Assorted Stupidity #99
- This could be described as another "bad place to hide" from police, but "hiding" is intentional and this wasn't. I'd have assumed getting "stuck in a hay bale" would be fatal because you'd have to go through a hay baler to do it, but the report says this guy did it by falling out of a loft. I guess it was one of those big spiral bales and he fell into the center. Well, however he did it, he was stuck in there for about 24 hours, starting sometime on Christmas Day. He's accused of violating probation, but that had something to do with a pickup truck, not being stuck in a hay bale.
- The holding in Lee v. West Kern Water District is that the trial court correctly instructed the jury about workers' compensation but then erroneously granted a new trial after the defendants lost. But I think the real lesson of Lee v. West Kern Water District is "don't stage a fake robbery of your workplace without telling your co-workers in order to 'test how the female employees would respond if if they believed they were really being robbed.'" Because that could freak someone out regardless of gender, and they might sue, and you might lose.
- A 36-year-old California man has asked that driving-under-the-influence charges against him be dismissed because the state's own tests showed he was not under the influence of anything-except caffeine. He was pulled over in 2015 for driving erratically, but a breathalyzer test showed 0.0% alcohol and the only substance any lab was able to find in his blood (other than blood) was caffeine. The district attorney for Solano County said that the DUI charge "is not based upon the presence of caffeine," but won't say what it is based on. Since trial is supposed to start on January 11, they really ought to explain.
- Assuming you want to get away with a bank robbery-which is not always the case-it's best to rob a bank where you don't personally do business. This lowers the possibility that the employees will recognize you, making things much easier for the police. This wasn't a case where everybody was on a first-name basis, but still. See "Note to Self: Only Rob Banks Where They Don't Know You By Name" (Oct. 24, 2012) (relating incident in which a teller greeted the suspect with "Do you want to make a deposit, Kerri?").
- Speaking of bank robberies, a man named "Genuine Truth Banner" allegedly committed one in South Carolina in August, according to this report. Do you want to make a deposit, Genuine Truth Banner? No?
- In November, Belgium and the Netherlands signed a treaty in which they agreed to exchange less than 50 acres of land along the border. The border is the Meuse River, but changes in the river's course over the years has left two pieces of Belgium on the east side and one piece of the Netherlands on the west. (Those are the "wrong" sides.) Nobody lived on any of these pieces, but authorities said they became a "haven" for shady people and practices because the relevant law-enforcement officers had to cross the river. Warfare was not required to make this border change, but it has apparently taken about six years to work out the details.
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