THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, FEBUARY 25. 2009
NEWS
3A
CRIME
Judge sets preliminary hearing
Ryan McGeeney/KANSA
Student will face one charge of animal cruelty as evidence is presented in April
BY RYAN MCGEENEY AND ALEXANDRA GARRY
agarry@kansan.com
Cem Basoflas, Istanbul, Turkey, sophomore, appeared in Douglas County District Court on Tuesday afternoon before Division I Judge Robert Fairchild on one charge of animal cruelty.
Basoflas' lawyer, Sara Swain, requested that a preliminary hearing,
Cem Basoflas, Istanbul, Turkey, sophomore, appears in Douglas County District Court on Tuesday afternoon on one charge of animal cruelty. Although Basoflas attorney, Sarah Swain, requested that Basoflas' right to a preliminary hearing be waived, Douglas County prosecutor Michael Allen objected, and the preliminary hearing was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on April 6.
in which evidence would be presented to the court, be waived. But Douglas County prosecutor Michael Allen insisted that the court pursue the preliminary hearing, and Judge Fairchild agreed Basoflas' preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on April 6.
Had the preliminary hearing been waived, the case most likely would have proceeded directly to trial, according to the Douglas County District Attorney's office.
Swain also suggested that the preliminary hearing be moved to a special setting outside the Douglas County Courthouse, but Fairchild declined.
Several members of the board of the Lawrence Humane Society who attended Tuesday's hearing said they were glad the preliminary hearing had not been waived.
"I'm pleased that there will be a preliminary hearing and that this atrocious evidence will come out," said Debbie Smith, a member of the human society's board. "He should not go unpunished."
Midge Grinstead, director of the humane society, said the importance of the preliminary hearing was the public airing of evidence.
"When we did the necropsies with the vet, it was traumatic," Grinstead said. "And that's what will come out."
She added that the current charge was "nothing compared to what he did. People will not want to hear it. Two of my board members brought ear plugs today, because they were afraid they were going to tell the evidence it's horrible."
Grinstead said the humane society had been observing Basilas at
his southwest Lawrence apartment since May 2008, after Basofasl returned a cat with a broken bone and other problems. He had adopted the cat from the shelter. In August, the shelter allowed Basofasl to adopt a second cat, which he later returned with nine fractured ribs and a broken sternum, Grinstead said.
"For a cat to break a sternum — I don't see that unless a car runs them over," Grinstead said. "It's pretty severe."
The humane society is involved in all animal cruelty and neglect investigations in Douglas County, Grinstead said, and typically investigates about 500 cases each year. Grinstead said 18 cases were prosecuted out of all such investigations in 2008.
Edited by Brandy Entsminger
GOVERNMENT
President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday.
Obama reassures nation in face of financial crisis
BY JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press
"The time to take charge of our future is here," Obama declared, delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promised a nation shuddering in economic crisis Tuesday night that he would lead it from a dire "day of reckoning" to a brighter future, summoning politicians and public alike to shoulder responsibility for hard choices and shared sacrifice.
Offering words of reassurance to an anxious nation, he declared, "Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
"We are a nation that has seen promise and peril," he said. "Now we must be that nation again."
Cheered robustly as he entered the House chamber, Obama grinned, shook hands and kissed lawmakers and stopped for a lengthy embrace with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back on the bench only this week after surgery for pancreatic cancer.
To deal with the current crisis, deepening each day, the president said more money would be needed to rescue troubled banks beyond the $700 billion already committed last year. He said he knew that bailout billions for banks are unpopular — "I promise you, I get it," he said but he also insisted that was the only way to get credit moving again to households and businesses, the life-blood of the American economy.
Along with aid for banks, he also called on Congress to move quickly on legislation to overhaul outdated regulations on the nation's financial markets.
"I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary," Obama said. "Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession."
Thinking longer-term, Obama said in a speech many spee-
cifics and devoid of initiatives that both political parties must give up favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to build better schools, expand health care coverage and move the nation to "greener" fuel use.
Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama addressed an ebullent Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as millions of anxious viewers. Despite the nation's economic worries and the lack of support for his plans from all but a few Republican lawmakers, Obama enjoys strong approval ratings across the nation.
Louisiana's young, charismatic governor, Bobby Jindal, delivering the televised GOP response,
exhorted fellow Republicans to be Obama's "strongest partners" when they agree with him. But he signaled that won't happen much, calling Democrats in Congress "irresponsible" for passing the $787 billion
"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," Jindal said, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the Republican Party. "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?"
stimulus package that Republicans have criticized as excessive and wasteful.
Obama spoke as bad economic news continued to pile up, felt all too keenly in U.S. homes and businesses. Some 3.6 million jobs have disappeared so far in the deepening recession, which now ranks as the biggest job destroyer in the post-World War II period. Americans have lost trillions of dollars in retirement, college and savings accounts, with the stock market falling nearly half from its peak of
Jindal is considered a likely presidential contender in 2012.
The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for — and even demands — simultaneous action on a broad, expensive
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation."
BARACK OBAMA President
16 months ago.
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," he said.
And new polls — some with his public support rising and others with it dropping — show that the political climate can be as precarious as the economic one. Aware that his and his party's fortunes will suffer if he cannot right the economic picture, Obama sought to blend the kind of grim honesty that has become his trademark since taking office with a greater emphasis on optimism.
agenda including helping the millions without health insurance, improving education and switching the U.S. to greater dependence on alternative energy sources. This is the big lift of his young presidency:
His hope was to begin to persuade the country that those longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation's economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.
bringing the public behind what are sure to be enormous outlays on contentious issues.
"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit," Obama said. "That is our responsibility."
New in office, he wasn't charged with producing a formal State of the Union status report.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
But that's what it was: a night for the president to sketch out his priorities in a setting unmatched the rest of the year.
Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applaud before President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday.
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