then were taken to Scottsboro, the county seat. Word of their coming and of the alleged assault had preceded them, and they were met at Scottsboro by a large crowd. It does not sufficiently appear that the defendants were seriously threatened with, or that they were actually in danger of mob violence; but it does appear that the attitude of the community was one of great hostility. The sheriff thought it necessary to call for the militia to assist in safeguarding the prisoners. Chief Justice Anderson pointed out in his opinion that every step taken from the arrest and arraignment to the sentence was accompanied by the military. Soldiers took the defendants to Gadsden for safekeeping, brought them back to Scottsboro for arraignment, returned them to Gadsden for safekeeping while awaiting trial, escorted them to Scottsboro for trial a few days later, and guarded the court house and grounds at every stage of the proceedings. It is perfectly apparent that the proceedings, from beginning to end, took place in an atmosphere of tense, hostile and excited public sentiment. During the entire time, the defendants were closely confined or were under military guard. The record does not disclose their ages, except that one of them was nineteen; but the record clearly indicates that most, if not all, of them were youthful, and they are constantly referred to as "the boys." They were ignorant and illiterate. All of them were residents of other states, where alone members of their families or friends resided.

Is Trayvon Martin Dead Because of Concealed Carry?

Well, I wrote that line to be deliberately provocative, to cause people who 1) enjoy my writing, and 2) who like the Second Amendment, to say, “what?  Did Aaron Walker suddenly turn against the Second Amendment?”

Well, I haven’t.  Instead I am making a more subtle point.

The perspective I bring to the table is that I live in the great state of Virginia.  Now don’t go off half-cocked based on this post, but almost everyone in Virginia (whether a resident or not) who can lawfully possess a gun can open carry in most places.  Again, check the laws before you do this.  This is meant to be a thumbnail summary, and thus it might have exceptions that would bite you in the behind if you are not careful.  But the bottom line is that the rule in Virginia is most people can open carry most of the time, as long as they are not otherwise disqualified.

BREAKING: Kimberlin Attempted, Failed to Have His Wife Involuntarily Committed

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

[Update: Please note that I have removed the first name of Ms. Kimberlin at her request and left only her first initial, “T.” She is, after all, a victim of sexual abuse and those kinds of reasonable requests will be honored.  While the moral right to privacy of rape victims is not absolute, it seems to be reasonably asserted here.]

I just got off the phone with Mr. Hoge, but it turns out we got a big thing wrong in our reportage yesterday (my piece here, Mr. Hoge’s here) about the arrest of Ms. Kimberlin.  I noted that he was arrested and incorrectly assumed it was based on criminal charges.  I noted at the time that it was strange because I couldn’t find any record of such charges.

Well, Mr. Hoge did some gumshoe reporting and discovered that in fact she wasn’t charged with a crime.  According to a source with knowledge of the matter, Brett Kimberlin attempted to have his wife involuntarily committed for a mental health evaluation.

Let me repeat this for emphasis.  A diagnosed sociopath with a history of violence and a body count, as well as a history of lying and framing people for crimes, had someone else committed.

This was surely under Md. Health-General Code §10-622 which allows temporary commitment for “emergency evaluation” if there is probable cause that the person is 1) mentally ill and 2) presents a danger to others.  Such evaluations, as I understand it, last seventy-two hours.  I said yesterday that all criminal charges filed by Brett Kimberlin are presumptively incorrect.  The same goes for this.

So let me repeat this for emphasis, again.  A diagnosed sociopath with a history of violence and a body count, said that someone else was 1) mentally ill and 2) presented a danger to others.  The mind boggles.

Yesterday I expressed my admiration for Judge Mitchell in the District Court of Montgomery County.  My admiration for her has increased considerably when I learned of this as well.  Apparently, we left too early.  The judge intervened and put a stop to this.  I am not certain of the details.  Is it possible that the judge held the hearing required under the statute before such petition would go forward?  Or did she find some other source of authority?  I am uncertain, but clearly the judge saw right through this and put a stop to it.  So three cheers for Judge Mitchell.

But I pose this question to you again: when will the Montgomery County State’s Attorney put a stop to this abuse of the process by Mr. Kimberlin?  It was bad enough when it was done to suppress freedom of speech, but now Kimberlin is using these tactics to try to force T. Kimberlin to come back to him.

If she goes back because she feels she loves him, that is one thing.  But he is trying to use fear—in significant part of fear of wrongful acts of the state—to extort her into coming back to him.  And that is wrong.

Incidentally, I see now Kimberlin is whining that we are “attacking his family.”  I cannot speak for everyone on the web but I have actually defended his family, even against Brett Kimberlin.  It is Kimberlin who is attacking his family, specifically his wife. 

And let's recall that he tried to have Mr. Hoge and I excluded from the hearing yesterday.  What precisely was he concerned about?  It can’t be that his children might be exposed to these salacious allegations because as I noted yesterday he discussed all of this, including reading off sexually explicit alleged text messages, in open court right in front of his teenage and pre-teen daughters.  No, plainly what he is really mad about is that he wanted to be able to attack Ms. Kimberlin without the world seeing.

Also it occurs to me, having slept on it, that it lends a dark purpose to bringing his wife to various hearings involving myself and Mr. Hoge.  Although I previously mistook her for an older daughter (she is much younger than him), she was present in the April 11, 2012 Circuit Court peace order hearing between myself and Brett Kimberlin, and also at the May 29, 2012 District Court peace order hearing between myself and Brett Kimberlin as well as other scattered hearings.  The really significant one was most likely the May 29, 2012 hearing where Kimberlin ambushed me by having me arrested on false charges (that were almost immediately dropped).

Having her there, at that hearing, puts things into a new light.  Originally, I assumed she was there for some kind of moral support.  Certainly Neal Rauhauser was there for that reason.  But consider this.  As I pointed out yesterday, T. said Brett Kimberlin previously had her arrested on false charges.  Then he takes her to a new hearing and has me arrested on false charges.  Could that hearing have been Kimberlin’s way of saying to her, “look at what I did to Mr. Walker.  If you cross me I will do the same to you”?

Really, I am starting to see T. Kimberlin as being identical to those three women recently rescued from Ariel Castro’s house of horrors, only T.’s bonds were invisible.

When I first published my blockbuster post discussing how Kimberlin had tried to frame me for a crime, I also offered a way for you to help.  Among those methods, I offered the following:

Second, you can write to the State’s Attorney of Montgomery County.  I have not named the subordinate in the State’s Attorney’s Office  responsible for the inaction, but ultimately it is the responsibility of John McCarthy, the State’s Attorney himself.  You might also consider writing to the Governor, or the Attorney General. Be polite.  You will not help me by being foul or insulting.  Simply state that you believe a grave injustice has been done to me—if you happen to agree—and ask them politely to see to it that justice be done.

This is his office’s contact information:

State’s Attorney for Montgomery County

50 Maryland Avenue, 5^th Floor

Rockville, Maryland  20850

states.attorney@montgomerycountymd.gov.

240-777-7300

Brett Kimberlin has committed perjury in five different hearings that I have counted—blatant, easily prosecutable perjury.  The maximum sentence for each is ten years.  So he could easily be put back in prison for the rest of his natural life, if the State’s Attorney only prosecuted him.  I think Carl DeLong would approve.

I think now is the time for a renewed push to hold Kimberlin accountable.  I warned the State’s Attorney that (Brett) Kimberlin would be tempted to use the same tactics he used on me on others.  Evidently he had been using them all along on his own wife.  And in all bluntness, if T. Kimberlin is too afraid of her husband to stand up to him, I stand ready, willing and able to be the criminal complainant.  All the state has to do is prosecute.  It will be the easiest conviction they get all year.

Convicted Terrorist and Perjurer Brett Kimberlin Gets His Wife Arrested

...And Other Things I Witnessed in Court Today

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

[Update: Please note that I have removed the first name of Ms. Kimberlin at her request and left only her first initial, “T.” She is, after all, a victim of sexual abuse and those kinds of reasonable requests will be honored.  While the moral right to privacy of rape victims is not absolute, it seems to be reasonably asserted here.]

Update (II): Two major corrections on this piece.  First, it turns out that T. Kimberlin was not arrested based on any criminal charges, but instead based on Brett Kimberlin’s false assertion that she was mentally ill.  Fortunately the confinement was only last as a few minutes until the judge could put a stop to it.  Read for more details, here.

Second, I have learned through my friend John Hoge, that “[t]he speculation that [T.Kimberlin] might have been at a disadvantage because she is not a native English speaker is wrong.”  I sincerely apologize for the error.  If she happens to read this, I hope she will see I didn’t mean to offend but I can totally understand if she is offended.  As I made it clear in the next post, I see her as another target of Brett Kimberlin’s evil, his lies, his threats, his abuse of the legal system.  I see her as no different than dozens of women I helped who found themselves in abusive marriages.  I have a special hatred in my heart for men who do not treat their wives with the love, respect and honor they deserve.  As one person once said, “women are jewels, not punching bags.”

Probably after all the lies Brett Kimberlin has told about me, she thinks I am an evil man, too.  I wouldn’t blame her.  I wouldn’t even get angry with her for it.  But regardless of how she feels about me, I am rooting for her.

Update: Offline and online, friends are making the case that the “1” is really a “7.”  First, dear reader, I gave you the evidence to make up your own mind.  So feel free to do so.  They have made the argument that in other cases it is clear she is making a “1” as just a simple slash.  But at the same time, Ms. Kimberlin has been present at several of the hearings involved, within the last seven months.  Which suggests they have not been separated this long.  But ultimately, it’s your call and I respect anyone who feels differently.  I feel confident in my opinion, but I could be wrong.

We now resume our original post, as is.

---------------------------------------

First, dear readers, a warning.  Some of the language heard in court today was extremely raw.  And I think it is relevant to this story.  I normally try to keep this blog relatively family friendly, but this is one case where I am making an exception.  Sorry in advance for any offense.

So Mr. Hoge and I decided to make an excursion this morning to witness the hearings related to the peace order and domestic violence protective order that I reported on yesterday.  After all, I had noticed in the past that Kimberlin had a way of blaming me for the conduct of people who are complete strangers to me, so I wanted to know what was happening.  Literally as the post went up describing these and other filings appearing on the Maryland Judiciary Case Search, I was waiting in court to see what happened.

But first we have to start by amending the list of filings.  As I told you there was a domestic violence protective order.  We know now this was filed by Kimberlin’s wife, T.  Normally I wouldn’t give you her name, but frankly anyone who wanted to know her real name will shortly be able to find out just by searching the same Maryland Judiciary Case Search for reasons that will become obvious as this piece proceeds forward.  So that was styled T. Kimberlin v. Brett Kimberlin.

And now we know that the peace order was filed by Jay-Richard Elliott, whom I referred to in the last post as Jay Elliott.  And while I do not think race is inherently relevant, it becomes relevant when dealing with racists—and we have long established that Kimberlin is a racist.  Mr. Elliott is listed in Kimberlin’s criminal charges as African American, indicating how Kimberlin saw him.  Anyway, Mr. Elliott had filed a peace order against Kimberlin for harassment.

And apparently Kimberlin filed his own peace order against Mr. Elliott.  This was for harassment.

And then there are the criminal charges.  As I reported earlier today, Mr. Elliot was charged with a violation of Md. Criminal Law Code § 7-203, referred to as “unauthorized removal of property” as well as harassment.

Exclusive: New Courthouse Developments in the Brett Kimberlin Saga

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

Well, the other day I discovered something when searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database that raised many interesting questions, but provided few answers.  There were four new filings in the database, all related to Kimberlin in one way or another.

First, is the blockbuster filing.  It appears to be a protective order otherwise known as a restraining order in most states involving some kind of domestic violence.  Here’s a redacted version of this record:

“Great Bodily Harm” and the Zimmerman Case

One common mistake that is made in the Zimmerman case is that people assume that Zimmerman was only allowed to fire on Trayvon Martin if he believed his life was in danger.  An ordinary reading of the law tells us that that this is not the case.  The is what Fl. Stat. § 776.012 tells us about the use of force generally:

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

(2) Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013. [Walker: this deals with people breaking into your home and thus is not relevant.]

Savage Idiocy in the Air in the Zimmerman Case (Update: Links!)

Update: thanks for the Aceolanche!  And a Pirates Coveanalnche!  Always cool, and always appreciated.

So the prosecution has rested in the Zimmerman case. I have long said words to the effect that unless the prosecution produces some surprising evidence I had not heard of before, that Zimmerman should be acquitted.  Well, the time for that evidence to be presented has passed, and it hasn’t manifested itself.  So my original provisional conclusion is now my near-final conclusion.  At this point, it would take nothing less than a confession by Zimmerman to get us to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, or something equally spectacularly surprising.  And I don’t think that is very likely.

But in fact I wanted to take a moment to discuss one idiot’s comments: Michael Savage.  And in case you are wondering, I have packed at least one more pun into that title as you will see in a moment.  Now truthfully I am not an aficionado of radio, but the little contact I had with his show suggested he was a blowhard and beyond that I paid little attention to him.  But the Savage Weiner* managed to be especially dumb in this commentary, via Mediaite:

The Crime That May Have Been Committed During the George Zimmerman Trial (Update: Gatorlanche!)

Update: Thanks to the Daily Gator for the linkage.

Anyone wanting to follow all the ins and outs of the Zimmerman case really should be reading Legal Insurrection.  I will not follow every twist and turn, but I found this bit amusing.

Today they offered George Zimmerman’s college transcripts and his educational experience, all in an effort to suggest that because Zimmerman knew the law, he knew how to lie and get away with murder... or something.  It is often said that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but apparently Florida prosecutors actually prefer you to be ignorant of the law.  Or something.

I am prepared to be wrong, but I wrote this over a year ago, and nothing I have seen or heard has changed my view:

I have looked at the news reports and at this point in time, if you cut through all the clutter one simple truth emerges: at the crucial moment where the law decides whether George Zimmerman committed unlawful murder or justifiable homicide under the principle of self-defense, there is only one living witness: George Zimmerman.

Even if you prove George Zimmerman is a dirty liar, that isn’t enough.  The state still has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did not act in self-defense.  The state has to prove what actually did happen at that moment.  And unless the state has some surprising evidence I had heard nothing about, I don’t see how they possibly could get to conviction.

A Moment I Shared With George Zimmerman

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

Regular readers know I have been following the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial from the beginning.  I wrote an appropriately nerdy analysis of how self-defense law applied to the case entitled Reasonable Beliefs: Prejudice, Myth and Reality in the Trayvon Martin Shooting (Or “Why Han Solo Had the Right to Shoot Greedo First”) that has proven fairly durable, although there might be more evidence besides Zimmerman’s word (and so far that evidence has all collaborated his word).  And regular readers know that I also identified strongly with Zimmerman in this situation because 1) I myself had to exercise force in self-defense (though it consisted of taking an electronic device away from a convicted terrorist without harming him), and 2) it seemed like George Zimmerman was being charged with no good reason.  The parallels to my life seemed obvious and if you think it colored my analysis, fair enough.

But let me suggest another possibility. Maybe it is instead an educational experience.  Maybe I am enjoying the benefit of an experience that a lot of you don’t have.  I doubt anyone would envy how Brett Kimberlin attempted to frame me for a crime, how he and his compatriots have stalked my wife and I, and so on, but wise people can at least learn from even the most negative experiences, and enrich their understanding of life.  I strive to be wise in this way.

So since the trial has begun, I made it a daily ritual to read the excellent writing of Andrew Branca, guest blogging over at Legal Insurrection.  Mr. Branca is an expert in self-defense law and his writings at both Mr. Jacobson’s blog and twitter have been required daily reading.  I will critique that often the pieces need an extra bit of polish, but the analysis has been excellent.