Direct Appeal From The Criminal Court For Sullivan County: Fill & Download for Free

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.Below are few of the notorious unsolved murders in history.Amber HagermanAmber Rene Hagerman was just nine years old when she was abducted and murdered. Amber was riding her bike close to her grandparent’s home in Arlington, Texas on January 13, 1996 when she was snatched. Amber and her brother Ricky were riding around the block when they went a little further to an abandoned grocery store parking lot to ride on a ramp there that children often enjoyed riding on. Amber’s brother became worried that they were riding further than their mother had said to go so he told Amber he was returning home. Ricky started back home and Amber stayed for one more ride on the ramp. When Ricky got home the family asked about Amber and when he said that she had stayed a little longer the family sent him back to bring her home. Ricky returned, however, he could not find his sister. Jimmie Whitson, grandfather to Amber and Ricky jumped in to his truck and went to find her himself. At the parking lot Jimmie found a police car and pulled up next to it where the officer told him that a man close by had heard screaming and looked to see another man carrying a young girl in to his pickup truck. The man who lived close by had called 911 summoning the police officer but when the officer arrived at the scene all he found was a bicycle that Amber had been riding.Amber’s family would appear on television pleading for her life and her safe return. Police believed that it was a stranger abduction that took place because the opportunity arose for the abductor. No witnesses were found other than the man who called 911 at the time of the abduction. Sadly, just four days after her abduction, Amber’s body was found naked in a creek bed near an apartment complex. Her throat had been cut. After finding Amber’s body, the police released a profile of who they believed the killer to be; however, this did not aid in capturing him.While Amber’s killer has yet to be caught her legacy remains. The abduction and murder of Amber Hagerman led to the development of today’s Amber alert system.Andrew and Abby BordenAndrew and Abby Borden are names that are perhaps not as well known as that of their suspected murderer, daughter, Lizzie Borden. Andrew and Abby were parents to Lizzie Borden and on August 4, 1892 they were both found brutally murdered in their home. When the day began, Andrew Borden left home to go to work, leaving his wife, their daughter Lizzie and their Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan at the house. After coming home from work early the same morning he lay on the sofa to take a nap but he would never awaken. According to Lizzie, she came in to the living room to find her father dead on the sofa having suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head. Upstairs Lizzie also found her mother dead and mutilated much more than her father’s body. A later examination by the coroner would find that Abby Borden had been killed almost an hour before her husband died.Suspicion of the deaths fell on to Lizzie, the couple’s daughter after it was found that on August 3 she had tried to purchase poison. Additional suspicion fell when it was discovered that Lizzie had burned a dress in a stove in the home. Lizzie was not the only suspect in the murder though; Bridget Sullivan was also under suspicion. The murder weapon was never discovered which made finding the murderer even more difficult; however, some suspected that an axe found in the basement was the weapon of choice in the killings. Lizzie Borden would eventually get arrested and tried for the murders but she was acquitted due to circumstantial evidence in June of 1893. Despite being acquitted of the murder charges, Lizzie would continue to be treated as an outcast for the rest of her life in Fall River, Massachusetts where she lived until her death in 1927.The Axeman of New OrleansThe axeman of New Orleans is a serial killer who was known for being active throughout New Orleans, Louisiana from May 1918 to October 1919. The victims of the axeman were killed with an axe that was, in some cases, also used to break down the door of the home. While there were some ideas as to who the axeman could be, there was no evidence strong enough to convict anyone of the crime. Unlike many other serial killers, the axeman appeared to attack completely at random and with complete disregard for his victims and not all of those victims died as a result of their wounds. So random were his attacks that victims of the axeman included a pregnant woman and a young infant killed in its mother’s arms. The axeman continued to taunt the city with his crimes and even wrote letters to local newspapers in which he claimed to be a demon from Hell. The axeman seemed to enjoy the power that he held over others more than anything else and in one famous incident he wrote a letter to a local newspaper stating that he would strike again at fifteen minutes after midnight on March 19; however, any location where a jazz band was playing would be spared. Jazz music abounded that night and there were no killings. There are twelve identified victims of the axeman of New Orleans.There were many speculations as to who the axeman could have been, one such speculation indicated that perhaps the mafia was involved with the killings; however, the later crimes which included the murdering of the young infant were not characteristic of such a murderer. There was also rumor that a man named Joseph Momfre was responsible for the crimes and was eventually murdered by the widow of one of his victims; however, there is little evidence to indicate that this is actually true.Betsy AardsmaBetsy Aardsma was a 22 year old English major from Michigan attending Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. On November 28, 1969, Betsy was in the library researching for a paper when she was stabbed once through the heart. It is believed that Betsy was stabbed sometime between 4:55 pm and 4:55pm. A minute after her stabbing Betsy fell to the floor and two men shouted to the desk clerk at the library that someone had better “help that girl” before running out of the library. The two men were never identified nor captured. First aid was administered to Betsy including mouth to mouth. By 5:19 pm Betsy had been taken to the Ritenour Health Center (the on campus hospital) where she was pronounced dead. At the time of her stabbing Betsy had been wearing a red dress and no one really knew how serious the wound had been. The single knife wound however, had pierced her heart – a fact which would not be uncovered until she was examined at the hospital. It was thought by those administering CPR that Betsy had suffered from a seizure since evidence of the stabbing was not particularly visible.The case of the murder of Betsy Aardsma has never been solved over the past forty three years. The Pennsylvania State Police are still seeking information in the unsolved murder.The Black DahliaThe Black Dahlia is a nickname used to refer to Elizabeth Short, born in 1924 and murdered in 1947. The body of Short was discovered in Leimert Park in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. The case of the Black Dahlia has been publicized in book and film form, most significantly for the sheer gruesome nature of the crime. The body of Short was discovered mutilated with a cut across her waist that was so deep that it sliced her in half. Short had been completely drained of blood, she was nude and the corners of her mouth had been slashed up to her ears. The nude body appeared to have been posed with her hands above her head and her elbows bent at right angles. The cause of death is stated to have been blood loss from the cuts to her face combined with shock that resulted from a concussion she received before her death.There have been a handful of suspects in the case of the Black Dahlia; however, no one has yet to be convicted of the crime and as time passes it is increasingly unlikely that anyone will pay for the crime. The killer of Short is suspected to have contacted the newspapers on numerous occasions when he felt that the coverage of the murder was tapering off and once even mailed an envelope containing personal possessions of Short to prove his involvement in the case. The envelope also contained a small address book with the name “Mark Hansen” on the cover, the last individual known to have seen Elizabeth Short alive. Due to the sheer sensationalism of the case, over the years many people came forward claiming to have plaid a role in the death of Short; however, no one has ever been convicted of the crime.Bob CraneBob Crane is most commonly known for his role as Colonel Robert E. Hogan in the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, but he is also known for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Crane was living in the Winfield Place Apartments in Scottsdale, Arizona in June of 1978. During this time he was acting at the Windmill Dinner Theater in his play Beginner’s Luck. On June 29however, luck was not on Crane’s side and his co-star, Victoria Ann Berry discovered his body in his Winfield Place Apartment. Berry was supposed to be meeting Crane for lunch but when he didn’t show up for the meeting she went to his apartment in search of him.When Bob Crane was found he had an electrical cord tried around his neck and had been bludgeoned to death. Investigators never did find the weapon that had been used to bludgeon him, but they suspect that it had been a camera tripod. A friend of Crane’s, John Henry Carpenter fell under suspicion at the time; however, since DNA testing did not exist at the time and insufficient evidence was present, no charges were filed against him. According to reports though, Carpenter had called Crane’s apartment multiple times and when he showed up there he was not surprised that the police were on the scene. This made investigators suspicious and they had Carpenters car impounded. Inside the car the police found blood which matched Bob Crane’s blood type but with no DNA testing at the time it was not possible to determine whether it was Crane’s blood or not. No one was charged with the murder.In 1990 Maricopa County reopened the murder case and were able to retest the blood samples retrieved from Carpenter’s car. The DNA testing was inconclusive but a detective on the case found a picture of what he believed to be brain tissue in the car. The detectives on the case hoped that this would be enough to indict Carpenter for Crane’s murder and in June of 1992 Carpenter was arrested and charged with murder. An Arizona judge ruled that despite the evidence being lost, there was enough evidence to try Carpenter. Carpenter was eventually found not guilty and maintained this innocence until his death in 1998. With Carpenter cleared, Bob Crane’s death remains unsolved.The Boy in the BoxThe boy in the box is the name used to refer to a murder victim who was discovered on February 25, 1957 in a cardboard box. The body of the boy indicated that he was approximately 4 to 6 years old at the time of his murder. Evidence shows that the young boy was murdered and left in the box in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The boy’s body had been wrapped in a plaid blanket and placed in the box and left abandoned. The boy was discovered once by a muskrat trapper checking on his traps and a second time by a college student who spotted a rabbit in the area, neither reported the incident immediately. The day after his discovery though, the college student finally reported the incident.While much attention was given to the case after it was reported and the boys face was posted all over the news and in the media, no one was ever charged with involvement in the case. There have been a few theories revolving around potential explanations for the young boy’s murder. The first theory states that the young boy had been killed while in a foster home close to the scene; however, this was later ruled out as police interviewed the man who ran the home. The second theory states that the young boy was sold by his parents in to a home that was extremely abusive, the daughter of the woman who was accused of the abuse came forward with the story; however, the accuser had a severe history of mental illness.While no progress has been made in identifying the boy or his killer, mitochondrial DNA has been extracted from the boy’s tooth and is being run through the mitochondrial DNA database in an attempt to locate his identity.Georgette BauerdorfGeorgette Bauerdorf was just 20 years old at the time of her murder and was well known as the heiress to an oil fortune. At the time of her murder, Georgette was living in West Hollywood, California and her father, stepmother and sister were all living in New York City. Georgette was known to have spent time volunteering as a junior hostess in a Hollywood canteen where she often was seen dancing with enlisted men. According to accounts from friends, Georgette had a serviceman boyfriend who lived in El Paso. Authorities later revealed this man to be Private Jerome M. Brown from Chicago, Illinois. The day before she was killed, Georgette purchased an airline ticket to go to El Paso.The night before she was killed, Georgette left work at the canteen and went home. During the same day she had met up with her father’s secretary for lunch and a shopping trip. The secretary, Mrs. Rose Gilbert, had said that Georgette was not distressed and in fact was in quite high spirits during their meeting. That same night however, Georgette is believed to have been attacked by a man who was lying in wait. According to police, the assailant had unscrewed the light bulb in the light outside Georgette’s apartment, his fingerprints were later found on the light bulb.Georgette’s body was found face down in the bathtub and while her jewelry and other valuables were not taken, cash was stolen from her purse. Oddly enough however, a visible roll of $2 bills and a number of sterling silver pieces were not taken even though they were visible. Georgette’s sister’s car was also missing from the property and was later found in Los Angeles after it had run out of gas. According to the coroner, Georgette had put up a fight against her attacker and had bruises all over her body. Ultimately, Georgette was strangled and had a piece of towel put down her throat. A number of servicemen were questioned in Georgette’s murder but no one was ever found guilty.The Grimes SistersBarbara and Patricia Grimes were sisters who lived in Chicago, Illinois until their disappearance on December 28, 1956. The girls aged 15 and 13 respectively left their home to go and watch Love Me Tender (and Elvis Presley movie) at a local movie theater. The girls arrived at the theater and were seen in line for popcorn at around 9:30pm. The movie ended at 11pm and the girls still had not returned home by 2:15am. The girl’s mother called the police and began one of the biggest missing person’s hunts in the history of Chicago state. The search was so big that even Elvis Presley himself issues a statement asking the girls to go home.On January 22, 1957 however, the girls naked bodies were discovered by a construction worker named Leonard Prescott. The girls were found next to German Church Road. Much speculation took place by police and medical examiners as to when the girls died and what it was that killed them. The Chicago police crime lab confirmed however, that Barbara had been molested before she was killed.Multiple suspects were interviewed and various eyewitness reports were made in the case, but none were found guilty and no reports (with the exception of the 9:30pm sighting of the girls) were ever substantiated.The Hall-Mills MurderOn September 17, 1922 the bodies of Reverend Edward Wheeler Hall (41) and Eleanor Mills (34) were found in an apple orchard in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mills had been shot three times and in addition she had her throat slashed. Hall had been shot once in the head. Both of the victims were covered with explicit love letters that they had written to each other and the Reverend also had his calling card placed on his feet. The murder suggests that the illicit affair between the two lovers had been discovered. The crime scene however, was improperly treated and the police work was shoddy at best. No autopsies were performed on either body. Four years after the murders however, a reporter found the calling card that had been sitting against Hall’s feet and had it tested for fingerprints. The prints matched those of Hall’s brother in law. As a result of this finding, Hall’s wife Frances, her brother William, her other brother Henry and their cousin Henry were all named as suspects in the murder case. The trial would take a month and deliberation would go on for six hours before they were all acquitted of the charges against them. No one has ever been held accountable for the murders.Jack the RipperNo list of unsolved murders would be complete without mention of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper is perhaps the single most infamous unsolved murder case in history to date. Ripper is known for his activity in the impoverished areas of the Whitechapel district in London in 1888. The victims of Jack the Ripper were most typically female prostitutes who had their throats slit before having their abdomens completely mutilated. It was widely speculated over the years that Jack the Ripper had some type of anatomy experience whether that of a butcher or a doctor because of the removal of specific organs from his victims. There are five well known Ripper victims: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. There were later murders in the Whitechapel area that some believe were attributed to Jack the Ripper; however, they differed from the five recognized victims of the Ripper.Over the years there have been many speculations as to the identity of Jack the Ripper, but no speculation have ever been proven without a reasonable doubt and as time progresses the chance of ever discovering the true identity of the famed Ripper, is even more unlikely. Some of the suspected culprits for the murders include: local physicians, doctors, slaughterhouse workers, butchers and anyone else who had access to surgical materials and knowledge.Jack the StripperUpon reading the name “Jack the Stripper” many mistakenly believe that it is a typographical error of “Jack the Ripper;” however, the two cases are two different cases all together. The Jack the Stripper cases are also referred to as the Hammersmith murders or the Hammersmith nudes cases, and the London nude murders. Just like Jack the Ripper, Jack the Stripper was known for targeting prostitutes. He is believed to have killed six, but possibly eight prostitutes between the years of 1964 and 1965. The bodies of his victims were found dumped in London’s River Thames or dumped throughout London.As with the case of Jack the Ripper, the case of Jack the Stripper had little evidence to point toward a suspect for the murders other than the presence of paint from a motor manufacturing plant that turned up on a number of the bodies. While there was no actual arrest in the case there have been a number of suspects. The most likely suspect in the murder cases was a Scottish security guard named Mungo Ireland. Ireland was tied to the case through his position as a security guard at a factory where the flecks of paint found on the bodies were traced to. Unfortunately for the case Ireland committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning shortly after the flecks of paint were traced back to the factory where he worked. The most significant piece of evidence that pointed to Ireland’s involvement in the cases was the suicide note that he left for his wife stating “I can’t stick it any longer” in addition to stating “To save you and the police looking for me I’ll be in the garage.” While this note could indicate an involvement in the cases, other evidence points to Ireland being out of town when one of the Stripper murders took place and that it could not have been his doing. A number of other suspects have been fingered in the case; however, none has ever been convicted.JonBenét RamseyThe case of JonBenét Ramsey is a much more recent case which involved the murder of a child beauty pageant contestant who was killed in her home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996. At the time of her death JonBenét Ramsey was six years old and her body was discovered in the basement of her home eight hours after her parents reported her missing. JonBenét had been struck on the head and strangled. The most common theory in the murder of the six year old was that her parents and brother had played a role in her death; however, DNA evidence found on JonBenét’s clothes indicated that they were not involved; In July of 2008 both of JonBenét’s parents would be cleared in the investigation in to her death.In December of 2003 DNA from blood found on JonBenét Ramsey’s clothes was collected and a DNA profile was created. The profile was placed in to CODIS (the FBI’S Combined DNA Index System) to maintain a record of its profile. To date there have been no matches to the DNA profile found on JonBenét Ramsey’s clothing. It was found, however, that in the months preceding JonBenét Ramsey’s death, there were more than 100 burglaries in the area. In 2006 a former schoolteacher, John Mark Karr confessed to being with JonBenét at the time of her death; however, his DNA profile did not match that of JonBenét and no charges were filed against Karr for involvement in the case. The mystery of JonBenét Ramsey’s death remains unsolved.Julia WallaceJulia Wallace was wife of William Herbert Wallace. Julia was found murdered on Tuesday January 20, 1931. The same year as Julia’s murder, William was convicted of the crime but his conviction would later be overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The case itself would go down in history for two reasons, firstly it was the first case in British legal history in which an appeal had been granted after evidence had been re-examined, and secondly because it is noted as an unbeatable case.The night before Julia’s murder her husband was at the Liverpool Chess Club playing a chess game when he was handed a message. The message had been taken down over the telephone 25 minutes before William had arrived to play his scheduled chess game. The message demanded that William go to 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool at 7:30 pm on Tuesday January 20. The intent of this meeting according to the note was to discuss insurance with one R.M. Qualtrough. The following evening William followed the instructions on the note and headed to the address in question. When he arrived close to the destination William found that there was no East Menlove Gardens. William asked many people, including a patrolling police officer and a newsagent to direct him to the address but no one was able to assist him in his search. William even tried calling in to 25 Menlove Gardens West but to no avail. William searched the area for forty five minutes before he returned home. When he reached his home William ran in to his next door neighbors who were leaving for the evening. William met them in the alley and informed them that he was unable to get in to his home through either the front or the back entrance. As his neighbors stood watching, William once again tried the back door only to get inside and find his wife beaten to death in the living room.Two weeks later, William was arrested for the crime but based on re-examination of the evidence in an appeal; William was cleared of the murder. No one was ever held responsible for Julia’s death.Julie WardJulie Ward was a wildlife photographer who was murdered while on safari at the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya. Julie was 28 at the time of her disappearance while on a solo photography safari, her body was found a week after she went missing. When found, Julie’s body was burned and dismembered. Kenyan officials stated that Julie must have been struck by lightning and eaten by lions; however, her father was not willing to accept that explanation and continued to dig for answers. Julie’s father continued to push for answers until it was revealed that the coroner’s report on his daughter’s body had been altered. The report revealed that instead of having gnawed marks on her bones, his daughter’s bones had been cut by a sharp blade indicating that she had been murdered. Julie’s father John has spent more than £2 million seeking answers to his daughter’s death and has visited Kenya over 100 times in an effort to find more answers.To date there have been two trials concerning the murder of Julie Ward. The first of the two trials was held in 1992 when two park rangers were tried for murder; however, they were both acquitted. A second trial was held in 1998 and the head park warden was tried for the crime; however, he too was acquitted of the crime. John Ward believes that the Kenyan government has played a significant role in covering up his daughter’s death in an attempt to prevent it from impacting the tourist industry. Despite many investigations, the case of Julie Ward’s murder has never been solved.The Lake Bodom MurdersOn June 5, 1960 three teenagers were murdered at Lake Bodom in Finland. Early in the morning of June 5, 1060 four teenagers had been camping on the lake’s shores when sometime between 4 and 6 am an unknown suspect or number of suspects attacked all four of them. The four were attacked with a knife as well as a blunt object and while three of the four perished in this multiple homicide, one of the teens survived. The single survivor of the attacks was Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson. Gustafsson continued on with his life until 2004 when he became the subject of the investigation in to the murders. Gustafsson was charged with the murders but in October of 2005 the district court found him not guilty. Two of the three victims were just 15 at the time of their death and the third was 18 as was Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson. The three murder victims were all stabbed and bludgeoned. Gustafsson suffered a concussion, jaw and facial fractures as well as many bruises.After the Lake Bodom murders there were a number of suspects including Pauli Luoma, a runaway from a local work department. Luoma was later cleared of the murders after his alibi was confirmed. Pentti Soininen was also a suspect for the crime. Soininen already convicted of a number of violent crimes as well as property crimes, allegedly admitted to committing the murders while in prison. There was an amount of skepticism about Soininen’s guilt but the truth would never actually be known since he hanged himself at a prisoner transport station in 1969. Valdemar Gyllstrom was another prime suspect in the Lake Bodom murders. Gyllstrom was a kiosk keeper from Oittaa and was known for his aggressive behavior and had apparently confessed to the murders before his death as a result of drowning in Lake Bodom in 1969. No evidence was found to indicate Gyllstrom in the murders although his wife did admit to his alibi for the crime being a lie since her husband had threatened to kill her if she told the truth about his absence the night of the murders. None of the suspects in the multiple murder case were ever convicted and the case remains unsolved.Lynne HarperLynne Harper was a 12 year old girl who disappeared on June 9, 1959 from RCAF Station Clinton in Clinton, Ontario. Two days after her disappearance Lynne’s body was recovered on a farm. It was discovered that Lynne had been raped and strangled with her blouse.Lynne Harper was born on August 31, 1946 in New Brunswick and was known by many as a headstrong and socially active child spending much of her time in Girl Guides, Bible Class and Sunday school. At the time of her disappearance, Lynne was attending Air Vice Marshal Hugh Campbell School in Clinton, Ontario. One of Lynne’s classmates, Steven Truscott who was in her shared 7/8grade class was known to be one of the last to see Lynne on the day of her disappearance. Truscott gave Lynne a ride on his bicycle crossbar. According to Truscott when he was questioned in court about his interaction with Lynne, he left Lynne at the intersection of Highway 8 and County Road. The court Crown however, contended that Truscott had raped and murdered Lynne and left her where her body had later been recovered. Truscott asserted however, that he had turned to see Lynne getting in to a car just after he had left her at the intersection.Truscott was taken in to custody on June 12 and on June 13 he was charged with the murder of Lynn Harper. His trial began on September 16 and on September 30 he was found guilty. Truscott made an appeal on January 21 which was dismissed. Another appeal was made, this time to the Supreme Court of Canada and was denied on February 24. While Truscott received a death sentence for his conviction, he received a commutation of his sentence and he was paroled on October 21, 1969. Revived interest in the Lynne Harper case came about in 2000 when a television interview renewed interest in the case. Attempts were made to recover damning DNA evidence from Lynne’s exhumed body; however, no such evidence was recovered. While Truscott was never declared to be innocent, the court ruled that there was no way to convict him of the crime without a reasonable doubt. Lynne’s family still believes that Truscott was responsible for their daughter’s death.Marilyn Reese SheppardMarilyn Reese Sheppard was murdered on July 4, 1954 in her home in Bay Village, Ohio. Marilyn was pregnant at the time of her murder Marilyn’s husband, Sam Sheppard, claimed that his wife had been killed by a man with bushy hair who had also attacked him and rendered him unconscious twice. While this attack took place Marilyn and Sam’s son slept without awaking in his bedroom located just down the hallway. In the fall of 1954 Sam Sheppard was tried for the murder of his wife. The trial received much press publicity and was frequently compared to a carnival for the amount of attention and press coverage it received. The media was convinced that Sam had murdered his wife and so too was the jury. Sam was found guilty and went on to serve ten years in prison before he was granted a writ of habeas corpus on July 15, 1964. It was found that Sheppard had been denied due process in his trial and he was released from prison. A new trial for Sam was begun with his arraignment on September 8, 1966. Sam pleaded not guilty and on November 16of the same year a not guilty verdict was reached.Sam would be the inspiration for the film “The Fugitive” and would go on to a career as a professional wrestler. During this brief wrestling career, Sam Sheppard would go by the name “The Killer.” Many people believe that Sam really did kill his wife, but whether he did or not the case of the murder of Marilyn Reese Sheppard remains unsolved.Mary MeyerMary Meyer was a Washington DC socialite and a known close friend of President John F. Kennedy. In 1964, Mary Meyer was shot to death when going for a walk on October 12. A nearby mechanic who heard the gunshots is said to have seen an unidentified man standing over Mary’s body. According to the mechanic, the man was black and wore a light jacket, dark slacks and a dark cap. Mary had been shot in the heart and in the back of the head; both bullets were fired at extremely close range.Shortly after the shooting, an African American man named Raymond Crump was arrested near the scene of the crime. Although Crump had no gum on him and had never been linked to owning a gun, he was tried for the crime of murder. On July 29, 1965, Crump would be acquitted of all charges. The murder of Mary Meyer remains unsolved.Mary RogersMary Rogers was commonly referred to as the “Beautiful Cigar Girl.” Mary was born in 1820 and her body was recovered on July 28, 1841 in the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. During her life, Mary Rogers worked in a New York City tobacco shop owned by John Anderson. Mary was well paid since her beauty commonly invited more customers in to the shop. Mary was well known and liked by most clients of the shop and was known to pass flirting glances their way once in a while. On October 5, 1838 however Mary went missing from her home according to a New York Sun article. Mary’s mother, Phoebe Rogers told the New York Sun that she had found a suicide note from her daughter that was deemed by the coroner to be proof of her determination to commit suicide. On October 6however, the Times and Commercial Intelligence newspaper reported that the disappearance was not actually a disappearance at all, rather, Mary had gone to Brooklyn to visit a friend. When Mary returned to work many believed that her disappearance had not been a hoax rather it had been a publicity stunt by the owner of the tobacco shop to get more business.On July 25, 1841 though, Mary Rogers would go missing in a way. Mary told her fiancé, Daniel Payne that she was going to visit family on July 25; however, three days later her body was recovered from the Hudson River in Hoboken. As beautiful and well loved as Mary had been her death caused quite the stir in local newspapers as well as nationally. What was released of the case indicted that Mary had been the subject of foul play being either murdered or dumped in the river and left for dead after abortionist Madame Restell had attempted to conduct a procedure on her. Months after the recovery of Mary’s body her fiancé would commit suicide by poison.No one really knows what happened to Mary Rogers, many believe that she had been the victim of gang violence. One woman, Frederica Loss also came forward and told that Mary had certainly died after a failed abortion attempt by Madame Restell. The case would never be solved however when press coverage switched gears a couple of months later Samuel Adams was murdered by John C Colt. Although her murder was never solved, Mary Rogers was fictionalized in the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Mystery of Marie Roget.”The Murder of Thelma ToddThelma Todd, also known as Thelma Alice Todd and “Hot Toddy” was an actress on the American Hollywood scene in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Thelma Todd lived in an apartment above the café that she ran on the Roosevelt Highway, the Sidewalk Café. Just uphill from the café, Thelma had a garage. On December 15, 1035, Thelma Todd was found dead inside this garage, behind the steering wheel of her Packard convertible. At the time there were some who believed that she had committed suicide or accidentally killed herself while warming up her car in the garage; however, signs of foul play came to light. Thelma had blood on her mouth and there were traces on blood on the car as well along with a smudged hand print on the car door. Thelma’s blood alcohol level was too high to have allowed her to climb the 300 uphill steps to the garage in her high heel shoes. Despite these findings however, the death of Thelma Todd was ultimately ruled a suicide after the hearing of evidence that she was depressed and occasionally spoke of suicide. The facts still seem to indicate that there was foul play involved in her death though, but unfortunately for Thelma, no one will ever know what really happened in that garage.Olof PalmeOlof Palme was the prime minister of Sweden from October 14, 1969 to October 8, 1976. During his time as prime minister of Sweden, Palme had many strong opinions in regard to a number of highly volatile issues including the world powers involved in the Cold War, particularly for the role of the United States in the Vietnam War which put a number of nuclear weapons throughout Europe, something which Palme did not agree with at all. Palme’s criticism of the role of America in the Vietnam War cause extremely strained relationships between Sweden and the United States and it is because of this tension that many believe that the eventual assassination was a result of his opinions.Palme spent much of his role as prime minister without a security detail, believing that he was not in any danger; however, just before midnight on February 28 of 1986, Palme and his wife were returning from the movie theater when they were fired on by an assassin. While Palme’s wife survived her gunshot wound, Palme was not so lucky and died upon his arrival to the hospital. One man, a local thief and drug addict was arrested for the crime and convicted; however, his conviction was later overturned leaving the crime unsolved. Many people believe that due to his strong opinions on the Cold War during his role as prime minister, that Palme was assassinated by members of the American CIA or perhaps the Russian KGB, but no proof has ever been discovered to support either theory.More recently records from a German interrogation indicate that the assassination was carried out by a Yugoslavian UDBA operative who currently lives in Croatia; however, to date there has been little to come of this discovery.Oscar RomeroBorn Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, Oscar Romero was recognized for his position as bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. Oscar Romero was born in August of 1917 and went on to become the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador after Luis Chavez. On March 24, 1980 Oscar Romero was assassinated during a mass he was conducting at the hospital La Divina Providencia. The assassination of Romero immediately followed a sermon he had given the preceding day demanding that soldiers of El Salvador must stop repressing citizens and refusing them basic human rights as they were being instructed to do by the government. Romero instructed the soldiers to be men of God and follow the higher ruling of God himself. A 1993 report by the United Nations supports the theory that the assassination of Romero was carried out by a squad of men trained and funded by the United States, charging Roberto D’Aubuisson, a former Major with instructing the squad to carry out the plan for the assassination. One of the men who is identified to have been an active member of the death squad involved in the assassination, Álvaro Rafael Saravia, was found liable in 2004 for aiding, conspiring and participating in the assassination and was ordered to pay a fine of $10 million.During the funeral of Romero, a smoke grenade was activated and multiple rifle shots heard across the square, somewhere between 30 and 50 individuals were killed and a number of others were wounded during the display. Even as the body of Romero was being laid to rest, the gunfire continued to ring out.There is no concrete evidence to point to those responsible for the acts that killed Romero or those who were killed during his funeral, no one has officially been charged with the assassination while Saravia was charged with taking part in the assassination plan.Peter IversPeter Ivers was another big name in American entertainment whose death remains a mystery. Known for his position as an American musician, Ivers was the host of the New Wave Theater. In a strange similarity to the Bob Crane murder mystery, Ivers was also found bludgeoned to death in his Los Angeles apartment. Ivers was killed in his bed in his apartment which was located in a seedy part of LA. Ivers murderer was never identified either but the case is still open. In 2008 a book called “In Heaven Everything is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of the New Wave Theatre” was published by Josh Frank and Charlie Buckholtz. Upon researching for the book new evidence was unearthed in the case forcing the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen their investigation. Upon his death, hundreds of Ivers friends had flocked to his apartment to mourn their lost friend and in doing so they compromised much of the evidence that had possibly been in the apartment. This is just one reason that is given for the unsolved status of Ivers death, other believe that the laundry list of friends and acquaintances that Ivers had also contributed to the inability to solve his death.A number of theories abound about the potential cause for Peter Iver’s murder. Some say that Ivers was killed as the result of a botched robbery. Others believed that Ivers was killed by one of the hecklers in the audience of the New Wave Theater. Unfortunately though, none of these theories came to fruition and the murder of Peter Ivers remains unsolved.Rashawn BrazellThe case of the murder of Rashawn Brazell has gone down in history as one of the most horrific murder cases in New York State. 19 year old Rashawn disappeared from his Bushwick, Brooklyn home in February of 2005. Rashawn had been scheduled to meet his accountant on the morning of February 14, 2005 before heading out to meet his mother for lunch in Manhattan. That morning at around 7:30 AM an unknown male rang the buzzer for Rashawn and Rashawn went down to meet him and the two walked to Gates Avenue Station together. According to eyewitnesses, the two exited the subway at Nostrand Avenue station in Bedford, Stuyvesant. This is the last time that Rashawn Brazell would be seen alive. Four days later two bags of body parts were found on the tracks at the subway station according to the New York Post. The fingerprints of the victim were identified as being those of Rashawn Brazell. No other information has been recovered about the identity of the unknown male who accompanies Rashawn to the subway station and no breaks have been made in the case to date. Rashawn’s case has been profiled on America’s Most Wanted a total of five times on the television as well as three times on the radio, yet no new leads have been generated that can help to solve the murder of Rashawn.Robert WoneRobert Eric Wone was living in Washington, DC at the time of his murder. Wone was 32 and living in Oakton, Virginia where he commuted to Washington, D.C. to work as a lawyer. On the night of his murder, Wone had been staying with some friends who lived just a mile from his office in D.C. At the time of his attack in August, 2006, the townhouse where Wone was staying was, strangely enough, not empty at the time of his attack. Also inside the home at the time of the attack were Victor Zaborsky, Joseph Prince and Dylan Ward. According to police, on the night of his death, Wone was restrained, incapacitated and sexually assaulted before he was stabbed to death.Police spoke with the three men who lived in the home and found their calm behavior to be quite suspect. Although the men did call an ambulance, they were not seen as being distraught or eager to help the paramedics once they arrived. The men became suspects in the murder, although many suspected their involvement due to their homosexuality and the fact that Wone had been sexually interfered with prior to his death. Ultimately police found the crime scene to have been tampered with which led to more delay in the investigation. The three roommates would eventually be tried for obstruction however; all three were found not guilty. Wone’s wife would later file a civil lawsuit for wrongful death against the three men which would be settled for an undisclosed amount on August 3, 2011.The murder of Robert Wone was never solved; however, it has become quite a popular case in Washington, DC particularly due to the involvement of the gay community.Rose HarsentThe murder of Rose Harsent is more often referred to as the Peasenhall Murder. Rose Harsent was a servant girl at a central home in Peasenhall, Suffolk, England. On the night of May 31, 1902 at approximately midnight and during a thunderstorm, Rose Harsent was murdered. Rose was found stabbed to death and it was soon discovered that she was six months pregnant at the time of her death. At first the police called to the scene believed it was a suicide but their investigation soon turned up other theories. Local Methodist preacher William Gardiner was believed to have been having an affair with Rose in 1901 and was also alleged to be the father of her unborn child. At the time of the murder, Gardiner had a wife and six children and lived just down the street from the home where Rose worked as a servant. Police arrested Gardiner twice as a suspect in Rose’s murder, once in 1902 and once in 1903, however, both trials resulted with a hung jury and the trial was acquitted. Very few people in the case history of English law have ever been tried for murder with the result being no verdict at all. In 1941, Gardiner died without ever being convicted of Rose’s murder. Some believe that Gardiner was innocent after all and it was his jealous wife who murdered Rose, but no one was ever formally convicted of the crime.Suzanne JovinSuzanne Jovin was a 21 year old senior at Yale University at the time of her murder in 1998. Jovin was found stabbed to death off campus and the investigation in to her death has yet to yield a valid suspect. Jovin was a German born American student who volunteered as a tutor, sang in chorus and worked in the Davenport dining hall on campus.On the night of her murder, Jovin was headed to the Yale police communications center on the old Yale campus. She decided to walk there to return keys to a car that she had borrowed. At approximately 9:22pm, Jovin ran in to a classmate, Peter Stein who was out getting a breath of air. Stein mentioned that Jovin had not mentioned plans for the rest of the evening other than to say that she was very tired and looked forward to going to bed when she got home. Stein noticed that Jovin was holding a sheet of paper in her hand but said that she did not look agitated or nervous. It is believed that after this encounter, Jovin returned the keys to the car that she had borrowed and she was last seen between 9:25 and 9:30pm. At the time of her last sighting, Jovin was walking northeast on College Street.At 9:55 pm someone called 911 and reported seeing a woman bleeding around 2 miles from where Jovin was last seen alive. Four minutes after the call the police arrived on the scene and found Jovin who had been stabbed 17 times in the back of the head and neck. Jovin also had her throat slit. There were no signs of robbery; however, Jovin had left her wallet back in her room. At 10:26pm Jovin was pronounced dead at Yale New Haven Hospital.Investigators in Jovin’s murder found DNA under Jovin’s fingernails of her left hand, Jovin’s fingerprints along with an unknown person’s partial palm print on a soda bottle close to where her body was found and the tip of the knife used to kill Jovin. In addition to this evidence, observers noted a brown van that had been parked adjacent to where Jovin’s body was found, a man running the opposite direction to where Jovin’s body was found and the mention of an unknown “someone” by Jovin in an email sent shortly before her death. While Jovin’s thesis advisor was once believed to have played a role in her death, he was never found guilty and her murder remains an unsolved crime.The Zodiac KillerThe Zodiac Killer goes down in history as the second most notorious unsolved serial murder plague under Jack the Ripper. More than 2,500 suspects were interviewed in connection to the Zodiac Killer case and yet not one of them was held accountable and the cases were never solved. The Zodiac Killer is known to have murdered at least five victims in Benicia, Lake Berryessa, Vallejo and San Francisco between December of 1968 and October of 1969. The targets of the Zodiac Killer’s attacks were both men and women between the ages of 16 and 29. In total, known victims of the Zodiac Killer include four men and three women, five of which were murdered. It is very possible that there were other victims of the Zodiac Killer that were never identified due to a lack of evidence linking them to him or the other victims. The Zodiac Killer himself claimed to have taken the lives of 37 people in total. The case of the Zodiac Killer was never solved and although there were a few “good” suspects at the time, there simply was no way of tying any one of them to the murders conclusively due to poor forensic technology. The Zodiac utilized letters and newspaper coverage to taunt local authorities, included in these letters were four cryptograms, only one of which was every solved definitively. It was through his letters that the Zodiac Killer got his nickname.Over time, many people have come forward with their own theories about who the Zodiac Killer is, some of whom claim it is their friend or even their father. Unfortunately, studies of evidence and items belonging to these people have yet to prove any conclusive connection to the Zodiac Killer.Source: Most Famous Unsolved Murders of All Time | Exploring Lifes Mysteries

George Floyd’s murder was one tragedy among many, caused by savage and inhuman treatment on mercilessly horrific display. His death on a street corner in Minneapolis is an unethical disgrace, a lunge at the beating heart of African-American society, and a disservice to those who’ve dedicated their careers to cultivating amicable relations between communities and the police departments that serve them. This is irreparable devastation to the Floyd family. Above all, this is an ignominious attack that no person should face, irrespective of their ethnicity or creed or even their criminal record.I tend to withhold my opinion from public view on topics that I’m consciously ignorant of and fail to respond to questions that I cannot, in my judgement, write a fitting answer to. The pressure mounts to type the sentence “rioting is bad, but let us not forget the murder and militarisation that catalysed this lawlessness”. Take what you will from that statement. A decent portion of individuals will interpret that sentence differently, depending on where they position themselves in this fervid discussion. A troublesome tightrope I wouldn’t normally dare tread. After seeing placards reading “White Silence is White Compliance”, I consider that an open invitation to chime in.As we look upon the events that have transpired, it’s easy to fall down a rabbit-hole of lambasting protesters. I could talk about how rioting, pillaging, inflicting criminal damage, assault, arson, bloodshed, adversarial dialogue, and defiling war memorials have marred the message of Black Lives Matter. I could talk about the flouting of social distancing guidelines, which were set up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with the intent of saving lives. But I won’t just yet.Why? When discussing this critical juncture in American race relations, we must acknowledge (as the question does) that there are many protests, thus to ignore the peaceful demonstrations while amplifying the disorderly chaos would be wrong. Riots and clashes with the police in Portland do not negate the fairly cordial events that other areas have hosted. My native city of Birmingham, for example, welcomed a peaceful protest. Same applies to police officers, hence why the splenetic and misrepresentative chants of “all cops are bastards” don’t settle nicely, especially when exported to faraway places where excessive force is not a salient issue.On top of that, it’s also required to first understand the source tapping into the justifiable outrage that provoked a nationwide taking to the streets, in the middle of a pandemic no less. A grim image of the remnants of Jesse Washington’s castrated and scorched body illustrates the gravity of the situation.Harken back to the deaths or beatings or lynchings of Stephen Lawrence, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, David Dungay, Mike Brown, John Crawford III, Jonathan Ferrell, Rodney King, Kelly Thomas, Breonna Taylor, Henry Glover, Walter Scott, Ronald Madison, James Brissette, Timothy Stansbury, and more historical cases like Jesse Washington, John Heath, George Meadows, John William Clarke, Charles Cora, James Casey, James Sullivan, William Howard, and Benjamin Payne.If they weren’t murdered, would we be having this conversation? Of course not. If ex-officer Derek Chauvin restrained Floyd in a proportional manner compliant with the restraint techniques permitted by the Minneapolis Police Department, would there have been as much of a furore? No. The conclusion can be made and must be made that any following pandemonium shall be laid at the feet of:Derek Chauvin, the man who killed Floyd.The three ex-officers who are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree homicide.The police chiefs and union leaders turning a blind eye (for Minneapolis, Bob Kroll).Radical agitators and thugs, who are in fact among the worst enemies of the police reform cause, taking advantage of the situation.The attorneys who declined to prosecute the officers involved in similar incidents of reported police misconduct and brutality.Massively inconvenient for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, one such lawyer is potential running mate Amy Klobuchar. As County Attorney of Hennepin County, she failed to step up to the plate in prosecuting Chauvin for his involvement in the shooting of Wayne Reyes in 2006. No charges were brought against the officers involved. Because of this, one can imagine Senator Klobuchar could be snubbed from the Democratic presidential ticket and denied her seat at the right-hand of Biden.This is what Weezy meant by getting “very specific […] we have to stop laying the blame on the whole force and everybody of a certain race”. Playing divisive identity politics and antagonising all officers ought not to be considered a display of virtue, but rather a captious distraction from the real divides in society. As Al Sharpton said in a eulogy for Floyd: “Time is out for not holding you accountable. Time is out for you making excuses. Time is out for you trying to stall. Time is out for empty words and empty promises. Time is out for you filibustering and trying to stall the arm of justice”.An unarmed cooperative man was killed for carrying a counterfeit $20 bill. Ask a bank cashier (as I have done for the purposes of writing this answer) and you will discover that finding counterfeit money is fairly commonplace, at least common enough for a lone forged $20 bill to not arouse much suspicion.There is nothing to suggest Floyd was knowingly carrying fake cash. It only ever results in a conviction if the defendant carries the money with unlawful intent, yet Floyd was denied a chance to make his defence.In stark contrast, the world watches with bated breath as authorities embark on diplomatic extradition battles for the likes of Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Carlos Ghosn. He was arrested in Japan on charges of financial misconduct, yet notoriously bail-jumped and fled to Beirut in December 2019, escaping what he described as an “outrageous and arbitrary” imprisonment that amounted to “persecution”. The Chairman is now an internationally-wanted fugitive. Japan and Lebanon have no extradition treaty with each other. Incredibly influential nations such as France rush to defend Ghosn and insist they won’t partake in any extradition.Marcell Rich was indicted for, among other things, trading with Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979. Fifty-two US embassy staff were held captive. He violated numerous trade embargoes, operating in contravention of sanctions placed on Iran, Slobodan Milošević’s Yugoslavia, and Apartheid South Africa. Upon conviction, Marcell Rich would have faced a hefty sentence. Rich travelled to Switzerland, never returning to the United States. In spite of this, Rich received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton in 2001, mere hours before he left office.Having recently failed to stop her extradition, CFO of Huawei Meng Wanzhou was not as fortunate as the aforementioned motor and oil magnates, yet even she was not assuredly acquainted with the crushing sensation of a knee forcibly pressed on her neck. Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on charges of fraud; she was also accused of breaching US sanctions on Iran. After months of deliberation and an extradition hearing, during which Wanzhou was allowed to live a cushy lifestyle on bail, the Supreme Court of British Columbia circumspectly issued an Authority to Proceed. Later, it was declared the requirement of double criminality had been met. They made this decision not without carefully citing legal precedent in the extradition of George Collins to the United States in 1905. For all the accusations of fraud, alleged involvement in racketeering, a damning indictment of theft of intellectual property (namely trade secrets), an ongoing trade war with China, and soaring tensions in the Persian Gulf after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani — even with all this, Wanzhou did not meet the same untimely demise as Mr Floyd. The course of justice was uninterrupted.Not for one moment am I suggesting Wanzhou should be denied the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, but the same should be expected for a man who committed such an unremarkable act as buying a pack of cigarettes.How can any nation claim to be a perfectly just society, under the rule of law, when Floyd’s mistreatment is examined side-by-side with those three cases? In acknowledgement of this, I believe the protests are partly justified.As for those who try to excuse Floyd’s death as something inevitable or deserving, I can only say this. Floyd already served sentences for his previous crimes (including theft, criminal trespassing, cocaine possession). Any further punishment would be unlawful. So Chauvin and his colleagues deserve everything that’s coming to them. Any attempt to justify Floyd’s murder due to his criminal record is a tu quoque. YouTuber Maria Angela, better known as Riss Flex, perfectly exhibits this appeal to hypocrisy. She also insinuates, and I won’t feature her content on my answer, that Chauvin and the rioters are in league with the Democratic Party. The story goes: Floyd was timely executed in a false-flag attack so that his death would serve to divert the press from Hillary Clinton’s recent deposition over her e-mail practices. One would have ingenuously hoped this type of fringe discussion died with Texe Marrs. Apparently not.By effectively condemning Floyd to death, the four ex-officers usurped the powers of the Judiciary, which is a violation of the Peelian Principles (or as it’s also known, policing by consent or community policing). The principles include, but are not limited to:The basic mission of policing is the prevention of crime rather than the repression of crime through military force.The ability to do this is dependent on the maintenance of public approval and respect.The preservation of public approval is not by catering to whimsical public opinion, but by adhering to the rule of law, regardless of race and social status.Police officers should use physical force to a necessary extent to maintain observation of the law and the safety of everyone present, and only when persuasion and warnings (either verbal or visual) are found to be ineffective.Police action should always revolve around the function of the police force. Officers must not usurp the powers of the Judiciary by judging guilt or punishing the guilty.The litmus test for efficient policing is the absence of crime rather than visible repression.If you want a better understanding of the Peelian Principles, the College of Policing website is a good place to start.For those who may not know, the Peelian Principles take their name from Tory Home Secretary and later British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, a statesman who laid down the foundations for an ethical police force. Mentioning Peel brings me to the disorderly chaos.Several petitions have surfaced, appealing for the removal of Peel’s statues in the cities of Bury, Manchester, Preston, Leeds, and Glasgow. One monument in Glasgow was defaced with a crimson red hammer & sickle. A petition from Glasgow also read that Peel “actively petitioned against the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill” of 1806. This is false. Peel’s father, also called Robert Peel, built his wealth on the infant textile industry. The younger Peel, however, left quite a different legacy, namely repealing the Corn Laws and founding the Met.The death of George Floyd has developed into somewhat of a cultural revolution on a level I have not seen before. Tearing down the statues of the likes of Henry Dundas, Edward Colston, and Jefferson Davis is a movement I’m not totally out-of-step with. I distinctly remember learning about Colston’s Bristol statue in primary school. The age-old debate on whether his statue deserves to be dismantled is over. I feel that commemorating monuments to the victims of the slave trade in the form of a plaque is a suitable compromise. That way, by keeping the statues standing, there is no whitewash. There is only exposure. There is only historical education.In other news, Gladstone Hall at the University of Liverpool was recently changed in name. The hall is named after Prime Minister William Gladstone. His father was a prosperous slaver and plantation owner. Gladstone opposed the emancipation of slaves and debated against the Great Reform Act in his early Oxford Union days. He supported the secession of the Confederate States of America but later regretted the decision. Nonetheless, Gladstone reconciled his misdeeds within a 60-year career as a statesman and became a mainstream liberal figurehead in British history. For the large brunt of his work, Gladstone brought sweeping electoral reform, improved working conditions, and drew attention to numerous atrocities such as the Batak massacre in Ottoman Bulgaria. Are we not able to honour the good in a person without exalting the bad?Earl Douglas Haig, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, and Robert the Bruce were among other statues and memorials vandalised. The Cenotaph also fell to desecration, including a woman attempting to set the union flag on fire. Will we have any statues left if we judge nineteenth-century figures by twenty-first-century values?You might retort and say we will still be left with worthy abolitionist figureheads. As it turns out, even they aren’t safe. The defacing of a particular statue comes to mind, one of Matthias W. Baldwin. A strong abolitionist situated in Philadelphia, Baldwin stood against slavery for years, arguably at a grave financial cost from losing out to his pro-slavery Southern competitors in the locomotive industry. Baldwin invested in schools for African-Americans and sought the right to vote regardless of race. He was no racist colonialist profiteer. Evidently, the defacing of his statue demonstrates an impulsive (maybe irrational) eagerness to be virtuous without prior research or appreciating the academic rule of historical relativism.And that’s not all. Another jarring facet of these protests is the blatant violation of social distancing. This might be seen as a petty objection by some; I assure you it isn’t. The question of a second wave poses an ethical problem. It is universally known that SARS-CoV-2 can kill. What isn’t as widely known is that COVID-19 is also found to trigger toxic shock syndrome in children as well as rare symptoms similar to the Kawasaki disease. Protesters may be assisting in five-year-old children developing horrific conditions, with an abnormally high probability. Baffling how protesters, many of whom likely berated Dominic Cummings for allegedly violating lockdown rules a fortnight ago, now take pride in doing so.Black Lives Matter protests in Parliament Square in June 2020This is not limited to the Black Lives Matter protesters. The counter-protests and the libertarian anti-quarantine protests in Michigan equally share the blame.Now onto celebrities, some have taken a nuanced approach. Others have opted to subtly trash white people. The comedian (more of an ideologue) Frankie Boyle has predictably joined the fad. Speaking of white people, James Corden said this is “our problem to solve” since this is an issue white people created, an assertion I will not accept. Logan Paul went on a tirade about white privilege, which poses a whole set of issues to talk through for another time. Ant & Dec, Keith Lemon, and several other comedians apologised for skits portraying minority-ethnic characters. Much-loved comedies like Little Britain and Fawlty Towers have had episodes taken down by the BBC, Netflix, and UKTV. I wager Citizen Khan will be another target.The question remains: who is complaining about these shows, except a bunch of polemical journalists running short of article material?Writing for Forbes magazine, Stephen Frost advised white people to make way for “a black person who can talk more authentically about this than you ever can”. I’m not surprised by this presumptuous article given the fact Frost runs a diversity & inclusion consultancy, so he has a stake in the business.Some protesters paraded banners saying “the UK invented racism”. There’s an inexplicable obsession revolving around acts committed by long-dead aristocratic Europeans, and yet somehow there are compilations of humble white individuals masochistically “taking responsibility” for the bloodstained chapters of Occidental history. Along with this lies an insistence that white people must personally apologise for an Atlantic slave trade abolished generations ago, a trade which few white people partook in. Many organised to condemn the practice of slavery. The same insistence cannot be expected for other parts of the world. We do not see celebrities asking for the African populace to apologise for endemic child labour, the tyrannical rule of African despots, and modern slavery. It is immoral and impractical to hold any particular populace to account over something beyond its direct control.In some dissidents, there seems to be an element that desperately tries to import American events into the conversation surrounding British policing, which undermines any discussion of the varied issues that exist in the United Kingdom. The extension of the “defund the police” argument to Britain is a false equivalence. Much like how some protesters shouted expletives at the Downing Street gates, as though they’re blaming the Metropolitan Police for the actions of several officers from the Minneapolis Police Department. Defunding the police is only palatable when regarding demilitarisation, which is hardly a pertinent discussion in British policy-making. As of 2019, in terms of law enforcement killings per 10 million people, British cops are sixty-seven times less deadly than their American counterparts [1] [2]. I refuse to have British police coopted as being part-and-parcel of American police brutality. Even Shadow Home Secretary Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds agrees.The Minneapolis City Council resoundingly voted to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Mayor Jacob Frey, despite his propitiations, was hounded by protesters who “don’t want no more police”. CNN invited one of the councillors to explain how this would work and the alternatives to law enforcement that will be available. In reply to a question about who would handle burglaries, the councillor said: “I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbours […] I know that comes from a place of privilege”. A woeful response to a ‘privileged question’, I’m sure you’ll all agree. It completely overlooks the merits of the police force and trivialises the genuine concerns over “defunding” the police. The death of a black man is no reason to argue in bad faith.A large demonstration was held demanding the removal of a Cecil Rhodes statue in Oriel College, Oxford. It saw anti-Jewish rhetoric of the US police being trained by a so-called “Israeli oppression army”. There is no place for AntiFa hoodlums beating up civilians and police officers (some left in critical condition), smashing up cars, inciting violence against white people, and looting businesses built by the toil of law-abiding citizens. As I said earlier, thugs are among the worst enemies of the police reform cause and must be decried as such.Needless to say, we can have a rational debate about reform without all this upheaval.

To this day, debate continues regarding whether or not former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson received a fair trial which lead to his conviction for sexually assaulting Desiree Washington. Perhaps the best information regarding the debate is from the appellate court decisions themselves.Refusal to Allow Impeaching Witnesses to TestifyIn his appeal,Mike Tyson argued that the trial court erred when it refused to permit him to call as witnesses three women who came forward during the course of the trial: Carla Martin, Pam Lawrence, and R Renee Neal, all of whom would have contradicted Desiree Washington’s version of events.Martin was anticipated to testify that Martin and Lawrence were in a car parked in front of the Canterbury Hotel at approximately 1:40 a.m. on July 19, 1991, waiting for a friend, Renee Neal. While there, Martin observed a limousine pull in front of the hotel. Martin saw a man and a woman “hugging and kissing” in the backseat of the limousine (who turned out to be Tyson and Washington).Ms. Martin exclaimed to Ms. Lawrence that the two were all over each other. Martin would testify that she then observed the African-American woman with shoulder-length curly hair and Tyson, whom Martin immediately recognized, exit the backseat of the limousine and enter the hotel. As Tyson and the woman entered the hotel together, Martin saw Renee Neal, who was exiting the hotel, bump into the couple. Martin also observed that, as the couple entered the hotel, the woman “move[d] toward Mr. Tyson until their upper bodies appeared to be touching, and she appeared to put her arm in Mr. Tyson’s.”Lawrence, if called as a witness, would testify that she heard Ms. Martin remark that the two people in the limousine were all over one another. Ms. Lawrence looked over and saw two persons sitting in the backseat of the limousine in close proximity to one another.Neal’s testimony would be that she “observed the man and woman [who had exited a gold limousine] holding hands as they entered the hotel.”Their testimony would have contradicted Desiree Washington’s version of events, for she testified that Tyson hugged and kissed her when she first got into the limousine at her hotel, but no further physical contact occurred in the limousine thereafter, and that she walked into his hotel behind him, not arm-in-arm or holding hands.The trial judge ruled that the witnesses had come forward too late, and that the Defendant took too long to notify the Court about their existence and intent to use them. The trial began on January 27, 1992. The witnesses came forward to the defense team on January 30, 1992. The prosecution was first notified about the witnesses on February 2, 1992.In Tyson v. State, 619 N.E.2d 276 (Ind.App. 2 Dist., 1993), in a 2 to 1 vote, the Indiana Court of Appeals refused to reverse his conviction and grant Tyson a new trial. The Court agreed that it was clear that the anticipated testimonywould have contradicted the testimony of Washington that there was no physical contact between her and Tyson after the limousine left her hotel.Nevertheless, as impeaching evidence, the Courtof Appeals held that the excluded testimony was cumulative. Washington was impeached on other points, including the details of the rape. For example, fellow Miss Black America pageant contestant Madeline Whittington testified that Washington told her she was going out with Tyson and stated, “This is Mike Tyson. He’s got a lot of money. He’s dumb. You see what Robin Givens got out of him.”Pasha Oliver, one of Washington’s roommates during the pageant, testified that Washington told her Tyson restrained her during the rape by pinning her wrists together and covering her mouth with his arm or hand, and that she asked Tyson to take her home after the rape and he refused, which made her angry. Again, Washington expressly denied both of these things.Further, there was additional testimony that Washington gave conflicting accounts of how the incidents in question occurred.The majority noted that the dissent argued that the excluded testimony was not cumulative, but “is different in kind and character from other evidence adduced at trial.” It made this statement based upon the conclusion that “the manner in which Tyson and D.W. acted toward each other shortly before the acts complained of has extreme relevance to whether or not Tyson might have reasonably believed, from all the surrounding circumstances and events, that D.W. consented even though as a factual matter she did not consent.”Yet, ultimately the Court of Appeals held that the evidence of the conduct that occurred between Tyson and Washington in the limousine before they entered the hotel and their conduct as they entered the hotel was not crucial, considering the spectrum of evidence that corroborated the determination that Tyson reasonably and honestly believed Washington would consent to sexual conduct in the future, and the spectrum of impeaching evidence that was admitted during the course of the trial, including Washington’s inconsistent descriptions of the critical details of the conduct that occurred in Tyson’s hotel room. Therefore, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the testimony of Martin, Lawrence, and Neal was not vital to Tyson’s defense.Exclusion of Evidence of Desiree Washington’s Prior Sexual History and Incidents With Her ParentsTyson also argued that the State’s examination of Washington, as well as its opening and closing arguments, left the jury with the impression that she was a “sexual innocent whose religious beliefs prohibited any premarital sex and who was far too naive to understand the implications of going to Tyson’s hotel room in the middle of the night.” Tyson cited portions of Washington’s testimony which he asserted created an impression of innocence, including that she was active in her church, a doer of good deeds, and an award-winning student. He contended that the State’s characterization of her during opening and closing arguments as a “kid” with “eyes this big” who put on her “jammies” before bed and who expected to go home “the same girl” after her date with Tyson further enhanced this image.Hence, he argued that he should have been able to challenge and impeach this impression of an “angelic image” by cross-examining her about her sexual history and prior sexual conduct. However, the Court of Appeals held that Tyson’s legal counsel failed to preserve the issue, even though it specifically requested to be allowed to enter such evidence into the record, and the judge refused.Tyson further argued that the trial court erred in preventing him from referring to incidents between Washington and her parents which would have given her a motive to fabricate the rape charge. Again, the Court of Appeals held that counsel failed to preserve the issue properly, even though his counsel had requested to admit the evidence and make an offer of proof, which request was denied.Admission of Hearsay EvidenceTyson argued that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence an audio tape of the phone call Washington placed to 911 24 hours after he allegedly raped her. The Court of Appeals ruled that at most, it was harmless error.Erroneous Jury InstructionsTyson argued that the trial court should have provided the jury with several requested jury instructions, which was prejudicial to him. He wanted instructions regarding mistake of fact and reasonable belief. He argued that even if in fact Washington in her own mind was not consenting, if a reasonable person in Tyson’s position mistakenly believed that she was consenting, then he could not be found guilty.Tyson testified, “I believe that we had both made it clear earlier that day what was going to happen. … I’m sure we made it clear.” Tyson testified that earlier in the day, soon after he had met Washington, he explained to her “that I wanted to fuck her,” and she responded, “Sure, just give me a call.” At nearly 2 a.m., he picked her up from her hotel, she went with him to his hotel, and they went into his hotel room and had sex.He said Washington responded in a positive manner to his kissing in the limousine while riding to his hotel, and that while he was kissing her in the hotel room she was “dropping her jacket, you know, getting her jacket off quick.” He also testified that he complied with Washington’s request not to ejaculate in her and that he asked her to stay the night.He further testified:Q.: Did you undress her?A.: I did.* * * * * *Q.: What happened then, Mr. Tyson?A.: As I’m kissing her, she’s moving fast. I’m kissing her. She dropping [sic] her jacket…. I’m kissing on her neck and I’m kissing her around the ears, the back of her neck, her chest, her nipples, her stomach, and I believe she had a white shirt on as well. She’s trying to get that off. So I came back while she was taking it off and she had taken off those shorts–she had some shorts. She took off her shorts. I took my shirt off at the time. She had took [sic] off her underwear and the underwear dropped to her knees, and I pulled the underwears [sic] off, and then I took off–I had shorts that I had took off [sic]. I continued kissing on her body.Q.: Then what happened?* * * * * *A.: We were having oral sex a little while, and she had told me to stop, and she had told me to come up, come up. She said, “No, come up.”Q.: Meaning what?A.: Indicating that she wanted me to insert my penis in her.* * * * * *Q.: And what did you do then?A.: She had told me not to come in her. She said, “Don’t come in me, don’t come in me. I’m not on the pill,” and I pulled back and I ejaculated on her stomach and her leg.Washington testified that when Tyson saw she was crying during the rape and after the two acts of criminal deviate conduct (oral and digital sex), he asked if she wanted to “get on top,” to which she responded in the affirmative without “then explaining to him that she agreed to go on top only because she thought it would enable her to get away,” and that she asked Tyson to, “Please put a condom on” and said, “I don’t need a baby.” Tyson argued that such statements would give a reasonable person the belief that she was consenting, even if she was not.Washington’s testimony on direct examination included:A.: I walked out of the room, out of the bathroom … and then I glanced over and I saw the Defendant in his underwear….Q.: What was your reaction?A.: I was terrified.Q.: What did you say?A.: “It’s time for me to leave.”Q.: Like that?A.: Yeah.Q.: And his response?A.: “Come here.” And he grabbed my arm, and then he was, like, “Don’t fight me. Come here,” and then he stuck his tongue in my mouth.Q.: What did you do?A.: Just pulled back…. He started saying, “Don’t fight me.” I tried to fight him…. It was like hitting a wall. It didn’t do anything.Q.: What did he do next?A.: He started taking off that outer jacket that I had on. He started taking that off, and I’m like, “Get off me. Stop. Get off me,” and he just kept going. Then the next thing I knew, he put me down on the bed or slammed me actually down on the bed, and he started grabbing the rest of the stuff down, and he kept kissing me and kept saying, “Don’t fight me, don’t fight me, relax, don’t fight me.”Q.: Did you try to negotiate with him?A.: Yeah. That was after he put his hands in me, his fingers, in my vagina.Q.: Okay, How did he get his hand down there?A.: He was between my legs, and he just put his fingers in there, started jamming them in really, really hard, and that’s when tears started to come to my eyes, and I was, like, “Owww, please, stop.”Q.: Did you mention to him that you were worried about pregnancy?A.: Yeah. That was–he started to pull out his penis, and he was over me, and I just freaked out and I started saying anything because I knew that hitting him and stuff wasn’t going to help me. So, I just started saying anything that I could think of, like, “Please, I have a future ahead of me. Please, I have college. I can’t have a baby. What are you doing?” You know, “Please put a condom on.” I was just–anything to get him off of me so that I could get out of there, and he was just, like, “Well, I don’t have anything and I know that you don’t.” I’m like, “Please, I don’t need a baby. I don’t need a baby.” I was begging him. I was saying anything that I could say to him, and nothing worked. He was just, like, “So we’ll have a baby,” and he just jammed himself in me…. [H]e exposed his penis.Q.: What did he do then?A.: He jammed it in my vagina.Q.: What did you do?A.: I screamed out–not screamed, but I was like, “Owww,” and then I just started crying and I–Q.: Pain again?A.: Yes.Q.: Did you tell him you hurt?A.: Yes…. It was just excruciating. It just hurt. He just slammed himself in me. It just felt like someone was ripping me apart. I don’t know how to explain it. It just hurt.Q.: Okay. What efforts, if any, did you make to try to get loose, to try to get away?A.: I was trying to punch him and stuff like that. I was trying to back up. I was trying to do a lot of things. Nothing worked.Q.: Okay. What’s he doing while you’re trying to do all this?A.: He was telling me not to fight him, and then he started saying, “Don’t fight me, mommy. Don’t fight me,” and he just kept going. He just kept slamming himself really hard.Q.: Did you change position?A.: At one point, he said, “Oh, you’re crying,” and he stopped for a second and his voice started to, like, be a little bit normal again, and then he just turned evil again, and really mean, and his eyes got all mean, and he just kept going really hard, and then he goes, like, “Well, do you want to be on top?” and I thought I could get away. So I said, “Yeah,” and I was crying when I said it, and he flipped over. Then I tried to get away, and he was, like, “I told you not to fight me,” and he slammed me back down again and rolled back over again.Q.: Okay. Do you have any idea as to how long he remained inside of you?A.: Until he was done…. Until he ejaculated.Q.: Did you see him do that?A.: Yes.Q.: Tell us what he did.A.: He pulled back and there was stuff coming out, and he said, “I told you I wouldn’t come in you. Don’t you love me now.”Q.: He said, “Don’t you love me now?” and what was your response?A.: I just looked at him like I was disgusted.Tyson argued that “[a] properly instructed jury could have found (or entertained a reasonable doubt) that these exchanges could have led a reasonable person to believe that Desiree Washington consented, even if in her own mind she may not have been consenting.” The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s rejection of his proposed jury instructions, holding that the facts did not merit such instructions.Prejudicial Closing ArgumentThe defense argued that prosecutor Greg Garrison improperly prejudiced the jury when in closing argument he read edited portions of U.S. Supreme Court Justice White’s dissenting opinion in United States v. Wade,388 U.S. 218 (1967). The portions read stated,“Law enforcement officers have the obligation to convict the guilty and to make sure that they do not convict the innocent. They must be dedicated to making the criminal trial a procedure for the ascertainment of the true facts surrounding the commission of a crime. To this extent our so-called adversary system is not adversary at all, nor should it be. But defense counsel has no comparable obligation to ascertain or present the truth. Our system assigns him a different mission. He must be and is interested in preventing the conviction of the innocent, but absent a voluntary plea of guilty, we also insist that he defend his client whether he is innocent or guilty. The State has the obligation to present the evidence. The defense counsel needs to present nothing, even if he knows what the truth is. He need not furnish any witness to the police or reveal any confidence of his client or furnish any other information to help the prosecution’s case. If he can confuse a witness, even a truthful one, or make him appear at a disadvantage, unsure, or indecisive, that will be his normal course. Our interest in not convicting the innocent permits counsel to put the State to its proof, to put the State’s case in worse [sic] possible light regardless of what he thinks or knows to be the truth. In this respect, as part of our modified adversary system and as part of the duty imposed upon honorable defense counsel, we countenance or require conduct which in many instances has little, if any, relationship to the search for the truth.”The Court of Appeals held that the objection was not preserved properly, because Tyson’s counsel objected only to the prosecutor reading case law in general, not the particular case.Selection of the Judge by the ProsecutorTyson argued that he was denied due process because the prosecutor was able to select the trial judge who would preside over his case. He argued that the current system of assigning criminal cases to particular divisions in Marion County erroneously permits the prosecutor to determine the particular room within the criminal division to which a case is assigned, for the prosecutor knows which judge handles cases in which room. It was fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecutor to choose the judge he wanted;the inference being that a different judge might have issued different rulings throughout the trial.On July 29, 1991, the Marion County prosecutor filed a petition requesting that a special grand jury be convened to investigate Washington’s allegations against Tyson. Pursuant to Indiana law, IC 35-24-2-14 (1988), the prosecutor could file this petition with any judge in Marion County; and he chose to file it with Judge Gifford, who was presiding in Room 4 of the criminal division. In this way, the prosecutor selected the particular room and, in the absence of a valid motion for change of judge, selected Judge Patricia Gifford as the presiding judge.The Court of Appeals ruled that because Tyson failed to show that he was prejudiced in any way by the selection of the particular room or judge, he was not deprived of his due process rights.And yet, the Court of Appeals also said,“However, we strongly urge the criminal division of the Marion County Superior Court to change the method by which cases are assigned to the rooms in the division. The existing system of filing cases is totally inappropriate and must be abandoned in favor of a system in which the prosecutor cannot control the assignment of a case to a particular judge. Presently, the criminal division of the Marion County Superior Court lacks the appearance of impartiality that is required to maintain the confidence of the public and the accused in the system.”Despite this “totally inappropriate” method which “lacked the appearance of impartiality” required to maintain the confidence of the public and the accused in the system, Tyson’s conviction was not reversed.The Dissenting OpinionIn his strong dissent from the majority opinion, Judge Patrick Sullivan argued that Tyson’s conviction should be reversed and he should have been granted a new trial. He believed that Tyson had not been afforded a fair trial or a level playing field. “My review of the entire record in the cause leads me to the inescapable conclusion that he did not receive the requisite fairness which is essential to our system of criminal justice.”This judge believed that the three excluded witnesses for the defense should have been allowed to testify. Defense counsel could not have revealed the witnesses sooner, because they were not yet known. Further, they had a duty to conduct a reasonable investigation before seeking to add witnesses. They acted reasonably and diligently.“Not only was there no discovery order breach, there was no delay, substantial or otherwise. Even if there were some degree of unexplained delay, given the absence of bad faith upon the part of the defense, the State at most would be entitled to a continuance. … Failure to request a continuance constitutes a waiver of an alleged discovery breach. … Not only did the State not seek a continuance, it categorically stated that it did not want a continuance.”This judge recognized the potential importance of the excluded testimony:“The State’s position with respect to the prejudice to its presentation of evidence becomes somewhat schizophrenic, and most certainly inconsistent. On the one hand, the State attempts to diminish the importance of the testimony of the three witnesses by asserting that it would have had minimal impact upon the issues and was meaningless as merely cumulative. On the other hand, the State has acknowledged that the excluded testimony might have grave implications for a successful prosecution. It so indicated by emphasizing the great lengths to which the State would have to go to combat this testimony. It is clear that the State did not think the evidence to be merely cumulative. The State was very concerned “given the impact of these witnesses on this case, given the notoriety of this case, given what this case is all about…. These witnesses clearly would have been telling a story wholly different than the story we had.” …As earlier noted, we are restricted in validating the ruling of the trial court to the reasons she gave. The trial court did not base its exclusion of the testimony upon a determination that the proffered evidence would merely be cumulative. The majority here, however, utilizes a conclusion to that effect to affirm the ruling. In doing so it errs.”The dissenting judge also believed the majority confused the differences between cumulative and corroborative evidence in its justifications.“It is my view that the majority erroneously or inadvertently uses the term “cumulative” interchangeably with the term “corroborative”. Cumulative evidence is that which goes to prove what has already been established by other evidence. … Corroborative evidence tends to corroborate or to confirm while cumulative evidence merely augments or tends to prove what has already been proved. … Evidence which brings to life some new and independent truth of a different character, although it tends to prove the same proposition or ground of claim before insisted on, is not cumulative, within the true meaning of the rule….The testimony sought to be admitted here was different in kind and character from other evidence adduced at trial. It went to an issue or issues and to facts or observations not covered by other evidence. It was not cumulative. It may have been in the nature of corroboration with respect to the crucial facts surrounding and immediately preceding the sexual acts but that very aspect of corroboration is what made the exclusion of the evidence prejudicial to the defense.”The dissenting judge took the majority to task for calling the evidence merely impeaching, as if that was not crucially important to the defense, and also noted that Tyson’s proposed jury instructions regarding mistake of fact should have been provided to the jury:“One aspect of the majority opinion considers the excluded evidence as merely impeaching in nature and holds that it was merely cumulative of evidence which impeached D.W. “on other points”. … I strongly disagree. Even if the offered evidence were to be construed solely as impeaching, impeachment upon one issue is not cumulative of impeachment upon other issues. …The evidence of record, to which the excluded evidence is thought by the majority to be cumulative, demonstrates that the jury was entitled to believe that there was consensual sexual contact in the hotel room. There was testimony to that effect from Reverend Katherine Newlin, who attended D.W. at the hospital. … At a very minimum, such testimony gives rise to a strong and reasonable inference of consensual sexual contact in the hotel room. It is baffling indeed, therefore, that the majority proceeds to cavalierly discount the defendant’s reasonable belief contention.The manner in which Tyson and D.W. acted toward each other shortly before the acts complained of has great relevance to whether or not Tyson, at the time, might have reasonably believed, from all the surrounding circumstances and events, that D.W. was consenting–even though as a factual matter she did not consent. …The issue is not whether Tyson reasonably believed that D.W. would consent. It is whether he reasonably believed that she was consenting. In this sense, then, the exclusion of the testimony from Martin, Neal and Lawrence was particularly prejudicial and that prejudice was magnified by the failure to give instructions with respect to mistake of fact, reasonable belief or to instruct that the degree of culpability, i.e., knowing, was applicable to the essential element of compelling force.In holding that the evidence excluded was “only minimally corroborative of Tyson’s testimony” with respect to D.W.’s receptiveness to Tyson’s physical advances, the majority usurps the jury function. It is totally inappropriate for this court to convert speculation as to the credit and weight which a jury would give certain evidence or the impact of such evidence upon their consideration of other evidence into a holding as a matter of law.Without question there was error in excluding the testimony of Ms. Martin, Ms. Neal and Ms. Lawrence. Without question that error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”This judge believed that “the excluded testimony of Ms. Martin, Ms. Neal and Ms. Lawrence would have added to the factual mix before the jury and may have reasonably tipped the deliberative balance in favor of acquittal.”Tyson’s Second AppealIn Tyson v. State, 626 N.E.2d 482 (Ind.App. 2 Dist., 1993), Mike Tyson alleged that his conviction should be reversed as a result of newly discovered evidence, which was that all along Washington had planned to sue Tyson in civil court, despite previous claims to the contrary.However, the Indiana Court of Appeals held that Tyson’s counsel had failed to ask Washington if she expected to receive any monetary benefits from her experience; if she had retained a lawyer named Ed Gerstein to pursue a civil suit; if she had any written agreement with Gerstein; if she had contemplated bringing a civil suit; if she had the present intent to sue Tyson; if she had discussed selling her media rights with anyone; if she wanted to sell or had contemplated selling her media rights; or if she believed she could exploit her experiences with Tyson in any other way.Nevertheless, Tyson argued that his attorney’s lack of diligence should be excused because Washington and her parents, in their depositions and at trial, testified perjuriously, falsely, or misleadingly in order to obscure his ability to discover the family’s financial motives. In particular, Tyson claimed he was unable to put the “critical fact” before the jury that Washington had consulted with attorney Ed Gerstein “with a view towards instituting a civil action against Tyson” because “[t]he Washingtons took the position, at their depositions and before the jury at trial, that Gerstein … was retained only for defensive purposes….”Although Judge Sullivan concurred with the majority in this ruling, he noted his belief that indeed, “D.W. and her parents gave misleading testimony.”“While I agree that Tyson’s counsel failed to use reasonable diligence to discover the full details of the retainer agreement between D.W. and Edward Gerstein, I am unable to agree with the majority that the testimony of D.W. and her parents was not misleading. Although perhaps many of the various answers given with respect to the relationship with Gerstein were literal responses to the questions as phrased, and although the witnesses certainly had no duty to volunteer information, in light of the facts known by the witnesses, the answers were misleading.D.W.’s answers carried the clear implication that Gerstein was retained only to “help me through this”, i.e., the criminal trial, and that when the trial was over, her parents would pay him. Additionally, she belied the fact that she was the client when she testified that Gerstein was counsel for the family. More importantly, when asked whether there had been any discussions between Gerstein and the family concerning compensation, she unequivocally said: “No.” …Mrs. Washington testified that Gerstein was counsel for the family but that there was no written agreement relating to the relationship. In light of the fact that Mrs. Washington was a signator to the retainer agreement between Desiree Washington and Gerstein, that answer was also misleading.Mr. Washington, also a signator to the agreement between D.W. and Gerstein, stated that he had retained Gerstein’s services but categorically stated that the purpose was “to help ward off the media”… He also denied that any consideration whatsoever had been given to the possibility of a civil suit against Tyson. … Further, he denied that he had a contingency fee agreement with Gerstein and stated that his only agreement was to pay expenses. Again, in the context of the facts, the natural and logical implication of the testimony of all three witnesses was that there was no contingent fee agreement with Gerstein with regard to representation in civil proceedings.In point of fact, the retainer agreement was entered into and signed on August 1, 1991. Although Donald C. Washington and Mary B. Washington were signators, as well as D.W., the agreement clearly states that D.W. is the only client–not the “family” and not Mr. and/or Mrs. Washington. It also clearly spells out that the purpose of the agreement is not to get D.W. or the family through the criminal trial or to “ward off the media,” but rather was to procure legal representation regarding possible civil liability on the part of Tyson and others as a result of the “incident” of July 19, 1991.If the information given by these witnesses were the only information available to defense counsel, the deposition and trial answers would have been sufficiently misleading as to indicate that further inquiry or issuance of a subpoena ducestecum would be wasteful and unavailing.”Nevertheless, this judge believed that based upon the knowledge already possessed, Tyson’s trial counsel simply did not ask the right questions. Hence, the lack of due diligence defeated Tyson’s “newly discovered evidence” argument, despite the fact that his counsel had been misled.The Indiana Supreme Court declined to consider or hear Tyson’s appeal at all, deadlocked at 2-2 in its vote whether to consider the case for further review (the fifth judge recused himself). A majority vote was needed. Hence, the Court of Appeals’ decision stood.