True Crime Stories

From time to time you hear me say that I am about to talk about a case that is off the beaten path of my normal types of cases that I blog about here but that is never more true than in this case.  I would also gander to guess it will likely be the only case such as this.  The first difference is that this is not a criminal case in any way.  This case is not about murder, or rape or even kidnapping.  This case is not one in which someone was facing prison time.  So, what about it qualifies it to land in a list of "true crimes"?  Well civil crimes are still crimes, but that is not necessarily the reason to blog about it here. I do however, have several reasons that I do what to post about this case. The first reason I think it is important is that this case has gone down in history with the lay person as being the "poster child of excessive lawsuits." I say with the lay person because this is one of the first cases that is discussed with law students when ...

I often attempt to stay away from cases such as this one because it took place outside the United States.  It is not that I am prejudice in any way as far as where crime occur, but understandably I understand the American justice system better than other countries. I tend to be bias towards our system and when I am faced with another type I am sometimes unable to determine not necessarily the guilt or innocence of a person but the legality of the legal proceedings.  Sometimes that is just as important.  For example, as we know, here in America in a criminal trial a jury (at least in almost all jurisdictions) in a penalty phase must be unanimous and a guilty verdict is to be rendered on the idea of "beyond any reasonable doubt."  The case I am about to tell you about took place in England.  The trial ended in a 10-2 verdict of guilty.  However I have read that had it ended in a 9-3 the outcome would have been different.  In America either conc...

Going into this case I often thought of the case of Timothy Hennis in which after failing to obtain a conviction through civil courts (although results varied between these two cases) the military had decided to use their power to prosecute.  Like so many of the other cases that I blog about I heard about this case on one of the many documentary shows that I almost exclusively watch.  After watching such shows the case goes on a list in which I have compiled to research at some point.  I have long discovered that the documentary shows obviously leave out a lot of facts and that the best information to be found is through appeals papers that are published on the Internet.  This case is one of the rarer ones that I have come across.  First you have the issue of the civilian verses military issue.  But secondly, this is one of those cases that through the information I found in my research I do believe the defendant is guilty yet I am unsure that I agree the...

I had debated on doing this case because I feared that my conclusions would make me seem harsh, which would not be my intentions.  In one sense it is like many of the cases that I blog about where in the end there are different conclusions as to what happened and it seems that no amount of evidence, or research will change the opinion of those on either side.  That being said, the loss of a child has to be one of the most devastating things for a parent to suffer from.  And while I do not believe there is any age in which it would be an easy thing for any parent I do believe there is a certain age in which makes things worse and Annie fell into that area.  She was sixteen years old.  At this point as a parent you are seeing your child's personality start to shine through; you are having more adult conversations with them and not shielding them from the little things you did when they were a child; they are on the cusp of truly deciding what they want to do with ...

I had heard of this story before but a recent episode of a documentary series reminded me of this case and I decided to research this as my next blog.  As usual, the research gave me a lot more insight of the case and the people involved and in this instance I was left with a true understanding. One of the articles that I read while researching the case indicated that the prosecutor had called Linda Cooney a hoarder.  I saw no other reference to this aside from this article but as someone who is familiar with the behaviors associated with those who are considered to be hoarders, things made more and more sense to me and Linda Cooney seemed to fit this mold to a tee.  Sometimes the physical view of hoarding takes time to be present, mainly due to the fact that a true hoarder has done it for decades and often they are good about doing things such as moving to a bigger home, making additions to the home they have or even buying storage units to store their "stuff" to the p...