|
Archives > Volume 7 Issue 76 - December 22, 2009 Polanski loses dismissal appeal...In a case that has polarized public passions, director Roman Polanski did not win his freedom Monday for a 32-year-old sex offense, but an appeals court said in a strongly worded opinion there was probable judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in his case. ABC News story here  The opinion criticized Polanski for fleeing to his native France in 1978 but suggested two legal options that could lead to his freedom now - file a motion to be sentenced in absentia, or drop his extradition fight, return to the United States and be sentenced in person, most likely not resulting in additional jail time. Polanski wears an electronic monitoring device while under house arrest in Switzerland, where he was arrested as a fugitive when he arrived to attend a film festival in September. The appeals court faulted Polanski for fleeing the country instead of being sentenced. "Even in light of our fundamental concern about the misconduct that has been alleged here with significant evidentiary support, flight was not Polanski's only option. It was not even his best option," the decision said. It said his lawyers should have immediately sought to disqualify the judge and filed other motions to ensure due process. The court supported a ruling by Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza, who refused to hear Polanski's case without the director's presence. The justices said that was within the judge's discretion under a doctrine that denies court processes to those who flee to avoid prosecution. They suggested it was also his decision whether to sentence Polanski in absentia if such a motion is made. For more on this story, see vol7_iss54, vol7_iss55, vol7_iss56, vol7_iss60, and vol7_iss72 Texting drivers 6 times more likely to crash... People who send text messages while driving are six times more likely to crash, a new study finds. MSNBC News story here 
The research adds to a mountain of evidence showing that texting or talking on mobile phones while driving is dangerous. Texting seems to be the worst.
The new study was done in a driving simulator, however, so it's not known exactly how the results would translate to the road. Still, the results were stark. In the simulations, drivers tended to decrease their minimum following distance when texting and also experienced delayed reaction times - meaning among other things they were slower to hit the brakes when needed. Drivers' median reaction time increased by 30 percent when they were texting and 9 percent when they talked on the phone, compared with when they were just driving. Drivers who were texting also showed more impairment in forward and lateral control than did drivers who talked on a cell phone while driving or drove without texting. A study earlier this year found that 60 percent of teens "drive while texting," or DWT. Previous studies had found that adults who talk on cell phones while driving in simulators perform as dismally as drunken study participants. When talking on a cell phone, "drivers apparently attempt to divide attention between a phone conversation and driving, adjusting the processing priority of the two activities depending on task demands," the researchers behind the new study write in the journal Human Factors. That split in attention is worse than conversing with someone who is in the car, past research has found. Texting is a whole other matter. It "requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other," the researchers said in a statement today. "When such attention-switching occurs as drivers compose, read, or receive a text, their overall reaction times are substantially slower than when they're engaged in a phone conversation." Reading text messages affected braking time more than did composing messages. In a relate story, a third of teens ages 16 and 17 say they have texted while driving and 48 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. MSNBC News story here While those findings may not surprise some, Pew senior research specialist Amanda Lenhart said she was surprised "to hear (from teens) about how it's often parents or other adults who are doing the texting or talking and driving, and how for many teens, this is scary or worrisome behavior." In other news... 
Irish independence leader, Sinn Fein's president Gerry Adams has revealed his late father subjected family members to emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The Independent story here The West Belfast Member of Parliament said he found out 12 years ago that his father, Gerry Adams Senior, had abused some of his own children. He said his father was in denial for many years about his actions and eventually died a lonely old man. Details of how many of the children were abused and what ages they were have not been revealed. Mr. Adams's brother, Liam, is wanted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) over charges of abuse against his daughter, Aine Tyrell, over a period of several years during her childhood. Gerry Adams has urged his brother to go to the PSNI for the sake of his niece, who has waived her right to anonymity. Mrs. Tyrell has alleged that she was abused by her father, and raped, over an eight-year period from the age of four in the late 1970s. Yesterday her uncle revealed that, as well as knowing about Mrs. Tyrell's allegations about her father since 1987, he had also known for more than a decade that his father had abused his children, Gerry Adams' siblings. The family had received professional help, he said, and he could not go public with the revelation until everyone was ready. "I was almost 50 years old and up to that point I thought we were like any other family with a loving father," he said in an interview with RTE News. "It was a deep shock."
The Bishop of Kerry (Ireland) Bill Murphy has dissociated himself from Father Seán Sheehy, the priest who shook hands with a sex offender awaiting sentencing in court and provided him a character reference in which he said he was always respectful to women. Irish Times story here The priest later criticized the extremely harsh seven-year jail term imposed by Judge Donagh McDonagh at the sentencing hearing in Tralee, County Kerry, on Wednesday, of Danny Foley (35), Meen, Listowel, County Kerry. Father Sheehy has defended his actions, saying he shook Foley's hand in court because he wanted to "support him and let him know he was not alone". In a statement last night, Bishop Murphy said he wished to dissociate himself and the diocese from Father Sheehy's actions and statements. "I wish to offer my sympathy to the victim and to apologize to her on my own behalf and on behalf of the diocese of Kerry," he said. "I pay tribute to her courage. I hope what has happened will not undermine the progress that has been made in bringing perpetrators of sexual abuse to justice."
*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" |
Survivors And Victims Empowered
1725 Oregon Pike, Suite 106
Lancaster, PA 17601
(717) 569-0550 voice
(717) 569-3039 fax
http://www.childprotectionprogram.org