Monthly Archives: August 2003

Domestic Violence Advocate Convicted of Second-Degree Murder

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Oregon domestic violence advocate Lorraine Netherton was convicted in July of second degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Desiere Rants. Rants was literally caught in the middle of a custody battle that Netherton was trying to resolve.

Until last year, Netherton was chair of the Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force. She was forced out in a vote of the members of the task force, however, who were concerned about “her violent temper and her penchant for carrying handguns.”

Netherton, 40, had agreed to help a neighbor with her child custody battle. Netherton was trying to serve the father of the child, William Rants, with court papers. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Netherton spotted William Rants in a car with his daughter, and engaged in a car chase of William Rants.

At the end of that car chase, William Rants and his daughter exited the driver’s side door of the car and Desiere Rants, his sister, exited from the passenger side. Desiere got between William and Netherton apparently to try to keep them apart. Netherton claimed that Desiere hit her, and so she fired two shots into the woman’s upper body, killing her.

Both witnesses and physical evidence contradicted her claims, however. Although Netherton testified that Desiere Rants had hit her 6-8 times in the head and face, there was no evidence of any injury and even Netherton’s makeup remained undisturbed. Moreover, witnesses testified that Netherton fired without provocation at Desiere and then stood over her and fired at her again as she lay on the ground.

The jury settled on a conviction for second degree murder after spending two days debating and ultimately rejecting a conviction for first degree (premeditated) murder. Netherton plans to appeal, and could face 16-25 years for the murder if her conviction is not overturned.

Sources:

Domestic-violence foe guilty of second-degree murder. Tracy Johnson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 19, 2003.

Woman charged in fatal custody-case shooting. Hector Castro, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 28, 2002.

Domestic violence worker guilty of murder. Kathleen R. Merrill, King County Journal, July 19, 2003.

Ex-advocate for violence victims is charged in slaying Maureen O’Hagan, Seattle Times, November 28, 2002.

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UK Children, But Not Parents, Given Right to Sue for False Child Abuse Claims

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A Court of Appeals in Great Britain in July rejected claims of parents who wanted to sue doctors and social workers over false claims of child abuse, but it did rule that children involved in such cases could sue doctors and social workers.

In the UK doctors and social workers are legally obligated to report any suspected abuse. The Court of Appeals heard the claims of three couples who wanted to sue health care and social workers for negligence for falsely accusing them of abuse and, in one case, taking a child away from parents for almost 9 months.

In one case a woman was accused of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, but ultimately it turned out that the child in question simply had severe allergies. In another case a father was accused of abusing his daughter, but it later turned out that she had a rare skin disease. Finally, an infant daughter was removed from the home of a couple for more than nine months after the girl’s parents were accused of breaking her leg. The girl was later diagnosed with a rare genetic condition which renders the bones extremely brittle.

The Court of Appeals ruled that although parents had no grounds to sue, that the children did under the Human Rights Act which requires the state to protect the rights of children. The court’s decision will likely be appealed.

Sources:

Children can sue over abuse claims. The BBC, July 31, 2003.

Victims of child care errors win right to sue. Clare Dyer, The Guardian, August 1, 2003.

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Should Older, Lonely Women Considering Becoming Lesbians?

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Australia’s government-funded Relationships Australia has a bit of advice for older single women having trouble finding companionship — give lesbianism a try! Seriously.

The Herald Sun quoted Relationships Australia spokesman Jack Carney as saying,

As they get over 60, opportunities [for women] to get a man diminish substantially. Men marry younger women and they die about eight years younger, so there is a real male shortage.

And as women get even older it gets much worse, so we ask them to entertain the idea of lesbian relationships.

Source:

Older women urged to become lesbians. Herald Sun, August 10, 2003.

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UK Court Rejects Transsexuals Lawsuit Over Bathroom Privileges

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A British judge this month rejected a lawsuit by a group of transsexuals who argued they suffered sexual discrimination at a pub. The five transsexuals were asked to leave a pub after they used the women’s restroom.

The men sued and were backed up by the UK’s Equal Opportunities Commission. The transsexuals each sought 2,000 pounds from the pub owner.

But a judge ruled that the UK’s Sex Discrimination Act does not provide protection specifically for transsexuals. The judge ruled that since the transsexuals were biologically men, that the pub owner was well within his rights to ask them to leave if they could not refrain from using the women’s restroom.

Source:

Landlord right to treat transsexual customers as men. Nick Britten, Daily Telegraph (London), August 15, 2003.

Transsexuals Lose Case. Sky news, August 14, 2003.

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Group to Sue Government Over Title IX

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A group representing various college coaching groups recently announced plans to sue the U.S. Department of Education over the way it enforces Title IX.

The Bush administration convened a Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to examine Title IX enforcement, but then ignored the commission’s findings. So the College Sports Council is headed back to court with a two-prong legal strategy.

First, it wants an appeals court to reinstate a lawsuit it filed challenging the Department of Education’s Title IX enforcement. THat lawsuit was thrown out by a District Court in June. That lawsuit challenges a Clinton-era interpretation of Title IX that many coaches blame for the elimination of men’s sports across the country.

Second, the group is filing a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration’s January 2003 decision not to repeal that interpretation of Title IX.

At issue is the Clinton-era interpretation which requires the male-female ratio in sports to approximate the male-female enrollment level in the college. This has been difficult to achieve at many schools without simply eliminating sports (with sports like wrestling and gymnastics taking the biggest hits). As women continue to be disproportionately represented in colleges and universities, this will become a bigger problem in coming years.

The group also claims that the Department of Education is using Enron-style accounting in claiming that since 1980 a total of 36 additional men’s teams have been added across the country. The Department of Education points to that result to back up its claims that Title IX enforcement hasn’t harmed men’s sports.

The College Sports Council points out that this is fallacious since the newer data include 134 additional schools that were added to the Department of Education’s survey after 1980, which backs up the group’s point that colleges are shedding men’s teams at a rather high rate.

Sources:

Groups to fight over Title IX enforcement. Ben Feller, Associated Press, August 14, 2003.

Coaches Launch Renewed Legal Challenge to Title IX Enforcement. Jim McCarthy, College Sports Council, August 15, 2003.

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Kuwaiti Minister Suggests Expanded Rights for Women Close

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Kuwait’s minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah was quoted by Arabic News.Com in June as saying that he believes the next session of that country’s parliament will approve legislation guaranteeing political rights to women.

In July, Kuwait’s parliamentary elections resulted in a parliament that is likely to be much more supportive of the current government, which has wanted legislation seeking political equality for women for several years now.

In 1999 Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a decree declaring political equality for women, but that decree has been opposed by parliament which has prevented it from entering into Kuwaiti law.

Sources:

Kuwait’s FM voices support for women issues. ArabicNews.Com, June 16, 2003.

Kuwaiti parliament postpones voting on women’s political rights decree. ArabicNews.Com, November 18, 1999.

On Kuwait’s women’s rights for participating in the elections. ArabicNews.Com, July 8, 2003.

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Gambian President Puts Breaks on Polygamy . . . Sort Of

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Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced he was putting limits on widespread polygamy in his country — for the next three years, men will be allowed to have no more than three wives.

According to a BBC report Jammeh’s proclamation, however, the prohibition may not have much real effect,

“Pleas allow the young men to get married took” Mr. Jammeh [said] . . .

But the seriousness in his voice did not match the reaction of his audience who burst into laughter at his announcement.

The population is predominantly Muslim with more than 90% following Islam — and most Gambians are strict in their religious practices.

The BBC reporter suggests that the three wife limit is widely viewed as a measure designed to curry favor with the United States.

While other countries throughout the world have seen a fall in fertility over the past three decades, Gambia maintains extremely high fertility rates in part because of polygamy. Its TFR is 6.0, and in some parts of the country the male fertility rate is above 12.

Human rights groups also oppose polygamy, arguing that it generally exploits women and often leaves marriages in serious financial difficulties.

Sources:

Gambian freeze on polygamy. Demba Jawo, The BBC, July 22, 2003.

Modern methods of family planning and reproductive health services in The Gambia. Swiss Tropical Institute.

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British Gov’t Workers Required to Report Inter-Office Sexual Liasions

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UK newspaper The Observer reports that fears of sexual harassment lawsuits have prompted many government agencies in Great Britain to require employees to report any sexual relationships they are having with their colleagues to their respective human resources department.

And such fears appear to be well-founded. According to The Observer,

Research by academics at the University of Sydney suggests that almost a quarter of failed office relationships end in sexual harassment cases, and a survey in America by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 52 per cent of companies believe they suffer in some way because of romance in the workplace. Nearly a third of employees quizzed said they feared office affairs would end in claims of sexual harassment. Small wonder then that 95 per cent of personnel managers said they believed office romances should not be allowed or, at least, should be discouraged.

Which, of course, takes further along the road to where Daphne Patai predicted the sexual harassment industry was eventually headed — to stigmatizing heterosexual relationships as inherently suspect.

Are two of your coworkers sleeping together? Well, clearly, somebody should be watching that situation to make certain it doesn’t get out of hand. As Patai put it, “Two fundamentally opposing world views are currently in collision. One of them sees sex (especially male sexuality) as a perpetual danger. The other sees sex as primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men.”

Clearly the former are in charge in the UK.

Source:

Personnel affair. The Observer, July 20, 2003.

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Human Rights Watch Report on Nigerian Riots

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Nigeria erupted into riots in November 2002 after a reporter opined that Mohammed would likely not only have approved of the Miss World beauty pageant, but would likely have taken one of the contestants for his wife. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and others castigated the woman who made that remark, causing her to flee the country for her own safety.

Now a Human Rights Watch report on the incident claims that the Nigerian police and military, among others, fanned the flames of the riots and used the outbreak of violence as cover for extrajudicial killings of political and ethnic opponents.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, Nigerian police did nothing to restrain Muslim protesters who reacted with violence to the newspaper article,

ThisDay in three buses; others used motorcycles. They attacked and burned the newspaper?s regional office on Attahiru Road Malali, ransacked the newspaper depot and distribution centre and made bonfires out of piles of newspapers. There were no casualties, as the newspaper staff were not on the premises at the time. At no point did the police intervene to stop the violence by the protesters or make any arrests, despite the fact that the office of ThisDay was attacked in broad daylight and in full view of many residents and passers-by.

As to the extra-judicial killings by police and military, the Human Rights Watch report alleges,

Human Rights Watch uncovered detailed information on extrajudicial killings of civilians by both the police and the military during the three days of rioting in Kaduna. Instead of restoring law and order, in several instances members of the security forces turned against the very people they were supposed to protect. In some cases, the victims were boys or young men who were shot because they were caught breaking the curfew; in other cases, people were killed or injured when the police or military fired to deter rioting; other people were hit by stray bullets. In a number of instances, the police or military, taking advantage of the general chaos, targeted particular individuals with the specific intention of killing them. Overall, however, it was difficult to ascertain the exact reasons why members of the security forces shot particular individuals or groups of individuals. Despite several efforts, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the level at which orders were given for the police and the military to use lethal force. However, these cases form part of a well-documented pattern of extrajudicial killings by the security forces in the context of attempts to restore law and order in Nigeria.

Despite promises by Obsanjano that the perpetrators of the violence would be brought to justice and compensation paid to the victims of the violence, Human Rights Watch reports that neither promise has come close to being fulfilled. Not a single person, for example, was ever arrested in connection with the attack on ThisDay.

Source:

Nigerian police ‘fanned riots’. Alistair Leithead, The BBC, July 21, 2003.

The ?Miss World Riots?: Continued Impunity for Killings in Kaduna. Human Rights Watch, July 3, 2003.

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BBC to Women: Don’t Shoot at Drunk, High Men Who Break Into Your Homes

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Nothing better illustrates the differing attitudes between the United States and the United Kingdom over home self-defense than an article by a BBC correspondent who took shooting classes in the United States.

Vanessa Collingridge’s resulting article, Women who ‘shoot to kill’, tries to make women the hook for a story about a Phoenix, Arizona,-based handgun training course. Collingridge writes of her fellow students in the class,

Most of the course participants are here to improve their gun skills — not for sport but their own protection.

Mosa Laren, a primary school teacher, raved to me how “empowered” she now felt.

Collingridge puts empowered in quotes, there, I suspect, because the BBC’s point here is to demonstrate that people who carry handguns for self-protection are not really empowered at all. But she chooses an odd case to get that message across — the justifiable homicide of 16-year-old Anthony Choate.

Collingridge writes,

There is widespread incredulity that someone has been jailed in Britain for defending themselves and their property – even if the end result was the death of an unarmed 16-year-old.

Recently, however, that mood was tempered in Salem, Oregon, where 16-year-old Anthony Choate was shot and killed after drunkenly wandering into a stranger’s garage.

Once inside, he lit a fire – something he often did in a stove at home.

Homeowner Linn Stordahl heard a noise and went to investigate. On opening the garage door, he found smoke and flames and shouted a warning to the shadowy figure beyond them.

Many Americans feel it is their right to defend their property
But when the figure came towards him, Stordahl pulled the trigger and fatally wounded him in the neck.

A Grand Jury later cleared Linn Stordahl of all charges, though Stordahl now faces intimidation from local teenagers – and perhaps the depths of his own conscience.

It’s a sobering tale to those who call for American-style gun laws in the UK.

It is bizarre enough that Collingridge describes the fire as if this was something to be expected and not out of the ordinary. Hey, this kid lit fires in the stove at home, why wouldn’t he light them in your garage? But, predictably for the BBC, Collingridge also leaves out a few details of this shooting.

For example, Collingridge forgets to tell her readers that when Stordahl entered the garage and saw the fire, he asked Choate what the young man was doing in the garage. Choate then began to walk toward Stordahl. Stordahl told Choate to stop, but Choate ignored the warning. Stordahl again warned Choate to stop and informed the young man that he had a gun, but Choate kept walking toward Stordahl. Only after these warnings went unheeded did Stordahl discharge his weapon, ultimately killing the 16-year-old.

For some reason Collingridge also forgets to mention that Choate’s autopsy found that the young man had a blood alcohol level of .31 and that he also tested positive for both marijuana and cocaine.

So what is the message that Collingridge has for American women? Well, if you happen to find a man high on drugs and alcohol setting fires in your garage, and if that man advances toward you while ignoring your warnings to stop, whatever you do, don’t use a handgun! Think of that poor young unarmed man! You wouldn’t really want to hurt him, would you? Just sit back and hope the police arrive in time. Maybe say a few prayers that the man won’t rape you before police show up.

This is the standard that the UK has arrived at in the persecution of Tony Martin. Martin’s home had been broken into eight times. Not receiving satisfaction from police, Martin bought a gun and when intruders broke in again, he shot them, killing a 16-year-old. For doing what the police could or would not do — protect his home — Martin received more time in jail than those who tried to burglar his residence.

Just sit around and wait to be a victim — that’s the BBC’s version of empowerment.

Sources:

Women who ‘shoot to kill’. The BBC, July 21, 2003.

BBC finds Salem case similar to shooting in UK. Albany Herald-Democrat, July 5, 2003.

Homeowner cleared in shooting of intruder. Associated Press, April 29, 2003.

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