Fun_People Archive
23 Apr
Weirdness [425] - 29Mar96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 13:53:43 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [425] - 29Mar96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.425 (News of the Weird, March 29, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* Two notorious prisoners have been productive behind bars recently.  The
film "Child, This Is Just a Test by God" opened successfully in the
Philippines starring the popular Robin "Bad Boy" Padilla.  The movie was
shot on location in prison because Padilla couldn't get work-release from
his 21-year sentence on weapons charges; producers got cooperation by
handing out on- camera roles to prison administrators and guards.  And rap
singer X Raided, who has been in jail for four years awaiting trial for
murder, released a new album "Xorcist," which he recorded over a Sacramento,
Calif., county jail pay phone while listening to music tracks on an adjacent
pay phone. [Sacramento Bee-AP, 1- 13-96] [Option, March-April 1996]

* Police in Urbandale, Iowa, arrested one of their own in January:  Cop,
part-time anti-drug crusader, and part-time girls' basketball coach James
R. Trimble, 43, was charged with trafficking in marijuana and
methamphetamine.  According to the Des Moines Register, Trimble was driving
around with "scores" of sex videotapes in his car and had a "sexual device
inserted into his body"--a device that "was connected to a battery pack."
(No other details were revealed.) [Des Moines Register, 1-3-96]

* In Redondo Beach, Calif., hairdresser Joseph R. "Jay" Middleton, 56, was
sentenced to 60 days' community service in February on a charge that he
masturbated while doing a female customer's hair.  Middleton had removed
his pants and worked on her hair with his free hand, completing the job
because the customer was too frightened to object.  Middleton apparently
talked to himself during the episode, saying, "This is so bad, I can't
believe I'm doing this" and "Bad Jay, bad Jay," while slapping himself on
the wrist as punishment. [The Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), 3-5-96]

* James Mascetta, 40, was charged with dispensing a narcotic in December in
Nashua, N. H.  Bailiffs caught Mascetta handing a packet of heroin to a
woman sitting at the defendants' table in a courtroom while she was awaiting
arraignment on another drug charge. [Keene Sentinel, Dec95]

* Kevin C. Maben, 28, filed a $2 million lawsuit in February against Ripley,
Tenn., county judge Billy Wayne Williams, who is a retired highway patrolman
without legal training, elected to the bench in 1990.  Maben said Judge
Williams summarily jailed him for missing car payments despite Tennessee
law that clearly gives Maben the right to a jury trial.  Said Judge
Williams, "No, I do not pull [out] the [statute] book on every case that
comes up.  I'd be sitting over there [in the law library] 24 hours a day."
[The Tennessean-AP, 2-23-96]

* In January Judge Joel Gehrke found Stewart Marshall guilty in Stanton,
Mich., of throwing his wife to the floor in a domestic quarrel.  As
punishment, Gehrke ordered Marshall to hold out his arm, and Gehrke slapped
him on the wrist, saying, "Don't do that."  (Judge Gehrke thought the
punishment was appropriate because the fight was in response to Mrs.
Marshall's having had an affair with Marshall's brother and having borne
their son.) [Tampa Tribune-AP, 1-18-96]

* Valdamair Morelos, 35, confessed to murder in 1994 in San Jose, Calif.,
and told the judge he wanted the death penalty, but he was forced to trial
because California law requires one in capital cases.  Consequently, at the
trial in January, Morelos occasionally tried to help the prosecution.  For
instance, after the prosecutor described the killing to the judge, Morelos
added, "I blindfolded him, too." [San Francisco Examiner-AP, Jan96]

* The U. S. Supreme Court in January rejected the appeal of a convicted drug
possessor in Arizona who had claimed he did not receive a fair trial because
there were no fat people on the jury.  [Mesa Tribune-AP, 1-9-96]

* In March, the U. S. Court of Appeals in New York upheld an order for a
new trial for Dale Tippins, who was convicted on drug charges in 1986 and
sentenced to 18 years in prison, but who has been complaining since then
that his lawyer napped during the trial.  (One juror said he heard the
lawyer, Louis Tirelli, snoring several times, and another said Tirelli slept
through "65%" of the testimony of a key prosecution witness.) The court
granted the new trial but was also somewhat skeptical:  "There are states
of drowsiness that come over everyone from time to time during [a trial]."
[Tampa Tribune-AP, 3-9-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers.  No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston