ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

   "One"

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes, it's the saddest experience you'll ever know

'Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, worse than two

It's just no good anymore since you went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday

~Three Dog Night

I originally was going to write a post about the missing Malaysian jet airliner that has been on the news twenty-four hours a day because I am truly amazed that in 2014, with all of the satellite technology we have to spy on each other, or keep track of movement and location via GPS systems, that as of the date of this post, the story of the missing jet airliner is still playing itself out with almost a complete lack of information about this ill fated flight.

The sad souls of the Malaysian airliner may go missing for awhile longer or forever, and for reasons still unknown, but at least the world collectively cares about them and is cooperating to try and solve the mystery of what actually happened to those people.

Along the same line, I have come across some stories about individuals who nobody cared about and who went missing for many years, even decades, before their whereabouts where eventually discovered. The idea for this story all started when I was watching the news and learned of a lady who went missing from 2008 until March of 2014. 

The most bizarre and surreal part of her story is that this “missing” lady was at her house the entire time. She was dead in her garage in the back seat of her car. She was only discovered when her automatic bill pay service from the bank exhausted all of her funds and her home went into foreclosure. An unlucky fellow sent by the bank to inspect the house found her and then the world discovered the sad and lonely story of Pia Farrenkopf. 

How could this have possibly happened? Well, it appears that these types of events are not entirely that uncommon.

In January 2006, the body of an English woman was found in her London flat after almost three years of being dead. Lying on the sofa was the skeleton of 38-year-old Joyce Vincent. Despite the smell of decomposition emanating from her apartment, her remains were undiscovered for almost three years.

Sources indicated that Joyce was known to be a socially active woman, having met figures such as Nelson Mandela, Ben E. King, and even had dinner with Steve Wonder. It is believed that in 2001, she moved into a shelter for domestic violence victims and cut off contact with family and friends due to embarrassment. Her automatic bill payments kept her off the radar for quite a few months until officials from a housing association made the gruesome discovery.

She is believed to have passed away around December 2003.

In August 2013, the decomposed body of Geneva Smith Chambers was found in her Florida home by a landscaper. This woman, unlike the others, preferred to live in solitude. Neighbors believe she had abandoned the house due to a foreclosure in 2010. However, they continued to maintain her lawn outside the home unaware of her death.

Her last known contact was in April 2010.

In July 2011, the skeleton of an elderly Australian woman was found on the floor of her Sydney home, eight years after her death, when her sister-in-law finally reported her missing. The two apparently had an argument back in 2003 and never spoke again. As the years passed, utilities were cut off but the welfare agency continued to pay for her benefits to her account, which remained untouched. Mail was forwarded to her sister-in-law’s home but eventually stopped. Neighbors believed the home was vacant.

No one had a clue that inside the home, laid the body of an elderly woman who would have been 87 years old when she was found.

In the end, as the cliché that is often repeated---although people really do not think about it as much as they should because we are all caught up in the hectic pace of life---when we depart this world all of the material possessions we have accumulated are not going to bring us a sense of peace and joy and the extra hours at the office are not what we are going to wish we had spent more of our life doing.

Instead, we are going to wish we had spent more time with those we love, and who love us.  I have spoken to many very elderly individuals or terminally ill people and they all say that most people are in too much of a rush, obsessed with the pursuit of material things that only bring temporary happiness (if at all), and never spend enough time focusing on the very basic things in life that truly bring joy, i.e. good friends, family, travel, fun, shared experiences, good memories, etc.

Although this lesson is often learned too late in life, the concept of what is “really” important is a universally accepted truth if you have ever had the experience of spending the last days with someone and being a part of their graceful walk towards the end of life.

In that regard, I urge you to take heed of the cautionary tales above of those who let family and friends slip away to such an extent that when they went missing for years, nobody even noticed or cared. Start this very day establishing or reestablishing the relationships in life that are the most important and valuable possessions we all really have in the end. 

~Leonardo G. Renaud

**The author wishes to acknowledge the research and contribution

    of his legal assistant Erika Oviedo for this post.**

STAND YOUR GROUND: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost $5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders.

~Chris Rock

As everyone is probably aware, the “Stand Your Ground” law became a hot topic in Florida when a teenager was killed by a volunteer neighborhood watch man who claimed that Trayvon Martin attacked him and forced him to shoot Martin after an alleged scuffle.

The trial was played out day by day on the television and George Zimmerman, with his perpetual glazed eyes look, was ultimately freed by a Florida jury.  It is my understanding that while Trayvon still lies dead, Zimmerman has become quite the successful artist selling his paintings for a lot of money to all of the pathetic loonies out there who like to collect memorabilia from killers.

Although the stand your ground defense was not specifically invoked by the Zimmerman defense team, but simply “self-defense,” (which requires a slightly different standard) the jury received instructions from the court very similar to the standard set forth in the Stand Your Ground statute.  Since its inception, this defense has led to some very bizarre results and acquittals that make it appear very strongly that shooting someone in Florida is not really something that guarantees any penalty will be assessed by the judge no matter how bizarre the circumstances and how at fault the shooter actually seems.

It again came to the forefront of national attention, when Michael Dunn fired into a car full of young black teenagers who were playing music too loud. Although he was convicted of three-counts of attempted murder for emptying 10 shots into their car, he was acquitted of first degree murder because enough doubt was created, based on the ambiguous language of the Stand Your Ground law and Dunn’s claim that he thought he saw a weapon.

Jurors and judges seem to have a terrible time understanding the purpose and nature of the law caused by the magic words that “if you are in a public place where you have a right to be, you have no duty to retreat and the right to stand your ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.”

Don’t get me wrong in this article. I believe that people have the right to bear arms and use them to protect their life and family when necessary. What I do not believe is that when you hear a strange noise outside, you should load up your shotgun and go criminal hunting or if someone cuts you off on the street, you get to get out of your car with a gun (and if you sense fear or claim you see a weapon, which all shooters claim they do) get to blast away at the driver who made you angry. That is not the purpose or intent of true self-defense.

 If we all go shooting into the night, there are going to be even more deaths caused by guns than we have now, which is an embarrassing amount compared to other nations that are not third world countries, and even some of them are doing a whole lot better than us when it comes to bodies hitting the floor on a yearly basis. I daresay we are becoming a distant cousin to Mexico when it comes to shoot outs and the acceptance of the “way of the gun” as just a part of life and death in the United States. It is my understanding that there are parts of Chicago commonly referred to as “Chiraq” due to the number of murders that occur every day.

Let’s discuss some facts that the Tampa Bay Times uncovered while carefully studying statistics related to the Stand Your ground law in Florida.  Among the findings:

· Those who invoke Stand Your Ground to avoid prosecution have been extremely successful. Nearly 70 percent have gone free.

· Defendants claiming Stand Your Ground are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.

· The number of cases is increasing, largely because defense attorneys are using Stand Your Ground in ways state legislators never envisioned.

· People often go free under Stand Your Ground in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended. One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victims—and still went free.

· Similar cases can have opposite outcomes. Depending on who decided their cases, some drug dealers claiming self-defense have gone to prison while others have been set free. The same holds true for killers who left a fight, only to arm themselves and return. Shoot someone from your doorway?  Fire on a fleeing burglar? Your case can swing on different interpretations of the law by prosecutors, judge or jury.

The proper thing to do is remain in your locked house, with your gun in your lap if you must, and call 911.  Let the police do their job and if someone gets shot, let’s hope it is the police that do the shooting because they had no other alternative but to rely on deadly force to protect themselves or others from harm.

Things are beginning to get a bit out of hand.

Recently, I heard about a case that at first I thought was a bad joke and some sort of internet urban legend. Well, turns out, it is completely true and seems to have pushed the envelope of Stand Your Ground even further out into crazy land.  According to recent reports, a blind man recently had a murder case dismissed (in Seminole County—the land of Zimmerman) against him because he was able to convince yet another one of our more intellectual Florida judges that he was in fear for his life and had no other option but to shoot his friend (now an ex-deceased-friend).

Apparently these friends had been drinking for hours and then for some inexplicable reason, the guy who is now dead apparently decided he wanted to attack the blind guy, John Wayne Rogers.  Turns out, that Rogers keeps loaded guns in his house. It also turns out that even though Rogers cannot see, he can hear an attacker coming and he blasted his ex-friend in the chest and killed him.

Things looked bad for Rogers for awhile (no pun intended) until his attorneys unleashed the hypnotic Stand Your Ground defense on the judge. Rogers shot the victim from 18 inches away in the chest after going into another room to get his gun. Despite seeing his blind, drinking-buddy, friend with a very large caliber assault rifle in his hands, his ex-deceased-friend still decided to physically confront Rogers. This, of course, was his fatal and last mistake on this earth.  According to sources, Rogers had previously fired 15 rounds from a handgun at his cousin and punched a woman causing him to spend 71 days in jail for domestic violence.  This, of course, was of no consequence to the judge who found it perfectly understandable for a Stand Your Ground defense that Rogers argued with his now dead friend, went to another room to get a gun, and then came back and shot him (oh yes, because he feared for his safety).

The interesting yet scary thing about a slippery slope law like Stand Your Ground is that it eventually becomes applicable to almost any sort of circumstances you can imagine.

Greyston Garcia saw a man trying to steal a radio from his truck.  Garcia grabbed a large knife, ran downstairs and chased the man down the street for at least a block. The incident was caught on tape and showed Garcia stabbing the thief to death in the chest.

At the time, the only thing the thief had was a small pocket knife, which he never opened and a bag of stolen car radios.  Finding that the bag of radios could have caused serious injury to Garcia as he chased the thief to try and murder him, the judge granted Garcia immunity based on Stand Your Ground. She felt that although they were nowhere close to Garcia’s home, that Garcia chased the man with a knife a block away, and that the man was unarmed and fleeing literally for his life, Garcia was justified in murdering him.

Furthermore, the fact that Garcia went home and fell asleep after killing the thief, hid the knife he used to stab the thief, never called 911, and sold two of the stolen radios were all non-factors in her decision that a swinging bag of radios could have seriously injured Garcia. What was most important to the judge according to sources is that he “could have been killed or seriously injured if Roteta (the man Garcia stabbed to death in the chest) had hit him in the head with the bag of stereos.  Careful analysis, thoughtfulness, and jurisprudence certainly did not have their finest day with this case.

According the Miami Herald, Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who supervised the case was floored when told of the judge’s decision. Ford called the law and the decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom a “travesty of justice.” Speaking of justice and potential bad karma, Garcia was killed about three months after the judge dismissed the case against him by a stray bullet that supposedly resulted from a being caught in a gang crossfire shootout. Ironically, Garcia himself appears to have been killed by gang members who, under Florida law, some would argue were standing their ground while simultaneously emptying gun clips.  What can you say, this is Miami and it is a dangerous place to live?

In yet another interesting thief shooting/chase case, a Miami teen and his mother were not prosecuted for shooting a man who was trying to steal a WaveRunner from their waterfront home. The 20 year old man, Reynaldo Munoz, Jr., who was both deaf and mute, appeared on their property. The teen, just 14 years old at the time, fired a shotgun blast that killed Munoz.

At first, the teen’s mother told police that she was the one who fired the gun, but later admitted to police that it was her son who pulled the trigger.  In this particular case, the Stand Your Ground law was not even considered by a judge. The prosecutors, on their own, made a determination that even though the man was outside and unarmed, and the mother and son grabbed a weapon to go outside and confront him, the appearance of danger was sufficient that a reasonable person would have believed that danger “could only have been avoided through the use of deadly force.”

Is it me, or would it not be safer to call 911 while you look out of the window of your house with the door locked, even if you are armed? Why was it necessary or acceptable for the mother and son to go outside, armed with a gun, to hunt down a thief to protect a jet ski?  In fact, given that the man was deaf and mute, they could have screamed for help, or yelled at their neighbors for help, and he would have been none the wiser. Instead, the easy kill was the option chosen. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt that they felt threatened, was it really necessary to fatally shoot Munoz in the “back of the head”?  Shooting someone in the back of the head is much more consistent with someone attempting to flee or having no clue that they are about to be executed.  There used to be a place where these actions were totally the norm and acceptable, it was called the Wild West, now we call it waterfront property in the neighborhood of Miami Shores.

Finally, we have perhaps the most creative application of the Stand Your Ground law that I have heard about to date, and I will conclude with this story because the surreal stories could go on and on concerning this law.  Turns out, two normal, totally regular, teenage cousins are bored and decide that they want to look for a prostitute. One was 14 years old and the other was 18 at the time of the crime. The problem they had was they were very excited about hiring a prostitute, but sadly had no money to fund their adventure.

They end up meeting a man, Gregory Hyppolite, who claims he can hook them up with a prostitute. It turns out that the guy is honest and he is able to get them a prostitute. In exchange, he asks for the meager payment of ten dollars. They decide to advise him, at that point in time, that they have no money. According to them, they offered him a broken necklace which was rejected because it was not made of gold.

Thereafter, the teens walk home but the wannabe pimp follows them demanding that they pay his ten dollar fee.  One of the teens goes into the house and returns with a used lap top which turns out to be unacceptable payment for a street person.  Thereafter, a fight breaks out. It just so happens that one of these normal, totally regular, teens has a pen, which he uses to stab the man multiple times, later testifying that he was aiming for the man’s eyes. The other cousin stabs Hyppolite repeatedly with a broken bottle. Needless to say, Hyppolite died of the severe stabbing and beating he endured from the two cousins.

Notwithstanding that Hyppolite was unarmed and never threatened to kill the cousins, guess what their main argument is going to be according to their defense lawyer? That’s right, you guessed it, they were standing their ground when they stabbed and beat a man to death who was unarmed and with no evidence that he had any capacity to cause serious harm to both them.

As crazy as this all sounds, and a pathetic as this Stand Your Ground defense seems to be for this set of facts, with the mathematical statistics in their favor, it never hurts to try.

I wonder if our founding fathers ever imagined that our constitutionally protected right to bear arms would be used in support of shooting unarmed people who for the most part are running or fighting for their lives to avoid getting killed.  Maybe our return to the Wild West has become too wild, even for the cowboys?

~ Leonardo G. Renaud 

Affluenza: Spoiled Straight by the Court

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

~Charles de Montesquieu 

You may have heard it by now, if not these are the basics of the story. A rich sixteen year old kid from Texas, Ethan Couch, gets drunk and decides that it would be a great idea to speed around in his huge F350 Ford Pickup Truck.  Not surprisingly, he loses control of the vehicle, colliding into several people and cars parked alongside the roadway, which leads to the deaths of four innocent people.

Authorities said that Couch was driving with a blood-alcohol content of 0.24 —three times the legal limit for an adult — and was going 70 mph in a 40 mph zone.

Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said in July that the June 15, 2013 crash was “probably the most difficult accident scene we’ve ever had to work.”

Sources say that despite the mass deaths and carnage that he caused, he was belligerent at the scene and reportedly told shocked onlookers: “I’m outta here,” before callously walking away from the crash.

Reportedly, Couch is so spoiled that his family actually bought him his own party pad (a sprawling ranch house), where he regularly spends days playing video games and having booze fueled parties. Mind you, he was sixteen years old at the time of the horrific crash. His father, Fred Couch, is an extremely wealthy business owner who, according to sources, owns a multimillion-dollar sheet metal company.

Hollie Boyles, 52, and her daughter Shelby, 21, were killed in the crash. As well, Breanna Mitchell, 24, and youth minister, Brian Jennings, were killed as a result of the decision that Couch made to get drunk and climb behind the wheels of a huge, deadly, vehicle. Nine others were injured in the accident, barely escaping with their lives. Two of Couch’s friends riding in the bed of his pickup were tossed in the crash and severely injured. One is no longer able to move or talk because of a brain injury, while the other suffered internal injuries and broken bones.

Tragic as this is, the story gets even more bizarre.  The judge, upon hearing testimony that Couch is suffering from the awful condition known as “Affluenza,” makes the fair and impartial determination that he should not spend a day in jail after killing four people and injuring nine, but rather he should be made to learn his lesson by attending counseling at a rehabilitation facility, located in the upscale city of Newport Beach, California, so that he may learn his lesson. And for good measure, the judge sentenced Couch to ten years of the severe penalty of probation.

While attending the facility, Couch will be subjected to such cruel and unusual punishments as the ability to eat gourmet meals, take yoga and mixed martial arts, as well as ride horses to assist with his “therapy.” The cost of this facility is reportedly $450,000 a year, which is no problem for Couch’s rich family to pay.

According to the defense of “Affluenza,” eagerly embraced by Judge Jean Boyd, Couch has a psychological condition that was caused by his wealthy parents. It has nothing to do with him choosing to drive drunk and kill people. No, instead of him being a fault, the whole problem resulted because he was allowed to do whatever he wanted and his every wish was catered to.  Thus, the theory goes, he never learned that there are consequences for bad behavior, such as getting drunk and killing people.

Are you kidding me?

So the logic behind the judge’s thinking is that Couch is so rich and spoiled that he has lost the ability to understand the consequences of his actions.  This has got to be one of the dumbest, nonsensical defenses that ever worked in the history of crime and punishment---and if you ever watch the trials of sports stars, movie stars, and other various wealthy people---there have been a lot of crazy “defenses” out there.

The term, “Affluenza,” highlights the issue of parents, particularly upper-middle-class ones, who not only refuse to discipline their children but may protest the efforts of others -- school officials, law enforcement and the courts -- who attempt to do so, said Suniya Luthar, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University.

"There are families where very, very few limits are set at a time when they should be," she said. By age 16, she noted, it's too late: "The horse is out of the barn."

Let’s analyze this using the illogical ultimate conclusion of the “Affluenza” defense. So, if a kid is born poor, is from the ghetto, has a broken family, is abused, is surrounded by gangs, drug users and thugs, his ability to make decisions is much better than Couch’s because he has been forced to deal with the ugly reality of life at a young age and that bad decisions can have bad consequences? 

You simply cannot make this stuff up.

According to Dana Ford of CNN:

“The judge's decision stunned victims' family members, who say they feel Couch basically got away with murder.”

"Let's face it. ... There needs to be some justice here," Eric Boyles, who lost his wife and daughter, told "Anderson Cooper 360."

“On the night of June 15, his wife, Hollie Boyles, and daughter, Shelby, left their home to help Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down. Brian Jennings, a youth pastor, was driving past and also stopped to help.”

“All four were killed when the teen's pickup plowed into the pedestrians on a road in Burleson, south of Fort Worth. Couch's vehicle also struck a parked car, which then slid into another vehicle headed in the opposite direction.”

“Two people riding in the bed of the teen's pickup were tossed in the crash and severely injured. One is no longer able to move or talk because of a brain injury, while the other suffered internal injuries and broken bones.”

“According to prosecutors, three hours after the crash, tests showed Couch had a blood alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit.”

At least the families of the victims may be able to get some measure of justice via the civil court system.  As of January of this year “Five of the six civil lawsuits filed against Ethan Couch, his parents and his father’s company in connection with the accident have been consolidated and transferred to the 96^th State District Court in Tarrant County, Texas.

According to the Cleburne Times-Review, Fred and Tonya Couch have been included as defendants in the lawsuits because of allegations they did not properly supervise their son. Cleburne Metal Works is included as a defendant because the truck Couch was driving at the time of the accident was registered to the company.

Regarding the “Honorable” Judge Jean Boyd, a petition has been filed asking that Texas Governor, Rick Perry, remove her from the bench for such a bad decision. The site for the petition is located at Change.org. Maybe take a look at it when you get a chance. There are very interesting and insightful comments by thousands of outraged and concerned citizens.

Remember, judge’s can make questionable calls when faced with conflicting evidence, but there are certain situations (like this one), where it is essentially a spit in the face at all of the families who had their loved ones violently killed by an uncaring and unrepentant person such as Couch. These types of absurdities simply should not be tolerated or condoned by citizens because judges and other public officials, work on behalf of, and because of, we the people.   

Interestingly, in March 2012, Judge Jean Boyd sentenced a 14-year-old black teen to 10-years in prison for punching Mark Gregory who died after hitting his head on the pavement, according to a report from WFAA-TV News 8.

Though the judge tried to send the black teen to a rehabilitation facility like Couch will attend, “no one would take him,” Gregory’s mother Anita Lauterbach told the news station.

“We were horrified. We just couldn’t believe it. The district attorney and I were just sitting on pins and needles. But, when nobody would take him, [it was] a sigh of relief,” Lauterbach said.

According to a report from WFAA-TV News 8, “Lauterbach said she’s still disgusted at her experience with the judge.”

This Judge has such a bad reputation with those seeking justice on behalf of victims that they are willing to accept the sure deal of a plea bargain by a murderer, rather than risk that the Judge ever so gently slap the criminal on the wrist. 

Case in point:

A teen who beat an acquaintance to death with a hammer and enlisted a friend’s help to hide the body was sentenced to 26 years behind bars in a plea deal reached with Tarrant County prosecutors Wednesday morning.

Relatives of the victim, 17-year-old Nicholas Anderson, said they supported the plea agreement in the capital murder case because of concerns that state District Judge Jean Boyd might have given the teen a lighter sentence, based on her history.

They referred to a recent case in which Boyd made national news for sentencing Ethan Couch, 16, to 10 years’ probation and therapy for driving drunk and causing a crash that left four people dead.

“Based upon her history with the Couch situation, we didn’t trust that she would make the right decision as far as the amount of sentencing,” said Sonya Burns, Anderson’s aunt. “We felt we had a better opportunity had we gone with the plea and accepted the 26 years.”

The teen, who is now 17 but is not being identified because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to capital murder in the killing of Anderson, a former middle school classmate.  (Deanna Boyd, Star Telegram).

For those who still have doubts about this case, this was not Couch’s first encounter with the law. He is not a completely naive kid, who just happened to make a terrible mistake based on youth and immaturity. In February 2013, Ethan was cited for "minor in consumption of alcohol" and "minor in possession of alcohol". He pled no contest and was sentenced to probation, a compulsory alcohol awareness class, and 12 hours of community service, none of which obviously did him any good when he slammed his truck into innocent victims.  So it remains extremely doubtful that Judge Jean Boyd’s sentence of probation, yet again, will have any impact on Couch—who is probably smiling and enjoying the sun right now at his therapeutic resort in Newport Beach, California.

Also, the apple does not fall far from the tree.  Ethan's parents both have had incidents with the law, publicized in the media following their son's conviction, but have also never served any time in prison. Ethan's father has been charged with criminal mischief, theft by check and assault, but these charges were dismissed. Ethan's mother was sentenced to a $500 fine and a six month community supervision order for (I wish I could say I am surprised) reckless driving.

To further add to the carnival that is this entire episode, even the psychologist who testified on behalf of Couch, appears to have at least some, implied, regret concerning the turn of events he caused.

“Affluenza.”

“The word touched a national nerve. But G. Dick Miller, the psychologist who said it, wishes he could take it back. "I wish I hadn't used that term. Everyone seems to have hooked onto it," he told CNN's "Anderson Copper 360" on Thursday night.

"We used to call these people spoiled brats." (Dana Ford, CNN)

Now, that is an expert opinion that I can agree with.

-Leonardo G. Renaud