Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.

Michael Gartland & Peter J. Sampson, "Ruling May Turn Verdicts Around: High Court Narrows 'Honest Services' Law," in The Record, June 25, 2010, at p. A1.
William Lamb, "Prostitute Gets 30 Years: Pleaded Guilty in Jennifer Moore Rape, Murder Case," in The Record, June 25, 2010, at p. L-1.
William Lamb, "Prostitute Takes Plea Deal for Role in Motel Murder: Admits Watching Pimp Rape, Strangle Harrington Park Teen," in The Record, May 7, 2010, at p. L-3.
William Lamb, "Sentencing Helps Ease Family's Enduring Pain," in The Record, May 14, 2010, at p. A-1.
Lee Weingraf, "Women in the American Gulag," in International Socialist Review, May-June, 2010, at p. 75. Reviewing R. Solinger, P. Johnson, M. Raimon, T. Reynolds, R. Tapia, eds., Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), 480 pages.
Duncan Kennedy, "Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing, and the Eroticization of Domination," in Sexy Dressing, Etc.: Essays on the Power and Politics of Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 126-215.
Angela Harris, "Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory," 42 Stan L. Rev. 581 (1990). http://www.feministpress.org/
Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (New York & London: Verso, 2004).
Elizabeth Schneider, "Equal Rights to Trial for Women: Sex Bias in the Law of Self-Defense," 15 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 623 (1980).
D. Kelly Weisberg, ed., Feminist Legal Theory: Foundations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
Mark Kelman, "The Origins of Crime and Criminal Violence," in David Kairys, ed., The Politics of Law (New York: Pantheon, 1982), pp. 214-229. (Later editions are fine.)


Much of the scholarly material cited above develops under the umbrella of the works of Frederic Jameson. ("America's Holocaust.")

Criminal law in every society is reflective of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that are often unexamined by professionals dealing with the grim daily realities within the legal system. 

Even scholars of the law seduced by the intricacies of procedure and puzzles of doctrinal evolution tend to be dismissive of such philosophical -- or in the full sense of the word jurisprudential -- questions. 

This chosen ignorance is a mistake because such difficult abstract issues affect practice in many unsuspected ways.

Failures of scholarship and understanding produce human misery and tragedy on a massive scale. Worse, this is usually avoidable suffering for victims and victimizers. These intellectual or legal scholarly failures -- which are most evident in the decline of the appellate bench in recent years -- further discredit the U.S. legal system (something which may be impossible in New Jersey where courts cannot sink any further into chaos and corruption) by undermining the values which that system and our Constitution seek to serve.

Feminist legal scholars -- who are often lacking in multidisciplinary perspectives, notably (and inexcusably) they are often abysmally unsophisticated about philosophical developments over the past century -- these feminist scholars have noted the sexist and archaic assumptions concerning agency and subjectivity structural to criminal codes and statutes, also to case law in American jurisdictions, without providing compelling explanations for why these difficulties exist and matter so much.

The "individual rational choosing agent" of classical criminal law doctrine whose actions are more or less "voluntary" is a MASCULINE creature of myth. 

This is not to deny the real possibilities of freedom as and among "interpretations" for which life-threatening struggles must be waged. It is with regard to interpretations that freedom is possible and must be exercised. 

Lawyers, like everyone else today, must live in a "culture of interpretations." ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

Let's take a look at one fairly typical case which, I suggest, illustrates some of these feminist themes. This is not "designer feminism" of the "Sex-in-the-City" variety. There will be no discussion of "feministing" nor will I focus on "J-Val's" adventures. 

My concern here is with the ongoing discussion about the kind of feminism that is needed, desperately, in our societal political and intellectual debate about fundamental values in post-9/11 America. 

Defenders of Ms. Valenti may wish to consult her arguments in The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2010), pp. 185-215. (A little dose of "full frontal" Valenti.)

I recently found myself strolling through Manhattan, browsing in bookstores. Providing myself with an excuse to purchase some books for my daughter who is an undergraduate at an "elite" American liberal arts college, I found two titles that I wish were available to every young woman in America: John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (New York: Dover, 1997) and Elizabeth Wurtzel's Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (New York: Random House, 1998). (I can neither confirm nor deny that I have known a "bitch" or two in my time -- nor will I admit to being a bitch myself.)

If I had the power to do so, I would allow and encourage women who are incarcerated to transform their experiences behind bars into a university education and political study group. Please see also, Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (New York & London: Verso, 2004). 

If you do not recognize these titles, ask yourself: Why you do not know these writers? Then go out and read these women's books.

We need a politically engaged and revolutionary feminism in the trenches where power is contested -- prisons, courtrooms, police stations, classrooms, street corners are (or can be) universities of ideological and/or philosophical training for the powerless masses aware that ignorance is how they are kept powerless in America or anywhere. 

This is the kind of analysis that law students do not engage in, normally, because it is much too dangerous for them to do so. As between ideology and philosophy, always go for philosophy. ("Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison.")

This is not a discussion or debate that can take place for people who have decided that "it is all relative" or "whatever." If there is no such thing as "fundamental values," then power dictates all outcomes and there is nothing more to be said. 

A debate concerning the morality of different options in public policy and law is meaningful only when people agree that there is a point to the discussion and something to be gained from the effort to decide whether one policy is morally preferable to another. This is a point for whoever (whatever "creature") claimed to be "S.L. Hurley" to ponder in New Jersey's corridors of power. Anne Milgram? Jennifer Velez? Kim Guardagno? How is the "University of Kent"? ("Anne Milgram Does It Again!" and, again, "Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet'!")

One of the ways in which you are controlled by the power structure is by being taught that oppression is an "unavoidable and necessary" means of ensuring "the rule of law and democracy." ("What is it like to be tortured?")

"A prostitute [not a "woman" but a "prostitute"?] who was implicated, along with a pimp, in the 2006 murder of an 18-year-old Harrington Park woman pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of kidnapping and hindering apprehension."

Please focus on the criminal law concepts of "kidnapping" and "hindering apprehension." Both of these crimes require very specific intent. I can think of lots of people in New Jersey who should be charged with such offenses and much worse crimes who, probably, will never face any charges because of their status or influential "friends." ("Have you no shame Mr. Rabner?")

Just as judges express disdain or disapprove of same sex relationships when they have been known to engage in such relationships, so it seems that many judges are no better, morally, than many of the people they judge. Sometimes judges are much worse than persons appearing before them because judges are often hypocrites. Estela De La Cruz? ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

With all due respect to the prosecutor speaking at this defendant's sentencing, there were indeed several victims when Ms. Moore was murdered, society being one of them. Ms. Riordan was clearly another victim on that occasion. "But for" a quirk of fate, Ms. Moore might have been forced by the murderer to assist him in disposing of Ms. Riordan's body. Jennifer Moore would have been wise to do so. Had these been the facts in this tragic story, newspapers would not have enjoyed the opportunity to refer to Ms. Riordan as the "prostitute."

I am sure that prosecutorial discretion would have resulted in no charges being issued against the middle class and white unwilling assistant of the murderer -- if it had been Ms. Moore, that is. Class, prior history, trauma, violation and many other factors contribute to the "interpretations" of these events producing one outcome, making sense to some people, as opposed to a different outcome that makes more sense to many others. 

What does "willing" ("wilful") or "voluntary" mean in this context? Is "blame" or "responsibility" an "issue" for all parties in this matter as lawyers say?

I am certain that the computer crime and censorship that I experience, every day, would have been punished by the authorities -- if my ethnicity were different or if the persons committing these crimes were without "political protection" or located somewhere other than in America's "Soprano State."

Public threats, insulting letters, censorship using government technology and resources are worse than street crime and far more than "unethical."

Stuart, you may not be able to protect Debbie Poritz or "Terry Tuchin" even if you attend services with them at the same temple in Short Hills or Ridgewood, New Jersey. I cannot imagine any other reason for the continuing apathy to these public crimes on the part of New Jersey's soiled legal profession and highest court. ("New Jersey's Mafia Culture in Law and Politics.")

This is not to deny the horror in these events nor the pain to the victim's family. I plan to write at greater length about this case in the future. 

Ms. Riordan's legal representation -- to explore all of the issues that should be raised -- would require hundreds of thousands of dollars and more resources than the public defender could possibly muster. This case is one of the windows into America's legal system that the power structure wishes to see closed, quickly. ("Give us Free!" and "Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

"Condemned Briton's Last Hope Lies With Mercy Plea to David Cameron," in The Observer, June 27, 2010, at p. 2. http://www.observer.co.uk/

A British woman receiving no adequate legal defense is on death row in a questionable case where vital jurisdictional issues were never argued. 

No one alleges that this death-row defendant pulled any trigger. There are treaties between the U.S./UK governing jurisdiction over persons -- as distinct from subject matter -- that require deportation in many cases where criminal guilt is alleged or where death may result. 

Based on newspaper accounts it seems clear that no attempt was made to exit the harsh Texas state legal system in order to argue conflict of laws and international as well as Constitutional issues in the friendlier and much better federal forum. 

I would rather be deported than executed. My guess is that the British lady in question (Ms. Winslet?) feels the same way.

"Krystal Riordan, 24, had signaled through her attorney that she intended to turn down a plea deal and face trial in the murder of Jennifer Moore, who was beaten, raped and strangled in a Weehawken motel room the morning of July 25, 2006, after a night of partying in Manhattan."

Why choose to plead guilty when you would have done no worse after being convicted, probably? Not with this judge. Why not attack the doctrinal basis of the charges by raising defenses like diminished capacity, duress, necessity (under any other terminology) and causation issues, along with many other possible defenses? 

By the way, I have seen photographs of this defendant. I am aware that, somatically, she is a white person. However, in terms of America's unspoken values and culture, she is a "nigger."

The simple answer is "MONEY." Patty Hearst would have been doing 30 years to life without the highly expensive defense mounted by Mr. Bailey. Everyone is entitled to that kind of defense; few people can afford that type of defense in America. Justice is not a game and should not be about money. In America, too often, it is both a game and all about money. ("So Black and So Blue in Prison.")

I am aware that New Jersey officials do not like the fact that their hypocrisy and criminality, corruption and many frauds ("ethics") are highlighted by me, on a daily basis. I know that they are behind the computer crimes and other obstructions I deal with in order to write these essays. More stealing from me will not silence me.

You are witnessing content-based, government-sanctioned censorship in America. Someone has to say these things because they need saying. I will continue to write. You have no ethics in Trenton. Hence, you are hardly in a position to judge my life and/or actions. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

If you are not overly concerned about this criminal censorship because you dislike my politics, bear in mind that censorship rarely stops with one victim. Next week another Internet writer's opinions will be unacceptable to the censors in Miami or Union City, New Jersey. Eventually, only their own opinions will be acceptable. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")

"Daymon Coleman, 38, for whom Riordan allegedly worked as a prostitute, pleaded guilty to a murder charge in March."

"Riordan, of Orange, Conn., pleaded guilty in state Superior Court in Jersey City on Thursday to a charge of first-degree kidnapping for the purposes of facilitating a sexual assault, and hindering apprehension, a second-degree crime."

"The second charge was applied 'for the manner in which they disposed of the evidence [body and other evidence] at the scene[.]"

The murder victim's corpse was found "two days later in a trash bin [symbol] near the Park Avenue Hotel, said Michael D'Andrea, an assistant Hudson County prosecutor."


The judge in this case and prosecutors are people I know reasonably well. There are several prosecutors and judges in Hudson County who should be disbarred and sent to prison, some of whom (I am sure) are much worse persons that Krystal Riordan. Some of these lawyers may be inserting "errors" in my writings. However, this particular judge and prosecutor (a political animal) are not among the most worthless specimens of humanity in New Jersey's legal profession -- like Neil M. Cohen, Esq. -- who are destined for great "success" in the system. ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks," then "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" and "North Bergen, New Jersey is the Home of La Cosa Nostra.")

What is fascinating to me about this scenario -- in addition to the obvious tragedy for all concerned for which we all feel great sympathy, especially for the suffering of loved-ones of the victim(s) -- is the hermeneutic devices that immediately come into play, usually deployed by persons who do not know the word "hermeneutics" -- in order to contain this situation within the parameters prescribed by American society and making it politically undangerous. Much of this process of "interpretive construction" is subconscious and "pre-reflective." Drucilla Cornell, "The Violence of the Masquerade: Law Dressed Up as Justice," in Gary B. Madison, ed., Working Through Derrida (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1993), pp. 77-94.

I am not suggesting that the primary defendant who committed these crimes should receive anything less than the 50 years, I believe, that he received in fact. I am not "excusing" anyone's conduct in this terrible incident. 30 years for Ms. Riordan seems excessive. However, it is not unforeseeable that she would receive such a sentence.

I am saying that we must examine the political function of the criminal process in late capitalistic society, a process that is highly adept at deflating profound critiques of the system.

Deciding what is a "relevant" fact to assessing responsibility or degrees of voluntary conduct by each agent in this so-called "fact pattern" is an INTERPRETIVE and far from innocent action that passes nearly unperceived by all players in the legal order or public. Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture (New York: Seven Stories, 2005) and Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories, 2003). (The only way that prisons are not obsolete is as slave ships.)

Without "excusing" anyone's conduct, it may be -- based on facts reported in the media -- that Ms. Riordan's actions were legally "justifiable." 

This distinction between what is legally excusable as opposed to justifiable may be crucial in arguing her case to an appellate tribunal or in seeking a reduction of her sentence by way of a motion for reconsideration. 

Ms. Riordan should not have pleaded guilty without considering these options. Notice the early life-trauma, sexual violation, limitations of capacity for this woman who was 20 years-old when the incident occurred. 

Despite her skin color, as far as America's legal system is concerned, again, Ms. Riordan and every defendant in this case is a "nigger" and will be treated as such. 

In America, in addition to skin color, power (or its absence) can make anyone a "nigger."

The person, Ms. Riordan, standing in that courtroom to be sentenced -- as difficult as this may be to accept -- should be seen as not all that different from the victim, Jennifer Moore, except for a better set of circumstances in the murder victim's life. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")

To pretend otherwise, is to ignore most of the lessons of the human sciences in our time -- including the most important developments in philosophy and psychology -- which does not involve abandoning all concepts of free will, or voluntary conduct, or any such nonsense. ("Louis C. Taylor Serves 42 Years As An Innocent Man" and "Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")



What is a fact? Which facts are relevant or matter under the applicable rules of evidence and legal doctrines? At what point in the time-line do we arbitrarily cut off the focus of concern to determine causality or proximate causality in order to establish criminal guilt? Where do the rules "specify" these strictures of interpretations? If they are not specifically set forth in the rules, but only marked out by vague boundaries like "relevance," then how do professionals learn these "interpretive skills" so perfectly? Are we indoctrinated into a culture of practice? See Duncan Kennedy's classic essay, Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy.

A whole lot of stuff had to happen in several lives to bring the necessary ingredients together for the explosion to occur on the night and day of this murder. 

Who were these people? How did they get to that motel room at the same time and psychological "place"? Where do we see the political realities of power in America most blatantly? In this motel room? Who has assigned their roles to the various "actors" in this drama? Were these people in the same "moment," culture, mood and value schemes as these tragic events unfolded? Would Ms. Riordan ask: "What would you have done?" ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

I suggest that a quantum hermeneutic perspective on this scenario -- a hermeneutics of free interpretations borrowing from cinematic method and aesthetic techniques -- leads to sharply divergent and original conclusions concerning these questions. ("'Westworld': A review of the t.v. series.")

No, this is not "impractical." Furthermore, borrowing from Frederic Jameson and Judith Butler, or Duncan Kennedy, I insist that these conclusions are and must be politically significant. Plagiarists may wish to go to the source here: Juan Galis-Menendez, Paul Ricoeur and Hermeneutics of Freedom (North Carolina: Lulu, 2004), http://www.lulu.com/JuanG ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "How Censorship Works in America.")

You may begin to see why the powers-that-be in America do not wish for my work to be disseminated widely. Tell your friends about this situation. (Again: "What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "More Censorship and Cybercrime.")

Ms. Riordan was a victim long before this terrible crime was committed by Mr. Coleman. It takes abuse, subordination and domination for years -- from childhood usually -- by male power figures, fathers or older relatives, local men, to accustom a young woman to slavery and violation, so that she comes to expect and accept abuse as well as powerlessness from physically stronger men, whom she must serve. 

This passiveness can happen to anyone in coercive and abusive environments. There may be a sense in which sexual gratification is experienced by sadists relishing "control" of others as a kind of coitus. Inserting "errors" in my writings may be seen as one example of the sickness that I describe. This may indeed be a motivation to some degree of all persons in politics in every human society: sexual greed for power over other persons. (Yes, another "error" inserted.) 

Power and sex are always involved in ... well, "intercourse." E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin and the Black Act (1975), Ch. #10, sec. 4 and Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Law in Modern Society (New York: Free Press, 1976), how legal systems "evolve." ("America's Love of Violence.")

Duncan Kennedy will be miffed unless I mention at least one more of his books: "Strategizing Strategic Behavior in Interpretation," in A Critique of Adjudication (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 180-212, then Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (New York: Noonday Press, 1962), pp. 97-99. ("The Hunting Pack.")

F. Lee Bailey pioneered a similar "anomie" defense in the Patty Hearst case, as I have noted, without theoretical foundations from hermeneutics and European psychoanalysis that developed later. Jacques Lacan may come in handy for defense lawyers. Take a look at what Lacan calls: "mirroring relations." A person who has never experienced rape can not fully appreciate the horror of sexual violation or what this dehumanizing crime does to the psyche. Rape is something that you never stop reliving. The same is true of enslavement. My guess is that Ms. Riordan has experienced both rape and enslavement. (Once more: "What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?" then "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

No wonder detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are "confessing" to whatever they are told to admit doing. You would confess too, if you were tortured. Those of us who will not "adjust" are, by definition, "abnormal" individuals and, therefore, fitting targets for torturers. More cyberwarfare? (Again: "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "Psychological Torture in the American Legal System.")

To what degree is any conduct by a woman after a lifetime of such treatment and sexual denigration -- or worse -- truly "voluntary" or chosen as opposed to coerced or extracted from absolutely and totally disempowered young women, like Ms. Riordan? What options did this young woman really have on the night in question? What would have happened to Ms. Riordan if she had refused the instructions of Mr. Coleman? How many bodies would have been discovered by the authorities the next day? Joshua Dressler, "Necessity" and "Duress," in Understanding Criminal Law (New Jersey: Lexis, 2006), pp. 309-345. http://www.lexis.com/

Mr. Coleman brought the victim to the hotel room where Ms. Riordan "lived" with the murderer and pimp. The inability of this young woman, Ms. Riordan, to flee the situation should tell you something about the well-documented phenomenon of loss of will, anomie, automatism that is produced, deliberately, in women by exploiters who have become highly adept in the use of these psychological techniques to "capitalize" on women's and children's stolen innocence in order to generate a commercialized sexuality. 

I doubt that Ms. Riordan was capable of formulating the necessary and highly specific intent to commit these crimes. You have to be made into a slave, every day, to enslave others. You have to be transformed into a commercial product (or "object") to enrich others. I will not become anyone's slave. (Again: "America's Holocaust.") 

Christopher Sorrentino, Trance (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux-Picador, 2005). (What you see in the criminal behavior of urban males is a distorted reflection of America's tragic history of slavery and racism as well as commercial and class divides.)

One goal of the "error" insertions and other forms of censorship which you are witnessing at these blogs -- when combined with many forms of personal, social, and professional harm -- is to destroy a dissident's coping and communicative power in order to render a person "harmless," utterly complaisant with the wishes and instructions of power, and no longer threatening. For this reason a victim's identity must be disconfirmed. Hence, the chorus of insults: "You are stupid, ugly, old, and your writings are no good." 

I regard all such statements as compliments. ("Torture" and "More in Sadness Than in Anger.")

Too late to say such things to me. For fragile young women, however, the effects of such psychological torture can be lethal. As I say, I doubt that these tactics will ever work with me. However, I believe that they will be effective in the vast majority of cases. 

Think of the moral malignancy of a person capable of such cruelty and you will appreciate the worthlessness of such a person's view of one's "ethics." Prisons are designed to break people's minds in order to make them into drones or slaves. ("Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")

Ms. Moore's willingness to follow a person she barely knew was not only about how much she may have been drinking, but also a reflection of structural sexism and power-relations in society that establish dominance and hierarchies of control that must not be violated. 

Ms. Moore, like most "nice" middle class young women, had been taught by society to "obey." This is especially true when it comes to prepossessing men in situations of her own helplessness and their power or authority. Ms. Moore's car had been towed in New York. ("We don't know from nothing!" and "The Wanderer and His Shadow.")

Coleman was also produced by these structures in that he was expressing the sense of violation and rage at his own dehumanization together with displays of physical violence for which society has trained him, methodically -- also from childhood -- as an African-American man. ("America's Holocaust" and "Driving While Black [DWB] in New Jersey" then "What a Man's Gotta Do.")

Ms. Riordan is clearly among the many young women in America whose capacity for voluntary, self-chosen, independent conduct and action is obliterated by a system of sexist oppressions and dehumanizations that reduces such women to their sexual organs and capacities. 

Ms. Riordan was "murdered" (by being denied the status of a "person") long before Jennifer Moore, the actual murder victim, was killed by Mr. Coleman. These women were "flushed away" by sexism before they became objects of concern and further manipulation by the legal system that only buried the bodies. I hope that you are offended by what I have just said. ("Would You Have Helped Katherine 'Kitty' Genovese?" and "Not One More Victim!")

No one -- except their loved-ones, if any -- will really care about the conditions that will reproduce this horrifying scenario, again and again. 

More young women like these two tragic victims will be generated by the system until we deal with the root causes of crime in persistent racism, sexism, social inequality, dehumanizing environments where life is cheap. The issues are deeply political -- or sociological -- and only secondarily legal. ("Dehumanization" then "The Art of Melanie Griffith" and "Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

Everybody in this scenario played exactly the role that society prescribed to him or her. I refuse to do so. There is no logic or truth in the arbitrary legal doctrines deployed to arrive at a predetermined destination in this nightmare case. Legal doctrines are only tools of control and efficient manipulation of powerless and/or violent members of the underclass for the most part. They do not apply to the real major criminals in America who wear blue suits and, often, hold elective office. America's legal rules have nothing to do with justice in the full meaning of the word. ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" then "Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?")

In the same issue of the newspaper it is reported that the U.S. Supreme Court has made it more difficult to prosecute political corruption and theft. Many of New Jersey's hundreds of incarcerated lowlifes -- that is, former judges and politicians -- are looking to get out from their obscenely short prison sentences. 

Convicted "White Collar" criminals are often persons without the traumas in Ms. Riordan's life or any excuse for their despicable behavior, persons not all that different from their counterparts still holding public office in the Garden State who are indicted almost every week by the U.S. Attorney's Office. ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

We are worried about the "prostitute," Ms. Riordan, but not about those political whores in Trenton who should be more frightening to all of us, especially when they happen to be judges stealing your money and distributing child porn for years and getting away with it. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "44 Legal and Political Officials Arrested in New Jersey" then "New Jersey Rabbi Faces Child Porn Charges.")

Laws are certainly sometimes used for moral reasons. Often legal doctrines are deployed long after the major harm is done to "defendants." Laws are irrelevant or superstructural to the political realities which they also reflect and serve, in other words, because they are merely another mechanism of domination and servitude preserving and protecting existing hierarchies of wealth, power, privilege that can sometimes be turned against their masters, but which will almost always keep the majority of people in their cages. Noam Chomsky, "The New Imperialism," in International Socialist Review, Issue 72, July-August, 2010, at p. 17. ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")

We have strayed very far from our fundamental Constitutional principles guaranteeing "due process" of law when most of what matters in the legal system takes place, secretly, and victims of crime are victimized, again, by judges acting outside the boundaries of law. 

There can be no "Star Chamber-like" secrecy in American law under our Constitution. ("Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison" and, again, "Not One More Victim" then "Obama Says: 'Torture is a Secret!'")

Ms. Riordan is not the only woman imprisoned after being exploited. (Marilyn Straus?) 

Ms. Moore is not the only woman murdered in America after being raped. Hey, what happened to Brittany Murphy? Lidsay Lohan? And so many others ... 

If society teaches the lesson that women must not age beyond twenty-five in our language of cinematic images, then we are surreptitiously telling women that they should die (or disappear) before growing older and losing the first blush of beauty. 

This message expresses an idiotic understanding of women's beauty which can have devastating consequences in all women's lives, especially very young women's lives:

"It is certainly the case that definitions of criminality are neither cross-culturally universal nor intraculturally uncontroversial. One form or another of witchcraft is doubtless the crime that most women have historically been punished for; within our culture, it is quite difficult even to fathom the offense. [Are you sure about that, Mark?] The other dominant woman's crime -- prostitution -- is, in the eyes of a large portion of Americans, a victimless 'non-crime,' [same offense, Mark!] hypocritically punished to satisfy religious pressure groups. It is also certainly true that behavior that is classed as criminal in certain periods will objectively favor certain forms of economic development; whether particular members of the bourgeoisie explicitly 'conspire' to dominate the legal apparatus or whether legal consciousness simply corresponds and responds to emerging class and productive relations, it remains unquestionable that, say, the enforcement of criminal vagabonding in early industrial England helped create a larger base of more willing industrial workers than would have existed otherwise. [E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters.] Finally, state power is clearly used to overtly crush a regime's opponents; focused pressure for radical transformation is almost invariably criminalized." (Kelman, p. 221.)

Criminalized or made "unethical," perhaps? 

Give me the torture files, Mr. Rabner. ("'Dark Shadows': A Movie Review.")