Birdsong's Law Blog

Birdsong’s daughter Krystal was a good writer.  She wrote for both her high school and college newspaper.  In going through her personal effects after her passing we found found her journals in which we found drafts of some her articles.  This one was written for the Barry U newspaper and was about a forum speaker and her book.

Lena Williams & the Racial Divide

If you missed Lena Williams’ lecture entitled “It’s the Little Things: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races,” named after her new book, you missed a fun, energetic, and socially conscious forum with a timely and inspiring message.  Luckily, BU’s Buccaneer is here to fill you in.

The forum, which was a lecture accompanied by a role-playing panel of students, was put  on by Barry’s Office

An activist abortion opponent was convicted of first degree murder and is awaiting sentencing for the killing of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

This case will be used to help you learn how to allocute.

Scott Roeder, 51, was  recently convicted by a jury in Wichita, Kansas of first degree murder.  Facts at trial revealed that Dr. George Tiller was a noted abortion provider.  His clinic in Wichita, Kansas was the only clinic in a several state area of the Midwest that provided late term abortions to women whose health problems prevented them from delivering a child.

Evidence further revealed that on Sunday, May 31, 2009, Scott Roeder entered Wichita’s Reformation Lutheran Church at the beginning of the 10 am service.  He then used a  handgun to shoot Dr. Tiller as he handed out church

Rising Sun, MD: A man faces drunken driving charges after a deputy pulled him over and noticed he was naked below the waist. A Cecil County Maryland sheriff’s spokesman reports that Jonathan Schultz, 41, “was driving commando”  — only partially covered with a towel on his lap.  He was wearing a shirt. Schultz  was  stopped going 69 mph in a 50 mph zone.  The deputy smelled alcohol and noticed that Schultz was exposed.  He told the deputy he had lost his pants.  The deputy didn’t find any pants in the car.

Sounds like a drunken pervert…

Naperville, IL: Eager to buy himself a present on his 19th birthday, Michael Wells Jr. chose an unusual way to spend the day — he tried to break into a Naperville home.  DuPage county prosecutors say

Janet Mercereau, 40, is awaiting sentencing after having been found guilty by a jury of second degree murder of her husband Douglas Mercereau.

We will use this case to help you learn how to allocute.

Evidence at trial revealed that  Janet Mercereau had shot Douglas Mercereau, 38, a fire marshal, three times in the head as he slept in their bed on December 2, 2008.

Prosecutors argued that Janet had grown to hate her husband during their troubled, 12 year marriage in which the couple fought bitterly over her weight problem.  Janet  had weighed  only105 pounds when they married but had ballooned up to 265 pounds at the time of the murder.  The couple had two children, both girls, aged 7 and 8.

Chicago, IL: A U.S. Postal worker sobbed  loudly and proclaimed his innocence as he was ordered  held without bond on charges that he sexually assaulted  and kidnapped a pair of teenage girls after he forced them in his personal vehicle in two separate attacks.  “I have no record,” Tommie Naylor told the judge.  “I’m clean.”  Naylor, a mail handler is suspected in at least two other similar attacks from 2003 and 2006, according to Chicago police detectives.  Police have DNA evidence linking him to the 2006 attack.   At the bond hearing Naylor sobbed constantly before the judge and exclaimed, “Sir, I’m going to lose my job.”

Right!  Big man with young girls.  Crying before the judge like a little bitch!

Los Angeles, CA: Twenty more people have been arrested in an investigation that charges a Latino street gang with waging a racist campaign to eliminate black people from a southern California city.  The arrests stem