A BUSY DAY

Friday was a busy day for our intrepid local scribe, Herald reporter Susannah Nesmith. She was busy covering the guilty verdict in the Caraballo case before Judge Thomas, while in the Locasio case, the jury was returning a recommendation of life in prison. Judge Blake promptly sentenced the convicted accountant to life in prison, no deductions, no exemptions, no amortizations.

Here is Ms. Nesmith’s opening sentence in her coverage of the Caraballo case: it’s a good one:
Victor Caraballo's best hope is to live to be an old man in prison, because he will definitely die there.

Alas, says Rumpole, there will be an appeal, so while “definite” is not really “definite” in the theoretical sense, one cannot imagine an appellate decision discharging the Defendant in this matter.

Ms. Nesmith and the Herald also reported that in the Locasio case, Judge Blake, before sentencing Locasio to life in prison, commented that the case was one of the toughest he has ever handled.

We have a few questions: Was the decision to impose life in prison for a man who ordered the death of his wife difficult? Was the Judge wrestling with an override of the jury’s recommendation? Or was the evidence in the case, including the lack of a body, the difficult part of the case? Or was the case difficult because Mr. Locasio might be innocent? It would be nice to get a better picture of what made this case so difficult for Judge Blake.


Our favourite federal blogger Mr. Markus spent the week crowing about the interesting federal cases currently being tried. We’ll take a good old fashion REGJB murder case over a federal disorderly conduct in a post office case any day of the week.


And finally, the Herald also reported that murdered Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl’s name will be read Sunday on Miami Beach at a ceremony at the memorial to the victims of the holocaust. Pearl’s name will be added to the wall, and read, along with millions of other names, all who were victims to hate and intolerance.

Daniel Pearl was killed by Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in 2002 because he was Jewish. Pearl was beheaded because he worshipped a deity who was different from the deity that those who killed him worship. In Pearl’s religion, life is sacred, and the lord commands that one should do good deeds for others for the sake of humanity. Those who killed Pearl, worship hate and intolerance, and they condemn themselves, and their religion, to a fate much worse than that they inflicted on Daniel Pearl.

May Daniel Pearl’s name always be remembered and spoken, as a brave man, who was killed by cowards.

We will speak Daniel Pearl’s name aloud tomorrow, and see you in court on Monday.