THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011
PAGE 3
FROM COURT ON PAGE 1
Rebekah Gates, left, with her defense attorney Amanda Eastman at the podium, presents her case to student judges.
ISAAC GWIN/KANSAN
offers a unique opportunity for law students to hone their craft. Unlike moot court, where students present their cases in mock trials merely for a grade, the appellate court has the students developing cases for actual clients, with outcomes that will ultimately have real consequences.
Maggie DiSilvestro, also a first-year law student from Kansas City, Kan., acted as the prosecution on the side of the parking department.
"It's a little bit trickier trying to relate to 'The Man's' position," DiSilvestro said. "But I have a slight advantage in that the appellant has
already been ticketed, so all I have to do is show that the regulations are just."
After the prosecution and defense have argued their sides, for which they have prepared evidence in the form of statements from witnesses, photographs of parking areas and information from previous appellate court cases, the judges then deliberate and make their decisions.
The judges ruled that Gates would have to pay one of the three parking citations, stating that the parking department had the right to cite her the tickets, but that out of fairness, the other two tickets
would not be enforced.
"I feel it's reasonable that I only received one ticket for the invalid parking mistake," Gates said. "Even though it's just for a parking ticket, being in court and seeing the judges deliberate was still really intense."
According to Donna Hultine, director of the University parking department, of the 55,183 parking citations given by the University in the last fiscal year, only 1,001 have been appealed.
— Edited by Jennifer DiDonato
CRIME
Men charged in conspiracy, ricin plot
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On his website, militia leader-turned-blogger Mike Vanderboech writes about fed-up Americans responding to government violence with guns and grenades. It's an attempt to warn the government that people are armed and angry, he said, just like last year when he urged those upset with President Barack Obama's health care plan to toss bricks at Democratic Party offices.
A few people shattered office windows then, and federal prosecutors now say his online novel about a militia making war against the U.S. government inspired a group of four retirement-age men in Georgia to plot an attack on unnamed government leaders using guns, the deadly toxin ricin and explosives.
Vanderboegh said he doesn't know the suspects. He ridiculed the men's plans and chuckled at the notoriety he has gained for his online rants.
"It comes with the territory" he said in an interview from his home in a Birmingham, Ala., suburb. Vanderboegh hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing.
The four suspected militia members allegedly boasted of a "bucket
list” of government officials who needed to be “taken out”; talked about scattering ricin from a plane or a car speeding down a highway past major U.S. cities; and scouted IRS and ATF offices, with one man saying, “Wed have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh,” a reference to the man executed for bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Federal investigators said they had them under surveillance for at least seven months, infiltrating their meetings at a Waffle House, homes and other places, before finally arresting them Tuesday, just days after discovering evidence they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans.
The four gray-haired men appeared in federal court Wednesday without entering a plea. Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68 were jailed for a bail hearing next week. They apparently had trouble hearing the judge, some of them cupping their ears.
A grand jury indicted the men Thursday. Thomas and Roberts are charged with conspiring to possess an explosive device and possessing an unregistered silencer. Adams and
Crump are charged with attempting to make a biological toxin.
A Department of Justice spokesman said that if convicted, Crump and Adams could face life in prison, while Thomas and Roberts could face up to five years.
Relatives of two of the men said the charges were baseless. The public defender assigned to the case had no comment.
Vanderboegh, a big man with thinning gray hair and glasses, was raised in Ohio and moved to Alabama years ago for work. He was a former Alabama Minuteman leader but said he no longer considers himself as a leader of the movement.
Vanderbeeg said he has never advocated violence against the government yet recognizes its possible — even likely — if the government attacks citizens first.
Vanderbeegh wrote on his blog that his book was fiction and that he was skeptical a "pretty geriatric" militia could carry out the attacks the men were accused of planning.
Thomas' wife, Charlotte, told The Associated Press the charges were "baloney"
"He spent 30 years in the U.S. Navy. He would not do anything against his country," she said.
Qualls said KDOT's cable barrier project along K-10 would be the third of its kind in Kansas. KDOT has also installed cable median barriers at highways near Wichita and Topeka.
barriers along K-10 after the April fatalities. Cromwell said that he commuted K-10 on a daily basis and traveled the highway as a Kansas student as well.
K-10 FROM PAGE 1
Lawrence Mayor Aron Cromwell signed a letter supporting the installation of the cable median
sitonate about trying to get these cable barriers installed," he said. "The state really worked with us — they partnered up with us from the get-go."
"It's a very high speed, dangerous road," Cromwell said. "One of the things about K-10 is it is heavily traveled by not just commuters but students also, and that's one reason to be extra careful. I am pleased to see that they've moved forward with those barriers — I think that will help."
In addition to the cable barrier project, KDOT plans to lobby the
Kansas Legislature to make K-10 a "safety corridor" because of the high frequency of accidents. The highway safety corridor would aim to tackle reckless driving by increasing fines and police presence on the highway. Mayor Hopson said that Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, plans to work on the proposal.
— Edited by Lindsey Deiter
Freshman 15 more myth than fact, study shows
HEALTH
The "Freshman 15" could be renamed the "Freshman three-or-four," according to a study by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The data suggest that women can expect to gain three pounds their freshman year, while men tend to gain closer to four.
Overland Park, said the Ambler Student Recreational Center environment has made it easier for her to remain fit.
Maddie Morgan, a freshman from
weight gain.
"It's really easy, I usually come just on Tuesdays and Thursdays right after one of my classes," she said. "Then I go and shower and go to my schools, so it's really convenient."
University nutritionist Ann Chapman suggests using online services to help with food choices in avoiding
"I think those foods are there, but I do think that you have to look for them," Chapman said. "Looking ahead at an online menu which posts everything that they serve — it gives a nutrition breakdown. So a student could find how many calories is in a Reuben sandwich or the spaghetti."
— Chance Penner
COURT ROOM DRAMA
KEVORK DIANSEZIAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dr. Conrad Murray listens as defense attorney Ed Chernoff, not pictured, gives the defense's closing arguments during the final stage of Murray's defense in his involuntary manslaughter trial in the death of singer Michael Jackson at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, Nov 3, in Los Angeles. Calif. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical licenses if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death.
ENVIRONMENT
EPA investigates drilling
effect on water supply The Environmental Protection Agency is set to start a federal probe into whether the controversial'drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing is spoiling and diminishing drinking water supplies.
Associated Press
The EPA will examine drilling sites in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado.
The agency's final study plan was released Thursday. The research will look at where companies performing hydraulic fracturing get their water and how much they use. It will also try to pinpoint the cause of alleged water contamination — looking at aboveground spills, well design and the fracturing process itself.
Meanwhile, the agency has taken steps to boost regulation of so-called fracking, which is the injection of water and chemicals underground to extract natural gas trapped in rock.
The first results will be available in 2012.
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