View allAll Photos Tagged Sentences
...caused by a complete lack of any sort of punctuation, demonstrates how today's lax education standards are now filtering through to big business.
That's part of the Sellafield Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) in the background.
Eugene Debs stands in front of the Attorney General’s office at 1010 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. December 26, 1921 after his ten year sentence for speaking against World War I was commuted.
Debs, the great labor and socialist leader who ran five times for U.S president, had been released from the Atlanta penitentiary Christmas Day and headed to Washington, D.C. to call on Attorney General Harry M. Dougherty and President Warren Harding who had commuted his sentence.
Debs joked that “I’ve started for here four or five times (to the White House), but this is the first time I ever landed,” (referring to his five times running for President).
After a day and a half in the nation’s capital, Debs headed home to his wife in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Debs was known for organizing the American Railway Union, one of the first industry-wide unions in the U.S. and leading the unsuccessful Pullman Strike.
He was the greatest socialist in the United States, garnering nearly a million votes when he ran for president from his prison cell in the 1920 election. Debs had been imprisoned for making a speech opposing the draft and America’s entry into World War I.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskst8faZ
For a blog post on Debs visit to Washington, DC following his release from prison, see washingtonspark.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/unbowed-unbroken...
Photograph by Harris and Ewing. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-hec-41847 (digital file from original negative).
Gary Stephen Kaplan, founder of BetOnSports, a large illegal offshore sports wagering business, was sentenced to 51 months in prison on multiple federal charges yesterday. Court Documents as to BetOnSports, Gary Kaplan, Et Al Released for Instant Download
Pursuant to a complex plea agreement, on August 14, 2009, Gary Stephen Kaplan, 50, entered pleas of guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate the RICO statute, conspiring to violate the Wire Wager Act, and violating the Wire Wager Act.
As part of the plea, Kaplan has forfeited to the United States $43,650,000 in criminal proceeds. An additional amount of approximately $7 million has been forfeited in related proceedings, bringing the total forfeiture in this case to over $50 million.
Kaplan admitted that beginning in the mid to late 1990’s, he set up business entities offshore in Aruba, Antigua and eventually Costa Rica to provide sportsbook services to U.S. residents through Internet websites and toll-free telephone numbers. He founded, operated, and controlled, with other co-conspirators, the enterprise known as “BetOnSports.” BetOnSports advertised heavily in the U.S. to solicit U.S. residents to place sports wagers by telephone and over the Internet. BetOnSports-related entities controlled toll free numbers and domain names advertised by BetOnSports. Technologically, Kaplan’s toll-free telephone lines terminated in Houston, Texas or Miami, Florida and then were forwarded to Costa Rica by satellite transmitter or fiber-optic cable. Some of Kaplan’s web servers were located in Miami and were remotely controlled from Costa Rica. U.S. residents became customers of BetOnSports by depositing funds on account and placing wagers over U.S. toll-free telephone lines and via the Internet using the deposited funds. Funds were sent from the U.S. customers to BoS operations outside the U.S. and BoS sent winnings from outside the U.S. to its U.S. customers.
some of the 6yrold's looks have very distinct meanings and this one means [w/ Joe Pesci voice]: "yo, why don't you just keep flippin' taking flippin' pictures and I'm gonna go ahead and keep doing what I'm doing."
Want to advertise your show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Have a life and death theme? Have skulls on your flyers? Then why not bring a coffin on to the High Street to help sell your show! Certain props really do make more out of a scene than those that just set the general ambience.
Beyond the Bridge Productions
www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/life-sentence
Photographs ©2013 PHH Sykes
www.flickr.com/photos/phhsykes
phhsykes@googlemail.com
File name: 08_06_020765
Title: Kid murderer: Raymond L. Woodward Jr. - 16 - sentenced to death
Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)
Date created: 1941-10-22
Physical description: 1 negative : film, black & white ; 3 1/8 x 4 1/4 in.
Genre: Film negatives
Subject: Criminals; Police; Handcuffs
Notes: Title and date from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.
Collection: Leslie Jones Collection
Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department
Rights: Copyright Leslie Jones.
Preferred credit: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.
17 May 2012. Abu Shouk: Ahmed Ibrahim Ahmed (37 years) teaches his son Adam (5) on writing sentences of the Koran on a board in their house in Abu Shouk camp for displaced people (North Darfur). He is a "fakih", a master who practices traditional medicine and rituals to treat people against any threat. His speciality is the popular potion made with water and the ink used to write sentences from the Koran. This beverage gives special protection to the people (against arms, dangers, diseases, broken heart...).
Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran - UNAMID - www.albertgonzalez.net
I took this in December 1988 at Dallas City Hall in protest of Judge Jack Hampton's sentencing of a man who murdered two gay men. Here's the story (from republicoft.com):
John Lloyd Griffin & Tommy Lee Trimble, two gay men, were shot and killed in Dallas, TX, on May 15, 1988, by teenagers seeking to “pester the homosexuals.” One of their killers, Richard Lee Bednarski later received a 30 year sentence from a judge who said leniency was in order because Bednarski had killed two homosexuals.
The Background
On May 15, 1988, Bednarski and a group of his friends set out on to harass homosexuals. Witnesses said that nine boys, including Trimble, were standing on a streetcorner in the Oak Lawn section of Dallas, when Griffin and Trimble drove up and invited the boys into their car. There was no evidence presented at trial that the Griffin and Trimble solicited sex from their attackers. Bednarski was said to have persuaded one more friend from his group to get into the car.
The Attack
After the car reached Reverchon Park, a witness said Bednarski ordered Trimble and Griffin to remove their clothes. When they refused, Bednarski withdrew a pistol and immediately began firing. Trimble died immediately. Griffin died five days later.
The Aftermath
Sentencing
On December 17, 1988, The Dallas Morning News reported that judge Jack Hampton sentenced Bednarski to 30 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of murder, a charge that carried the possibility of a life sentence. Judge Hampton, in an interview after the sentencing hearing said he gave Bednarski a lenient sentence because the victims were homosexuals who wouldn’t have been killed “if they hadn’t been cruising the streets picking up teenage boys.”
Hampton added that he might have given Bednarski a harsher sentence if he had killed “a couple of housewives out shopping, not hurting anybody.”
Hampton went on to say, “I put prostitutes and gays at about the same level, and I’d be hard pressed to give someone life for killing a prostitute.” Hampton added that in making his sentencing decision he also considered that Bednarski had no criminal record, was attending college, and was raised in a good home by a father who is a police officer.
The prosecutor asked for a life sentence and the defense asked for a five year sentence after the jury found Bednarski guilty. Texas law at the time allowed the defendant to decide whether the jury or the judge would set the sentence. Bednarski opted to have Judge Hampton decide his sentence, believing that the judge would be more sympathetic than the jury.
Bednarski would be eligible for parole in 7 1/2 years. In a television interview, when asked his opinion about Hampton’s statement, said “That is his own opinion. I don’t happen to agree with it.
In response to the outraged response of gay activists and community organizations to his ruling, Hampton told The Times-Herald, “Just spell my name right. If it makes anybody mad, they’ll forget by 1990.” Hampton was due to face re-election in 1990.
On December 20, 1988, about 200 people took part in a rally outside the Dallas County Courthouse, calling for Hampton’s ouster.
Hampton Censured
In December 1989, the Texas Civil Liberties Union, the Texas Human Rights Foundation, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct concerning Hampton’s comments.
On Novemver 29, 1989, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct censured Hampton. The Commission said that Hampton’s remarks violatd the judicial code prohibiting comment on a pending case and requiring judges to promote confidence in the judiciary. The censure order read:
“The commission finds that Judge Hampton’s comments, per se, were destructive of public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. The hostility and distrust generated by this judge’s irresponsible statements created an additional burden for the entire judiciary.”
Hampton Defeated
In December 1994, Judge Hampton narroly lost and appeals court election to Judge Barbara Rosenberg, a Democrat. Rosenberg campaigned on a fairness theme, and referred to Hampton’s earlier censure in her television ads.
Pedro Aviles of New York City, shown in a November 1954 photograph, was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Aviles, 28, was sentenced in 1955 to four years in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Twenty offences incurring a potential death sentence as laid out in a document from July 1945 originating in the Allied Kommandatura, and signed by Colonel General AV Gorbatov, USSR, Major General FL Parks, USA and Major General LO Lyne, Great Britain. Note the absence of a French representative, at this time they were still demanding a slice of Berlin. The Soviet Government refused to make any adjustment to their sector to accommodate the French, so the Americans and British gave up part of theirs, hence the Western Allied sectors being smaller than the Soviet Sector.
One evening, in July 1994, shortly before posting back to UK to the Joint Arms Control Implementation Group, I was walking past HQ British Military Government in London Block and noted a skip outside into which they were throwing out a lot of their "rubbish", including this handbook. I helped myself to a bit of Berlin History, taking several various booklets from 1945 to the 1971 Quadripartite Agreement which governed inter-allied procedures during my time in Berlin.
Irish Penal Reform Trust Open Forum 2010: 'Exploding Prisoner Numbers'. Main contributing guest speakers included Tom O'Malley NUI Galway; Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly (Chairperson); Dr Mary Rogan, IPRT; Vivian Geiran, Director of Operations, The Probation Service; Louis Harkin, Assistant Commissioner, An Garda Síochána. Photo by Derek Speirs.
This a snapshot of UX concept before design. The general idea is using "sentence-based" UI, where the buttons/actions are part of a sentence that explains what can be done at this point in time.
Responses from Twitterverse:
Angel Luis Medina, shown in a November 1954 photograph, was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Medina was described as the secretary for Nationalist Party in New York.
Medina turned state’s evidence, pleaded guilty to sedition and was given a suspended sentence.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
In honor of Erin Morgenstern’s visit to Nashville and the library this month, we are hosting a 10 Sentence Story Contest inspired by her Flax-Golden stories. Submit your own story based on this picture.
Stories must be no longer than ten sentences and submitted by 3pm on January 25, 2012
Winner will be announced on January 26, during Salon@615
Submit your story in the comments or email to stephanie.koehler at nplf.org
Prize: autographed copy of The Night Circus
We rarely stop to marvel at the miraculous products of modern science.
The computer screen on which the words you are reading are being read, the Internet, which has so much information accessible to us, and even the electricity grid that allows us to extend the hours of light - all of which are products of modern science.
In fact, the very fact that we live longer and reach a life expectancy of more than fifty years is evidence of the far-reaching advances we made from those days when pneumonia was like a death sentence.
A little about patents:
Probably any technological development or innovation in the field of medicine or engineering for that matter advances humanity in a single step, sometimes with several steps, but in addition, every innovation has commercial potential. In order to be able to profit from the innovation, from the new product or the revolutionary vehicle, for example, the key to register his invention in the Patent Office. Without an orderly patent, the invention can not be credited to the person who brought it into the world and will therefore be allowed to any person without payment.
What are patents in the Emergency vet field?
It is important to understand that not every discovery can be patented and therefore a scientist who has discovered a new species of animals can not register the new strain he discovered as a patent
. Similarly, it is not possible to patent a marketing idea or even a scientific theory. The patent is mainly applied to inventions that deal with industrial production processes or products. Therefore a revolutionary vaccine for this purpose can be patented. You can also register a patent for growth hormone that improves the quality of cattle, a cure for various diseases that affect birds and more.
Emergency Vet patents have a huge impact on the economy, on agriculture, and on the bank account of their developers, of course, but as we have noted, in order to protect any development, invention or product, an orderly patent must be made first. The registration process can take several years, and it is therefore of utmost importance to avoid delaying this matter.
As history has taught us, not many large inventions have come into the world at the same time in several places around the world.
So where do you begin?
In principle, any person can file an application for registration with the Patent Authority. In the Emergency vet field, the Patent Law describes a "medical preparation" as "any form of treatment that has been processed, including a preparation for use in veterinary medicine and a nutritional value intended for intravenous injection." Apart from drugs and pharmaceuticals, patents can be registered in technological fields dealing with domestic animals and livestock, methods of insemination and more.
In light of this, if you believe that you have succeeded in bringing about a revolutionary development in the Emergency vet field, and that it will be a new vaccine or improved pet food, the first step to registering the development as a patent should be through a professional patent office.
For more information:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP5jqLWjjrc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP3V-oT6Uys
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wl0arVUCq4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW3E9kiYMS8&t=5s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqGq3WJEG8w
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcdQsam52gU&t=1s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZp4OHSVJ4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-1miQmhE9M
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NPOv8FrNYg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCjoixIIX4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtfybhAjeZc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-udorOZCo
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh5K5hvKhRI
Manuel Rabago Torres is shown in a November 1954 photograph. He was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Rabago Torres was convicted and sentenced in 1954 to six years in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Juan Bernardo Lebron from New York City is shown in a November 1954 photograph. He was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Lebron was convicted of sedition and sentenced in 1954 to six years in prison in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Leandro Katz (Argentine, born 1938)
The decoded sentence reads, "When we pulverize words, what is left is neither mere noise nor arbitrary, pure elements, but still other words, reflection of an invisible and yet indelible representation: this is the myth in which we now transcribe the most obscure and real powers of language."
Created with twenty-six phases of the moon, each phase representing a letter of the alphabet.
An invented alphabet!
Julio Flores Medina, 44, of Chicago is shown in a November 1954 photograph. He was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Medina was convicted of sedition and sentenced in 1955 to 18 months in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Santiago Gonzales Castro, 36, of New York is shown in a November 1954 photograph. He was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Gonzales Castro had previously been convicted of a murder committed on behalf on the Nationalist Party in Puerto Rico in 1938 where he had been sentenced to life in prison, but was later pardoned.
Gonzales Castro was convicted of sedition in 1955 and sentenced to six years in prison
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Antonio Herrera Moreno of New York, shown in a November 1954 photograph, was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Moreno, 28, was convicted and sentenced in 1955 to four years in prison for sedition.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Irish Penal Reform Trust Open Forum 2010: 'Exploding Prisoner Numbers'. Main contributing guest speakers included Tom O'Malley NUI Galway; Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly (Chairperson); Dr Mary Rogan, IPRT; Vivian Geiran, Director of Operations, The Probation Service; Louis Harkin, Assistant Commissioner, An Garda Síochána. Photo by Derek Speirs.
2013 - WORK GADGETS
The TsirTech Universal Wrist Band charger features a built-in battery for I-pod Touch, I-pad, I-pad 2, IPhone 4/ 4SMP3/ PSP, NDS, Samsung, Nokia, LG and HTC.
The gadget has a polymer and wristwatch design with a no load and a time off function to save energy, its alarm will also remind you when it needs to be charged. This new gadget is an absolute dream for those who work on the move and need their phone at all times, no more worries about missing an important call with a client or being literally cut-off in mid sentence at the expense of a low battery.
Armando Diaz Matos from Chicago is shown in a November 1954 photograph. He was a Puerto Rican Nationalist Party member accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
Diaz Matos was convicted of sedition and sentenced in 1954 to six years in prison.
Sedition trial:
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
Four of those charged turned state’s evidence and gave testimony against the other defendants.
At the first month-long trial in October 1954, much of the evidence against the group consisted of testimony by police or informers of speeches given by Nationalist Party leaders who had used slogans like, “Throw the Yankees out at pistol point,” “give your life and property for independence,” and saying that President Harry Truman “could be hanged in a place in San Juan.”
Many of the speeches dated prior to the 1950 attempted armed revolution in Puerto Rico by the Nationalist Party that was defeated and for which many party members were jailed in Puerto Rico.
Defense attorney Conrad J. Lynn charged the government sought “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Julio Pinto Gandia, a defendant who was acting as his own counsel and was the alleged leader of the group in the U.S., told the court that the party, founded in 1922, was not “a band of terrorists” and that any violent actions arose out of individual “despair.”
The most sensational specific testimony came from one of those indicted who turned state’s evidence--Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, brother of Delores Lolita Lebron who was the leader of the four shooters.
Lebron Sotomayor testified that Pinto Gandia told him there would be attacks on Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in Washington, but could not say how the plans would be carried out.
Other specific testimony involved another of those indicted who turned state’s evidence. Angle Luis Medina testified he had purchased a number of pistols and three carbines in Chicago at the direction of a party leader who told him “to be ready in case of a revolution” to free Puerto Rico.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
Pinto Gandia had earlier sought dismissal of the indictments against the four shooters as double jeopardy and because the government, “intended to bring the guilt of the four defendants upon the other defendants by association or inference.”
He added, “it is not a crime to preach and work for the freedom of a nation and that membership in the Nationalist Party itself did not indicate anyone was part of a conspiracy.
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
The trial of 11 other Nationalists took place February-March 1955 and followed the same lines as the first trial, except that Lebron Sotomayer gave additional details to his earlier testimony.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Albizu Campos’ health suffered badly in prison where he suffered a stroke in 1956 that left him unable to talk or walk. He was pardoned in 1964, but died a few months afterward.
The Nationalist Party was all but dead as a result of the U.S. trials and by suppression by authorities in Puerto Rico, although it continues to exist today.
First trial sedition trial in 1954:
Jorge Luis Jimenez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Manuel Rabago Torres, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Rosa Collazo, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Bernardo Lebron, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Juan Francisco Medina, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Armando Diaz Matos, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Julio Pinto Gandia, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Carmelo Alvarez Roman, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Jose Antonio Otero Otero, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Andress Figueroa Cordero, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Dolores Lolita Lebron, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Irvin Flores Rodriguez, one of 4 convicted shooters, sentenced to additional six years imprisonment
Second trial in 1955:
Juan Hernandez Valle, Puerto Rico, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Maximino Pedraza Martinez, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Santiago Gonzalez Castro, sentenced to six years imprisonment
Esteban Quinones Escute, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Angel Luis Arzola Velez, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Antonio Herrera Moreno, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Carmen Dolores Otero Torresola, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Pedro Aviles, sentenced to four years imprisonment
Julio Flores Medina, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Miguel Vargas Nieves, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
Those who turned state’s evidence:
Gonzalo Lebron Sotomayor, suspended sentence
Francisco Cortez Ruiz, suspended sentence
Carlos Aulet, suspended sentence
Angel Luis Medina, suspended sentence
Acquitted at May 1955 trial:
Serafin Colon Olivera
For more information and related images to the 1954-55 conspiracy trials of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, see flic.kr/s/aHskRMRawC
For more information and related images to the 1950 attempted assassination of President Truman and the 1954 wounding of five U.S. Representatives, see flic.kr/s/aHskghBC71
The photographer is unknown. The photo is believed to be a mugshot. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Irish Penal Reform Trust Open Forum 2010: 'Exploding Prisoner Numbers'. Main contributing guest speakers included Tom O'Malley NUI Galway; Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly (Chairperson); Dr Mary Rogan, IPRT; Vivian Geiran, Director of Operations, The Probation Service; Louis Harkin, Assistant Commissioner, An Garda Síochána. Photo by Derek Speirs.
Revenge porn site operator sentenced to 18 years in prison t.co/TtMHpXBDxn t.co/8H7QQGPR8j (via Twitter ift.tt/1xL56Em)
SYDNEY, 11 July 2014. As Jonathan Moylan faces sentencing for sending a press release purporting to be from ANZ bank saying they have divested from the Maules Creek project, over 150 supporters gathered in silent vigil outside the courtroom.
One sentence review: Go read a different Indridason book, it'll hopefully be better than this one.
** SPOILER ALERT **
First published in Iceland in 1999 Operation Napoleon was published in English in October 2010.
Much of the plot unfolds in and around Reykjavik (Vatnajökull glacier and United States Naval Air Station Keflavik) during the winter of 1999. The book goes all the way back to 1945 (German aircraft crashes on Icelandic glacier) and ends up in 2005 (weird - it was written in 1999) when the main character finds the grave of Blondi (Hitler's German Shepard) on a remote island off the coast of Argentina. First man on the moon Neil Armstrong makes an appearance in 1967 (supposedly to train for the Apollo mission as the volcanic Icelandic landscape was similar to what they could expect on the moon).
This is the first book written by Arnaldur Indriðason that I have read. I figured it would be a good place to get to know Arnaldur Indridason, as Operation Napoleon is a stand alone book (Indridason is mostly known for his Reykjavík Murder Mystery series). Well I figured wrong. Maybe January isn't a good time of year to read a book set in the winter on a glacier in Iceland.
I did not like several things about this book. Op Nap is poorly translated. The characters (many of them Americans) speak truly weird English. There are many factual mistakes (I caught them w/o even trying and I ain't no subject matter expert). There are even mistakes in the publisher's note on the book jacket regarding the plot - it is obvious that the person that wrote the note did not read the book. There are other issues, but I've vented enough.
The Postcard
A Woodbury Series postcard published by Eyre & Spottiswood.
It was posted on Sunday the 5th. January 1913 to:
Mrs. Fortune,
95, Shepherds Bush Road,
West Kensington,
London W.
The message on the back of the card was as follows:
"Thanks for gloves etc. You
are very good.
Enjoy yourself another week -
go on the river and see the
sights.
Writing later. I don't suppose
you will get it before Monday.
Love to all,
Lucie".
John Collier
John Maier Collier (1850-1934) was a leading English artist and author. He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. He painted a particularly striking image of Darwin.
Both of his marriages were to the daughters of the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley who was president of the Royal Society from 1883 to 1885. He was also "on terms of intimate friendship" with his son, the writer Leonard Huxley.
'Sentence of Death' was given by the artist's widow to Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
Jack Haig (Actor)
So what else happened on the day that Lucie posted the card?
Well, the 5th. January 1913 marked the birth in Streatham, London of Jack Haig.
Jack Haig, who was born John Cecil Coppin, was an English actor who specialised in supporting roles, mainly in television comedy. He was best known for playing Monsieur Roger Leclerc in the British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!.
Biography of Jack Haig
Haig was the son of music hall actors Bertha Baker and Charles Coppin, whose act went under the name "Haig and Esco".
He was seen in a long list of British TV favourites including: Hugh and I, Are You Being Served?, Terry and June and Dad's Army (although he turned down the role of Corporal Jones which then went to Clive Dunn).
Jack was in the Crossroads soap opera as occasional character Archie Gibbs from 1967 to 1982 and a couple of cinema films. He achieved his greatest success as Monsieur Roger Leclerc in BBC's 'Allo 'Allo!, a role he played until his death.
Jack's last appearance was in the final episode of Series 5, where he impersonated a Spanish guitarist, alongside Kenneth Connor (Monsieur Alfonse), who had an Enigma machine hidden in his accordion. He is remembered for his signature line, "It is I, Leclerc!"
He appeared in pantomime at Wimbledon in Babes in the Wood in 1965, and again in 1967 as the Emperor of China in Aladdin, alongside Bruce Forsyth and Tommy Trinder.
His earlier TV work included a regular spot as a comic on The One O'clock Show and Happy Go Lucky, a children's TV show during the 1960's. The One O'Clock Show was shown every weekday in the Tyne Tees Television area of ITV. He usually appeared in sketches as 'Wacky Jackie', generally playing the fool in a music hall comedy style.
The Personal Life and Death of Jack Haig
In 1989, Haig became too ill to work, and later died in Hampstead, London at the age of 76 of stomach cancer on the 4th. July 1989.
His wife was revue actress Sybil Dunn, who had died the previous year, just two days before their golden wedding anniversary. They had one daughter.
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Locandina:
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www.italyformovies.com/film-serie-tv-games/detail/56/fiore
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The municipality of Mongiuffi Melia (ME), not far from Taormina, is made up of two villages, Mongiuffi and Melia, separated by a valley, a bridge joins them, they climb up the opposite ridge of two mountains, looking at each other; in this municipality (defined as a "scattered municipality" for not having a single inhabited center), there are two patron saints, San Sebastian for Melia (his float was built with the money collected by Sicilian soldiers sent to the front, to fight in Greece during the Second World War, hoping in this way to receive His intercession to save their lives), and San Leonard di Noblac (or Abbot) for Mongiuffi; but in this municipality there is also the cult of the "Virgin Mary of the Chain", whose sanctuary attracts pilgrims from everywhere. I have made this description to introduce a singular coincidence that not everyone is aware of, and to do this it is necessary to describe the figure of Saint Leonard (a kind of Saint Francis), and that of the Virgin Mary of the Chain, trying to be concise. Saint Leonard was born in Orléans around 496 (and died in Noblac, on November 6 – the feast day – of 545 or 559), and for most of his life (very interesting) he lived as a hermit; one episode of his life in particular I would like to recall, he received from Clovis, king of the Franks, the privilege of being able to free those prisoners, who he believed had been unjustly imprisoned, so from that moment on, he incessantly committed himself to giving freedom to all those prisoners who were reduced to visibly critical conditions. Let us leave this Saint for a moment, the cult of the “Virgin Mary of the Chain”, this name given to the Blessed Virgin, derives from a prodigious event that occurred in Palermo in 1392, known as the “miracle of the chains”. In short, in August 1392 in Palermo, three men for a glaring miscarriage of justice, were sentenced to death by hanging, shortly before going up to the gallows a violent storm broke out, which forced the three unfortunates and the gendarmes to take refuge in the nearby church of Saint Mary of the Port, close to the sea, also called "Churc of the Chain" due to the presence of a chain that, when positioned, prevented the Saracen pirate ships from accessing the inside of the port; in this holy place, the three condemned, were tied with double chains, in the meantime the door of the church was barred, in fact the storm did not seem to stop and in addition night had come, clearly the execution was now postponed to the next day. The three desperate men, in chains, under the gaze of the gendarmes, approached the painting of the Madonna in tears, imploring her to intercede for them, a voice was heard coming from the painting, which reassured them of their new freedom, this while the chains broke, and the door of the little church was thrown open. From then on, the cult of the Virgin Mary of the Chain spread from Palermo throughout Sicily, and even beyond. Now let's get to the coincidences I mentioned before, both Saint Leonard and the Virgin Mary of the Chain (and also Her Child that She holds in Her arms) carry a long chain in their hands, in fact both the Saint and the Blessed Virgin have given freedom to prisoners, furthermore to access Mongiuffi Melia, coming from Letojanni, you have to pass through a tunnel, called "Gallery of Postoleone" dug in the rock in 1916, with bare hands or with pickaxe blows, as explosives could not be used, by 300 Austrian prisoners, during the First World War (and also on this occasion, in Mongiuffi Melia, there are prisoners forced to do forced labor). Finally, a curiosity, very often from the cult of the Virgin Mary of the Chain, comes a singular name, very common in these parts, both in the masculine with the name of "Cateno" and in the feminine "Catena" (to quote a well-known character, the writer Catena Fiorello). Furthermore, if it rains, whatever the religious procession-feast, with the float carried on the shoulders, the float with the saint does not come out, but if the rain arrives during the event, then the event becomes a source of strong psycho-physical stress for the devotee-bearers (not for the devotee-pullers or devotee-pushers...), as the ground made slippery by the rain (or perhaps, worse, by the presence of mud mixed with water) makes the route risky due to the possibility that one, or more, bearers, could slip, with the possible overturning of the float, and easily imaginable consequences.
The photographic story that I present here was created by assembling photographs taken on November 6, 2022, November 6 and 10 of this year 2024; the heart of the celebration-procession is when the priest hangs a large “cuddurra” (donut) on the hand of Sint Leonard, on that occasion small “cuddure” (donuts) are offered to the population (prepared by hand in the days preceding the procession); there are girls wearing a typical monk's habit-like dress, adorning their head with a veil, they belong to the congregation of the "daughters of Mary" (third order Carmelite); at the end of the procession, with the float that has returned to the church, we witness a rite that has the "affective" purpose of keeping it alive, it is done so as not to lose its memory, even if it has not lost its original meaning, what remains is now only a symbolic fact, it is the ritual of "weighing" (in some centers of Sicily, it has maintained its original meaning) a wooden board is placed "in balance" on one of the two beams that are used to carry the float with the Saint on the shoulders, at the two ends a child is placed on one side, and on the other side a sack with grain, filled until the weight of the grain reaches the weight of the child, and that grain will be given as a gift to the Saint, in reality the symbolic aspect of the procedure remains, and the donation is still made to the Saint, but in paper money.
Postscript: Our Lady of the Chain and Saint Leonard freed from chains, these as such, are not only physical, there are also psychic ones, and perhaps they are the worst….
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Il comune di Mongiuffi Melia (ME), non molto distante da Taormina, è formato da due borghi, Mongiuffi e Melia, separati da una vallata, un ponte li congiunge, essi si inerpicano sul crinale opposto di due monti, guardandosi l’un l’altro; in questo comune (definito “comune sparso” per non avere un centro abitato unico), si hanno due santi patroni, San Sebastiano per Melia (la sua vara fu costruita con i soldi racimolati dai soldati Siciliani mandati al fronte, a combattere in Grecia durante la seconda guerra mondiale, sperando così facendo di ricevere la Sua intercessione per avere salva la vita), e San Leonardo di Noblac (o Abate) per Mongiuffi; ma in questo comune vi è anche il culto per la “Madonna della Catena”, il cui santuario attira pellegrini da ogni dove. Ho fatto questa descrizione, per introdurre una singolare coincidenza della quale non tutti sono a conoscenza, e per far questo è necessario descrivere la figura di San Leonardo (una specie di San Francesco), e quella della Madonna della Catena, cercando di essere sintetico. San Leonardo nasce ad Orléans nel 496 circa (e morto a Noblac, il 6 novembre – giorno della festa – del 545 o 559), per gran parte della sua vita (interessantissima) visse da eremita; un episodio della sua vita in particolare desidero ricordare, egli riceve da Clodoveo, re dei Franchi, il privilegio di poter rendere liberi quei prigionieri, che egli riteneva fossero stati incarcerati ingiustamente, egli così, da quel momento, si impegna incessantemente a dare la libertà a tutti quei prigionieri che erano ridotti in condizioni visibilmente critiche. Lasciamo per un attimo questo Santo, il culto della “Madonna della Catena”, questo nome dato alla Beata Vergine, deriva da un evento prodigioso avvenuto a Palermo nel 1392, conosciuto come “miracolo delle catene”. In breve, nell’agosto del 1392 a Palermo, tre uomini per un eclatante errore giudiziario, furono condannati a morte per impiccagione, poco prima di salire sul patibolo si scatenò un violento temporale, che costrinse i tre malcapitati ed i gendarmi a riparare nella vicina chiesa di S. Maria del Porto, a ridosso del mare, detta anche “Chiesa della Catena” per la presenza di una catena che, quando posizionata, impediva alle navi pirata Saracene di accedere all’interno del porto; in questo luogo santo, i tre condannati, furono legati con doppie catene, nel mentre la porta della chiesa veniva sbarrata, infatti il temporale non accennava a smettere ed in più era subentrata la notte, chiaramente l’esecuzione era oramai rimandata al giorno dopo. I tre disperati, in catene, sotto lo sguardo dei gendarmi, si avvicinarono in lacrime al quadro della Madonna implorandola di intercedere per loro, dal quadro si udì provenire una voce, che li rassicurava sulla sopraggiunta libertà, questo mentre le catene si spezzavano, e la porta della chiesetta si spalancava. Da allora il culto per la Madonna della Catena si diffuse da Palermo in tutta la Sicilia, ed anche oltre. Veniamo adesso alle coincidenze di cui accennavo prima, sia San Leonardo che la Madonna della Catena (ed anche il suo Bimbo che regge in braccio) recano in mano una lunga catena, infatti sia San Leonardo che la Beata Vergine hanno dato la liberà a dei prigionieri, inoltre per accedere a Mongiuffi Melia, provenendo da Letojanni, si deve passare necessariamente da una galleria, chiamata “Galleria di Postoleone” scavata nel 1916 nella roccia, a mani nude o con colpi di piccone, in quanto non si poteva usare l’esplosivo, da parte di 300 prigionieri austriaci, durante la prima guerra mondiale (ed anche in questa occasione, a Mongiuffi Melia, si ha la presenza di prigionieri costretti ai lavori forzati). Infine una curiosità, molto spesso dal culto della Madonna della Catena, proviene un singolare nome, molto comune da queste parti, sia al maschile col nome di “Cateno” che al femminile, “Catena” (per citare un personaggio noto, la scrittrice Catena Fiorello). Inoltre, se piove, qualsiasi sia la processione-festa religiosa, con la vara portata in spalla, la vara col santo non esce, se invece la pioggia arriva durante la manifestazione, allora l’evento acquista per i devoti-portatori (non per i devoti-tiratori o devoti-spingitori…) un motivo di forte stress psico-fisico, in quanto il terreno reso scivoloso dalla pioggia (o magari, peggio, dalla presenza di fango misto ad acqua) rende rischioso il percorso per la possibilità che uno, o più portatori, possano scivolare, con il possibile ribaltamento della vara, e conseguenze facilmente immaginabili.
Il racconto fotografico che qui presento, è stato realizzato assemblando fotografie fatte il 6 novembre del 2022, il 6 ed il 10 novembre di quest’anno 2024; il fulcro della festa-processione è quando il sacerdote appende una grande cuddurra (ciambella) sulla mano di San Leonardo, in quella occasione piccole cuddure vengono offerte alla popolazione (preparate ed intrecciate a mano nei giorni precedenti la processione); sono presenti delle ragazze che indossano un tipico vestito “tipo saio di monaco”, adornando il capo con un velo, appartengono alla congregazione delle “figlie di Maria” (terz’ordine carmelitano); alla fine della processione, con la vara che ha fatto rientro in chiesa, si assiste ad un rito che ha lo scopo “affettivo” di tenerlo in vita, viene fatto per non disperderne la memoria, pur non avendo perso il suo significato originario, quel che resta è oramai solamente un fatto simbolico, è il rito della “pesatura” (in alcuni centri della Sicilia, esso ha mantenuto il suo significato originario) un asse di legno viene messo “in equilibrio” su di una delle due travi che servono a portare in spalla la vara col Santo, alle due estremità si pongono da un lato un bimbo/a, e dall’altro lato un sacco con del grano, riempito fino a quando il peso del grano raggiungerà il peso del bimbo/a, e quel grano verrà dato in dono al Santo, in realtà resta l’aspetto simbolico della procedura, la donazione viene ugualmente fatta al Santo, ma in cartamoneta.
P.S. La Madonna della Catena e San Leonardo liberavano dalle catene, queste in quanto tali, non sono solo fisiche, ci sono anche quelle psichiche, e forse sono le peggiori….
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