The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/919610
B-12 Opinion Wednesday, December 27, 2017 The Press-Dispatch Court Report CRIMINAL Pike Circuit Court Kyle Woods charged with rape, a lev- el 3 felony. Kyle A. Haley charged with count I possession of methamphetamine, a lev- el 6 felony, count II driving while sus- pended, count III possession of para- phernalia, count IV reckless driving. Jeremy D. Bell charged with child molesting, a class A felony. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike Circuit Court Viana M. Volz charged with operat- ing a vehicle while intoxicated. Luke McGiffen charged with count I operating a vehicle with an ace of .15 or more, count II operating a vehicle while intoxicated, count III endanger- ing a person, count IV resisting law en- forcement, count V leaving the scene of an accident, count VI habitual vehic- ular substance offender. John Trevor Bowens charged with possession of marijuana. Trevor H. Krock charged with false informing. Jerald D. Reddy charged with driv- ing while suspended. Aaron T. Remeto charged with crim- inal mischief. Tyler D. Thomas charged with count I possession of marijuana and count II possession of paraphernalia. CIVIL Pike Circuit Court Wells Fargo Bank sues Kenneth Britton and Laura L. Britton on com- plaint. SMALL CLAIMS Pike Circuit Court Dennis Baur sues Danny Cocker- ham on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike Circuit Court Cynthia Boyd charged with operating with expired plates. Roger D. Ray charged with operating with expired plates. Brady R. Scott charged with speed- ing, 89 mph in a 70 zone. Derrick Crews charged with seatbelt violation. Cassandra Garman charged with speeding, 87 mph in a 70 zone. Tracey J. Simmons charged with no valid driver's license. Erin Hartke charged with speeding, 70 mph in a 55 zone. Colton D. Thomas charged with fail - ure of occupant to use safety belt. Charles Hellums charged with seat- belt violation. John Horton, IV charged with count I driving while suspended and count II operating with expired plates. Tyler Pride charged with count I no valid driver's license and count II oper- ating with expired plates. Myles Baker charged with speeding, 89 mph in a 70 zone. Shawn Floyd charged with speeding, 80 mph in a 70 zone. Brian Koller charged with speeding, 80 mph in a 70 zone. Ethan Lechner charged with driving while suspended. Amanda Morrow charged with speed- ing, 65 mph in a 55 zone. Jaylon Owens charged with count I operating with expired plates and count II speeding, 64 mph in a 45 zone. Tyshaun Wilson charged with count I speeding, 86 mph in a 70 zone, and count II driving while suspended. For the faithful, Epipha- ny Sunday is soon to arrive, and maybe we can receive a glimpse of glory as we ob- serve the coming of the Wise Men from the East who ask, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to wor- ship Him." They gave gifts and re- ceived nothing in return. Maybe it is better to give than to receive? Think about it! Continued from page 11 NEXT YEAR eager to victimize the Mc- Martins. A social worker with the Children's Insti- tute International (CII) in- terviewed 400 children ex- tensively and suggestively, using anatomically correct dolls. She was a former lobbyist for the National Organiza- tion for Women, and a grant evaluator for the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. Aside from the monstrous injustice to the defendants, her child inter- view methods were an intel- lectual scandal. We know this because the interviews were recorded. The police department's idea of an investigation was to send a "Dear Parent" form letter to 200 day care customers, naming Buck- ey as a suspected child mo- lester and inviting parents to corroborate the paranoid schizophrenic woman's charges against him. The news media, whom we trusted in those days, were in bed with the pros- ecution, perhaps literally. The Los Angeles Times met- ro editor who oversaw his paper's coverage of the Mc- Martin prosecution was en- gaged to the chief prosecu- tor, and they later married. It became obvious during the proceedings that the prose- cutor leaked prejudicial in- formation to a Times report- er under her fiance's super- vision. An ABC broadcast jour- nalist broke the McMartin abuse story and carried the steady stream of accusations uncritically, and mostly un- contradicted. He kept his ro- mantic relationship with the CII social worker confiden- tial. It must have seemed like a very small and claus- trophobic world to Ray Buck- ey and his mom Peggy. It's easy now, 30 years lat- er, to dismiss the absurd ac- cusations as a "moral panic," a hysterical contagion com- parable to the Salem witch trials. But it didn't seem so ridiculous at the time. We saw a general pattern of adults betraying parents' trust, whether in the enter- tainment industry, public schools or youth organiza- tions. We didn't know the orig- inal accuser was mentally ill and a chronic substance abuser. We didn't know about collusion between un- ethical prosecutors and jour- nalists. We didn't know the police investigation was a sh- am. Parents had vulnerable children at stake, and were entitled to err on the side of caution. It's no disgrace that we guessed wrong. What's shameful is when we lock our guesses in, when we lose interest in the evidence. This often takes the form of a statement like "children never lie" or "a child has no reason to lie." Really? One of the McMartin ac- cuser children matured in- to a truthful and remorse- ful adult. "Never did any- one do anything to me," he recalled over 20 years later, "and I never saw them doing anything. I lied." He recalled the sugges- tive questioning by his par- ents, guided by the social worker: "Anytime I would give them an answer they didn't like, they would ask me again and encourage me to give the answer they were looking for." Let's not kid ourselves that we are above moral pan- ics now. Some of us still treat evidence like a nuisance, and facts like annoying tech- nicalities. It's human nature. It was on full display in Ferguson when hateful peo- ple demanded the prose- cution of a compassionate young police officer on the strength of slanderous accu- sations, against all evidence, that he was a lawless white racist. It was roaring in Durham, North Carolina, when surly street mobs, Jesse Jackson, 88 Duke University profes- sors and an unethical pros- ecutor accused three male students of rape, based on their false accusation by a bi- polar, drug-abusing stripper who is now serving a prison sentence for second-degree murder. As Henry Kissinger once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Moral indig- nation isn't necessarily bad. But indignation isn't moral if it's indifferent to truth. I welcome the recent movement to denounce men who have sexually harassed or assaulted women. But it should be subordinated to evidence. Otherwise it runs the risk of deteriorating into a counterfeit of justice. When we try to shoe-horn collective, societal justice in- to the resolution of an indi- vidual case, we are tempted to discount the facts of indi- vidual guilt or innocence. It's natural to become impa- tient with the details of the evidence, because we be- lieve what's at stake is more important than the fate of one accused person. Unless you are that per- son. One man is a sexual vic- timizer; another man isn't. It ought to matter which is which. Continued from page 11 WITNESS When I had the good fortune of visit- ing Israel years ago, the historical time frames on the captions of various bill- boards got changed to B.C.E. mean- ing Before a Certain Era, and C.E. meaning a Certain Era. So, I thought hmmm, there is again a rejection by some group of people about the histor- ical fact of Christ. There will always be a rejection about the reality of the his- tory of redemption, as stated in many warnings in the Bible. What consoles me is that our calendar based on the Christian time frame likely will never be changed, because to do so would collapse the order of history and com- merce. • • • So let's get back to endings and be- ginnings. The past 12 months for ma- ny of us have brought the cycle of life- births amongst family members, friends and acquaintances; weddings, birthdays, anniversaries; graduations, new ventures, new challenges, new changes in one's state of life, and ma- ny other events. Let us also not forget the reality of some not so delightful events in life: death, illness, broken re- lationships, tragedies and the like. So embedded in this mystery of life is the journey of time which will never come back once it passes. I often hear this expression: once time is lost, we will never get it back. It is a commodity you cannot afford to waste or squander. I have learned through the years of my own experi- ence that a review of one's time frames can be helpful in appreciating this short journey allotted to us. I often find it helpful to divide my snapshots of life into 5 to 10 year increments and check my rearview mirror of the past. It makes me realize the value of fam- ily, friends, co-workers, and acquain- tances. It makes me think that when- ever possible we should see the good- ness of everyone, and learn the value of tolerance and forgiveness, the val- ue of expressing our love to all we can extend it to. Difficult to do? Yes it is, and we do need to exert a conscious effort to practice these virtues. So as the year ends, we hope we all have done fairly well. And as the new beginnings for the year 2,018 AD comes upon us, we trust our lives will be better and filled with memorable times. So beginning January, lets start a new chapter of life, hopefully as good or better than where we were. • • • Be careful celebrating the New Year. Have a great week. Don't's forget to visit our Festival of Lights at Hornady Park before it closes. Continued from page 11 ENDINGS Continued from page 11 LIBERTY Continued from page 11 THERAPY So, this year, Christmas shopping is going to be different. Jill and Flannery and I are heading out to a certain brick- and-mortar store where we've saved up member points all year. We'll bring a list of names—all the people we want to give gifts this year—and whether there's crowds and gray slush every- where or not, we'll have fun together filling the list up with gifts as we find them. Then, if I'm very lucky, we'll have time afterward to go home, put our cozy socks and some hot cocoa on, and read Christmas stories to Flan- nery. That's the plan, anyway. Of course we all know there's exact- ly one reason we even have a Christ- mas (short for "Christ's Mass") season in the first place. As commercialized and prone to selfishness as it has be- come, the tradition of giving gifts still has a magic to it—by giving good gifts to each other, we imitate the King who gave the gift of Himself to us. It's easy to think about that gift as ancient his- tory, but we're still receiving the gift of Christ Himself every day in the flesh at Mass. And like all good gifts, it's some- thing we can't help but share. Have a great Christmas week, and as always, I'd love to hear from you at aheuring@sgstartimes.com. My name is Mike Hurt. I am the Assistant Chief of Po- lice in Princeton. There was a case where Darrin McDon- ald and his team were ap- pointed to prosecute because of special circumstances. The case I am referring to, the defendant's name is James Hardiman, Jr. He was convicted of Child Molest- ing, Rape, Neglect of a De- pendent and two counts of Contributing to the Delin- quency of a Minor. In my 24 years of law enforcement, I have never ran across a pros- ecution team as fine as the Pike County Prosecutor's Office. Darrin McDonald was the most prepared person I have ever seen in trial. His team, Lisa and Vanessa, are won- derful. I have to tell you I have worked with prosecu- tors all over the state. Dar- rin McDonald is the best prosecutor I have ever en- countered. Pike County citizens don't realize how lucky they are to have him and his team. In my experience, most prosecu- tors, when they get another county's case, usually takes a very weak plea agreement just to get it over with. Darrin did not do this. He was attentive to the fam- ily and met with the victim of the case over and over to make sure she was okay. I wish Darrin McDonald and his team were employed in Gibson County. I enjoyed working with them. Thank you, Mike Hurt Assistant Chief of Police Letter to the Editor Top notch prosecutor Hay Holidays! FROM THE PIKE COUNTY 4-H COUNCIL Conference was not a sim- ple blip in U.S. foreign pol- icy. It's part of a grander strategy for Europe. Vice President Mike Pence fol- lowed Mr. Trump's visit to Poland by traveling to Es- tonia (Baltic Sea), Georgia (Black Sea), and Montene- gro (Adriatic Sea). During his visits, he affirmed U.S. commitment to these coun- tries, and strengthened U.S. focus on the overall region. The benefits are more than economic. It's in Ameri- ca's interest that Eastern Eu- rope remains united in con- fronting the Russian threat and navigating the challeng- es of economic growth and energy security. Recent ex- amples of Russian meddling in Ukraine and the Balkans make this clear. President Trump's partici- pation in the Three Seas Ini- tiative conference in Poland gave the effort a much-need- ed U.S. stamp of approval. He summed up the impor- tance of its success in his remarks: "When your nations are strong, all the free nations of Europe are stronger, and the West becomes stronger as well. Together, our nation and yours can bring greater peace, prosperity, and safe- ty to all of our people." Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org)