Dumb and Dumber: The Immigrant Country that Loves Deportation

            

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

~Bryant H. McGill

I am going to be right up front about this, which usually doesn’t come natural for a lawyer. I hate Justin Bieber. Maybe hate is too strong a word, let me try and be more diplomatic. I recognize that he has musical talent of some form, but I do not like the way he looks, sings, acts, dances, talks, performs or any of his songs at all.

 To me, he is everything that is wrong about music. A pre-packaged tough boy Canadian “urbanized” look and sound that appeals to suburban teenage girls. Five years from now, if he falls in line with the usual path of those of his type,  he will be a has been appearing on Dancing with the Stars or some other pathetic reality show about the often told story of going from rags to riches, and back to rags.  

His mean boy stares and saggy thousand dollar pants basically make me want to puke. And, if one of the paparazzi, who he despises, even though being a musical superstar naturally depends on your fans seeing constant images of you everywhere, were to give him a nice ass whipping which he is long overdue for, I would welcome the sight of it. What a great laugh that would be. He has a huge ego and unrealistic sense of his “tough” self in a 115 pound body surrounded by 315 pound bodyguards and vampire groupies and “friends” who hang out probably to get free drugs and a chance to party with a celebrity. It is sad in a way that none of his “friends” has the guts or concern to give him any advice or ever tell him that he is acting stupid.

I just can’t stand these whiny stars who have everything at their disposal and could feed hundreds of families for generations bitch and moan how hard their life is and how they can’t get any privacy. Hello? If you want privacy go be a file clerk or be a janitor on the midnight shift. Nobody will be “harassing” you then and trying to take your photograph if you are camera shy and just want people to leave you alone.

         That being said, I thought I would be candid and honest about how my personal opinions definitely impact my thought process up front in writing this article. In his defense, albeit I make this concession with a reluctant since of fairness, he is a very young kid (and I don’t sense the sharpest pencil in the box) who has been thrust into a world of money, fame, and adoration that would, to be perfectly honest, probably have a negative affect on just about anybody who comes from a rags to riches sort of background like him. He did not grow up in a family whose background and life experience prepared him in any way for the surreal life he now finds himself in.

            In short, I do not necessarily want him to go away mad, I just want him to go away. 

Why is a 46 year old expressing opinions about a teenage pop star you ask? There is more to this than just being a music and character critic.  I am not “a hater” for the sake of it because Bieber is rich and famous as the more urban, hip, youth will most likely accuse me of. I have some valid reasons and others appear to think the same way I do.  Read on and let’s meet these people.

            Turns out, Bieber is simply a “menace to society” (Ironic, because that is actually a good movie, with good actors and music.) He has gained a tremendous amount of media attention recently with all of his legal scandals, including his arrest for an alleged DUI in Miami, the accusation that he assaulted a limo driver, his alleged involvement in an egging incident near his Los Angeles home, his reported stay in a brothel while in Brazil, and his bodyguards theft charge for allegedly stealing a paparrazzo’s camera.

            After Bieber’s bodyguard was arrested for the alleged theft of photographer Joseph Binion’s camera in June of last year, Binion sued Bieber in Miami’s civil court claiming that Bieber ordered his bodyguard to steal the camera. 

            Although Bieber’s dream team of lawyers fought to prevent him from being deposed, they lost this battle and Bieber was forced to attend a deposition regarding the matter, where he was questioned for hours until becoming extremely upset at the nerve anyone would dare to question him.  During his deposition, which is an internet must see, he objects to questions asked by opposing counsel (instead of his lawyer), winks and fixes his techno colored shirt for the camera, and gallantly states “Don’t ask me about her again,” repeatedly, while shaking his finger when questioned regarding his ex-girlfriend (a real winner picker) Selena Gomez. 

            When asked by opposing counsel if Usher was instrumental to Bieber’s career, he responds saying, “I was found on YouTube, I think that I was detrimental to my own career.”   See reference to sharpest pencil above.

            Apparently, Bieber’s Los Angeles neighbors were not too happy after his alleged egging of a neighbor’s house. Perhaps understanding that his welcome has worn out, he has recently sold his home to Khloe Kardashian according to Zillow.  According to nydailynews.com, neighbors are extremely pleased that they will have a Kardashian (i.e. family known for porn videos, prostituting themselves out to sell anything, failed marriages and relationships, and the bizarre transformation of Bruce Jenner into someone who looks like an old transvestite with bad plastic surgery) as a neighbor instead of the Bieb (one of Justin’s many cool urban nicknames).  Imagine that, the Kardashian’s are more respectful and desired neighbors than Bieber? On the least desired scale, that puts him slightly below a toenail fungus (like, the Bieb, it just won’t go away).

            The public has been so outraged that over 270,000 so called “non-Beliebers” (referring to those who don’t “beliebe” in Justin) signed a petition to have Bieber deported back to Canada.  Although the government is not forced to reply directly to the matter at hand, once a petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it is the government’s responsibility to articulate some form of response.  This petition was submitted to the White House, who initially declined to comment, but then went on to comment anyway. 

            In a rambling statement, The White House commented on immigration in general stating “we need a smart effective immigration system…”  They also reference Bieber’s earnings from concerts and albums in their explanation of how much immigration reform will grow our economy and reduce our deficit.  What a solid, well thought out, direct answer. As my text savvy friends often communicate to me, WTF?

            While it looks like Bieber won’t be leaving the United States anytime soon due to a green card revocation, deportation rates have significantly increased in the time that Barack Obama has been President.  Although many immigrants were especially hopeful for less deportations once Obama was re-elected (due to his promises to give certain youth a temporary solution to gain legal status), there have been more deportations under Obama’s reign than any other U.S. President.  Does this surprise you; it certainly caught me off guard?  I, like a whole bunch of other people, thought we were moving toward a more logical and humanistic approach to immigration in this country.  Well, as a great band once said, “don’t believe the hype.”

            So far, Obama has deported roughly 2 Million people, which is more than any other U.S. President thus far according to an article by www.thenation.com. 

       CNN states that a whopping 71% of Hispanics voted for Barak Obama in 2012 (remember the frenzied “Si Se Puede” chants at the political rallies all across the United States, and especially in those states with high Hispanic populations, used to win the support of Hispanics for Democratic elections).  44% of Latinos voted Republican in 2004 for George W. Bush and 31% voted for Mitt Romney in 2008. 

            Sadly, but not surpisingly,  as things have turned out, Obama gained many votes with his promises to improve immigration proceedings within the first year of being elected, something that was never done.  According to The Huffington Post, Obama has not presented a single immigration bill to Congress since being re-elected.  Apparently “Si se puede” should be changed to “No puedo por que no me conviene en este momento.”

            Many immigrants come to the United States in search of equal opportunities and a better life, but the sad part is that a staggering number, who attempt to arrive, never make it.  According to an article written by Jacob Silverman titled How Stuff Works, around 12 million people die annually pursuing their hopes of the American Dream.

            Other factors have been researched to determine if there is anything else that could be causing the escalation of deportations, including possibilities of increased amounts of undocumented immigrants, and it seems that there are no definitive explanations, according to www.polifact.com. 

          Undocumented parents are often deported, leaving children and other family members stranded and left behind.  According to a story written by Cindy Y. Rodriguez and Adriana Hauser for CNN, the Soza families’ life has been changed forever.  Marisela and Ronald were immigrants from Nicaragua and had two children who were living here in the United States. 

The childrens’ mother Marisela was deported back to Nicaragua and the father was allowed to stay to watch over the kids, but only to be deported as well five years later leaving the children parentless, homeless, and completely at the mercy of those who stepped up to care for them. The children are legal US residents. Situations such as these show the unjust, arbitrary and nonsensical system we have when it comes to immigration and deportation. Does it really make sense to kick someone out of this country who has been here for years, sometimes even decades, leaving children behind who now are left to fend for themselves? Is there any quantifiable and statistical correlation that these types of deportations, such as with Marisela and Ronald, lead to economic or social betterment of a country whose very foundation was the genesis of persons looking for a better life someplace else? I have yet to see any proof in terms of numbers and studies, other than the same old unsubstantiated arguments that immigrants take jobs and cost money. Didn’t Hitler rely on this same exact argument at one point to blame the economic problems of Germany on those who were powerless to defend themselves?  In fact, if one reads some history, almost every time economic times are difficult, the first people to get blamed are the poor and immigrants who make easy targets to spew hatred and racism upon.

            Many claim that those deported are violent offenders convicted of horrendous crimes. Again, there is no proof of this.  Families are broken apart due to deportations and it is reported that in 2012, according to an article written by wwww.thenation.com, less than one percent of those deported are done so for crimes such as murder.  So much for the theory that we are ridding our country of undesirables based on criminal statistics.

             Although many individuals feel outraged and upset claiming that immigrants take jobs away, this is simply untrue.  Many immigrants are forced to work picking strawberries, oranges, or doing grueling and tiring construction jobs below minimum wage and without any insurance if they get hurt doing these often dangerous, and body withering manual labor jobs---things that the average “American” would never do. How many times have you see Waspy-looking  people picking strawberries, oranges, or cotton? 

 It is a not so well hidden and dirty secret that many large companies rely on the cheap labor of immigrants to run smoothly. Do you think these businesses want to bow down to unions and get stuck “complying” with federal labor and wage laws when they have a ready, willing, and able labor pool that is literally dying to try and work in the U.S. ? Do you think these companies really care about Americans and their jobs, as they hire more and more workers from the Philippines and India and other places to outsource for cheap labor?  It has been said that if one were to do a psychological profile of a company, what they would find is the values and lack of any empathy, or care for the pain of others---makes them very similar in personality to sociopaths (whose single focus is the seeking of immediate self-gratification and reward, and in the company’s case, profits above any sense of morality, i.e. Wall Street Crash, Widespread Mortgage Fraud by Banks, etc.). 

Even though they may not pay income taxes when working their low paying and often dangerous jobs (which their employers particularly enjoy because they pay no employment taxes or insurance), they do pay sales tax, something that they will likely see little to no benefit from due to their undocumented status.  It is interesting that one hardly ever sees these numbers quantified or statistics about all of the sales taxes an immigrant pays versus how much they will never see in their lifetime when they are deported. Nor does anyone talk much about how sales tax is a regressive tax, meaning that if an immigrant pays 7 or 8 percent in sales tax for the essentials such as food, clothing and shelter; this is a much higher portion of their income than another person who earns ten times what they do---thus, actually contributing much less of an average per purchase for items that are necessary simply to live.

            What does all of the above basically amount to? Well, one, I still would love to see Justin Bieber deported and/or punched by a paparazzo. Second, if we can’t deport him, why are we so hell bent on kicking out people who have been here for years, have children who are born here, and otherwise contribute to society in a positive way by trying to make a better life for their family? Third, I think that people should not blindly follow one political party or the other based on the same rhetoric we hear every time there is an election. Bottom line, politicians will do and say anything to get elected.  They raise taxes when they say they aren’t, they continue to fight unwinnable wars when they say they aren’t, and they do whatever is going to get them elected----regardless of any “promises” they ever made in the past.

In a sense, by the very nature of being politicians, they have to be liars because in order to have a job they have to trick as many people as possible into voting for them so that they can continue to have a career. There is a similar organism that depends on and uses others, and causes harm, to survive and grow, it is called a virus. 

~Leonardo G. Renaud

           

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