Saturday marks the 53^rd anniversary of the controversial confession by two racist murderers to a writer for Look magazine.  In 1955, a fourteen year old African-American boy was taken in the middle of the night from his great uncle’s home.  Those who took him were white men.  And this happened in Mississippi.  Emmett Till was never seen alive again, but his body was recovered three days later in the Tallahatchie River.  The two men who were accused, arrested, tried and later acquitted were Roy Bryant and his brother, J.W. Milam. 

This all began when Emmett went into a store for groceries and complimented the wife of the store owner.  The woman told the story to her husband and it went from there.  A few days later, the boy disappeared.  At his funeral, his mother insisted on an open casket in an effort to shock the segregated South and bring

Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Bradley

attention to the hatred of those who killed her son.  Jet magazine took photos at the funeral and then published them. 

In the meantime, Bryant and Milam were arrested. Their trial began less than a month later.  And if you think that’s fast, the all white, all male jury deliberated for an hour before returning a not guilty verdict.  These jurors, in some twisted attempt to further injure an already devastated family, joked that had they not stopped deliberations to drink a Coke, their verdict would have come back sooner.  Ordinarily, in the late 1950s and in the deep South, this would have been the end of the story.  This is where it becomes even more disturbing.

Three months after having been found not guilty, these men gave that interview to Look magazine and confessed to the journalist.  Not only that, but they gave the details of every move they made as they committed this murder.  They beat this child with a gun, shot him and then tied his body with a cotton-gin fan before throwing him into the river.  Further, they were paid for this interview.  Look was unable to rescind its offer of payment to two murderers, regardless of how sickening the final story was.

This was one of those cases that was so outrageous as to cause international rage and has been credited as one that helped kick the civil rights movement into high gear.  Both Milam and Bryant are dead, courtesy of cancer.  The FBI exhumed Emmett’s body in 2005, but there have been no reports in the recent past of further attempts to charge others who might have played a role and who are still living.

The best way to find a lawyer.  Only supported at Lawyer Ahead.

There’s some interesting news with Google’s latest venture. By using keywords and keyword phrases that are put into its search box, they have a new formula to determine if there are any “hot areas” for flu activity. When I first heard about this new trend, the way it was being reported had me thinking Google would be providing personal information to faceless people who would be ready to quarantine anyone who might be getting a head cold or flu. I’ve heard two separate reports that suggested invasion of privacy issues would be of great concern. I can’t seem to find anything that would jeopardize our privacy; well, on the surface anyway. What it boils down to is collecting data for keyword combinations relating to the flu. Phrases and words like “fever”, “headache” will kick Google’s data collection efforts up a notch. From there, the information will be fed in real time to the Centers for Disease Control. For instance, there might be ten residents in Oklahoma City who are feeling achy and sick and head straight for our old friend, Google. Based on formulas I will never understand, Google will know those ten searches come from Oklahoma City, which might be indicative of a flu outbreak. The CDC loves this new tool because of its ability to provide data as soon as it’s typed into Google. They say the information from the search engine will provide instantly what used to take a week to compile.

This new service offered by Google is just now weaving into what will eventually evolve into a powerful tool, and is being called “collective intelligence”. That sounds a little threatening, but if the efforts now are truly based on random information regarding searches for some new product to ease flu symptoms, then it seems relatively harmless. But what happens if it continues to evolve and eventually results in information collected that would reveal identities? The truth is, there have been times in my efforts to find a culprit that’s making my pc run slow I’ve found Google, along with a few other search engines, running in my background. It’s simple to end the process, but it’s still an autorun that’s planted itself and the executable kicks in every time I restart my computer. It’s at least aggravating and at most, it feels invasive. I guess the most disconcerting aspect is we really don’t know what’s being collected at any given time -whether it’s Google or some other site. My grandma used to say, “Don’t put into writing what you wouldn’t want anyone else to know.” I think we’ve just defined the electronic version of this wise advice. The only difference now is that I’m not a 13 year old girl who’s concerned her mother will find her diary. Even though most of us have nothing to hide and our computers aren’t used to hack into government computers or surf sites that reveal the darker sides of human nature, you can’t help but be concerned your search for a new laptop as a Christmas present will result in spam in your inbox with declarations of the best prices for the news models.

I was writing what was to be today’s post and searching for a national database for the legalities of false police reports. As it happens, well, as it happens often if I’m doing it, I got sidetracked. I’ll post what was going to be today’s post later tonight or tomorrow.

I clicked on a link, thinking it might not be what I was looking for, but it was close enough to where there be might other links that could provide the information I needed. That’s when it got good.

Charlayne Woodard aka Sister Peg

Last time I checked, prostitution is illegal in most municipalities, yes? Anyone who’s ever watched Sister Peg on Law & Order knows she plays a renegade nun who’s more interested in the safety of folks while they’re on Earth, specifically the prostitutes of New York City and is known for her own handwritten blacklist she makes available to “her girls”. Her appearances always added to that show. Now, though, while plundering through the results of my search, I discovered a website designed for the safety of escorts. Without going into the moral issues some may have towards this career choice, mostly because I don’t have time to go around declaring one is more moral than the other, and quite frankly, I have a hard enough time figuring out my own after-life destination (Is too much ice cream a true sin of gluttony? Nevermind….I don’t need an answer to that), I am absolutely fascinated that this site is visited thousands of times a day. The webmaster has cleverly walked a very fine line that allows for, believe it or not, a rather complete library with subtopics including: What to do and what not to do, FAQs, Jargon and what appears to be a huge advertising clientele. One ad says: “Because upscale men don’t shop craigslist” That one’s a doozy, yes? Payments are called “donations”, the paying customers are called “clients”, the uhm, act is referred to as the “session” and the list goes on.

There are checklists to determine if an escort could be walking into a vice sting and includes such tips as arriving at the hotel early to scope the parking lot for occupied vehicles, the fact that 9 out of 10 hotels with adjoining rooms are actually vice stings, ensuring the room is “messy” enough when she walks into the room and a simple piece of advice on what to do if “it just doesn’t feel right”: Leave.

Now what site would be complete without a “bad call blacklist”? That one’s chock full of rather interesting descriptions and details of the “session”, physical appearances, where and how it went bad, the excuses for non-payment (including having forgotten his wallet….that doesn’t seem so hard to believe for me. A lot of men have selective memories). Oh, and I can’t forget the one section titled “When Good Clients Go Bad” and how to spot them. Honestly, it’s really no different than what most women live by. If he gets too clingy, if he becomes demanding, if he starts following you, if he starts talking about his mom too often (my favorite on that particular bullet list) - this all stands to reason since if men like this aren’t good husband material, well, then, they’re certainly not going to be good “client” material.

Do you have any idea how many former call girls, escorts and prostitutes have written books? Me neither, since I had no desire to go through all FIFTEEN pages of books available for sale.

Once again, we’re at the Freedom of Speech versus everything. You might be surprised to learn, too, that the laws have evolved over the years that actually are now geared, ever so slightly, towards protecting those in this line of work - women who’ve been abused by clients, etc. There’s even one case (maybe more…but one I found) that’s being allowed to go to trial because of non-payment for services rendered.

Just as Prohibition and Women’s Rights to Vote were debated and argued over and over, is it possible the “world’s oldest profession” will find its way to a legal acceptance?

Anyone who follows social and cultural trends is bound to be aware of the power of electronic networking. Although not new, it’s only been in the past five or so years that we’ve begun really tapping into the power of what these resources provide. Many careers were skyrocketed by networking with the right people via the internet. In fact, I currently have four bosses and have never met any of them. I’m quite sure none have ever met any of the others. It’s advantageous in many ways - they could care less if I’m on the porch swing doing my work or sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for the biscuits to come out of the oven. As long as it’s quality work and up to their standards, they’re good. Works for me, for sure. All of this electronic networking opens doors that were never accessible before. If you’re searching for an adoption attorney, typing in “adoption lawyers casper wy” on any search engine will return every listing within a three hundred mile radius of Casper, or any other distance, depending on your search specifications. Anytime new legislation is being introduced, it’s instantly accessible. The Supreme Court rules on a controversial case? A patient ten minute wait (just long enough for a secretary to get it uploaded) is all it takes to discover who dissented. Want to know the educational career of another lawyer? A few keywords and you instantly know he graduated third in his class.

What might not be well known is how these avenues provide information we’d never considered before. For instance, it’s no secret that lawyers have used jury consultants in their efforts to provide the best defense for their clients. Considerations used in the quest for the perfect juror include lifestyles (divorce, number of children, etc.), career choices and even which jurors were victims of crime….or if they’ve committed a crime. Once word gets out in the legal community of the perfect consultant who some swear is psychic, via blogs, websites and a number of other electronic methods and the consultant begins receiving requests from across the country, you can be sure he appreciates electronic networking and will never underestimate its power.

As a rule, these minor intrusions are acceptable to the jury pool as a whole. It’s the deeper-hid and unexpected discoveries that make us nervous.

How many of us have a less-than-noble photo or two floating around? Think there are none? Hmm. Well, allow me to remind you that your past may not be as sterling as you’d like to think it is. Remember that trip to a bike rally back in 1994? A few cold beers and next thing you know, you realize how inhibited you’ve always been. Well, inhibited no more, you decide. You’re young, right? You only live once, right? After all, this is your first motorcycle rally and you need to memorialize it in a way that will always serve as proof that you’re an inhibited human being no more. The next time you hear, “Show me what you got!”, you figure you’ll do just that: you’ll show ‘em what you got. Ah…but there are as many cameras as there are Harleys and beer bottles. You think nothing of it afterwards. That is, until 2008 when you stumble across a blog someone’s written. Reality begins to set in. You now know that bikini you wore that weekend will never be your friend again. Want proof that your inhibitions were low? Just pull out your own collection of pictures from that weekend. My, my. These pictures include one of you and a man who parked his bike next to your group’s bikes. He was hilarious and you learned all about his divorce - well, his sixth divorce to be more specific. For some reason, he seemed to forgotten his own name, so you and your friends quickly anoint him as “Cletis Earl”. So here’s this long-forgotten picture of good ‘ol Cletis Earl who’s so drunk he has to lean on you to keep from falling down. Not that you didn’t doubt your own equilibrium more than a few times during that weekend, but as G-rated as your pictures are, you are well aware of the clicks of plenty more cameras during your declaration of independence and lowered inhibitions.

You know you never want that short vacation to “Wild World” discovered by anyone. And God forbid your teenager finding your hidden picture albums and yelling, “Oh my God!! You have a tattoo there?!”

But what if a talented and resourceful jury consultant, in his efforts to provide the perfect balance for the perfect jury stumbles across a website someone put up so his friends around the world could see images from all of his trips to bike shows? You might not even be made aware of this little jewel. For what it’s worth, this discovery may actually be to your advantage. Still, the two things you never want to see the light of day again include those pictures and that bikini.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Presidential candidates are tapping into the benefits of instant networking. Each candidate recognizes the potential payoffs and the power of getting younger Americans to the polls. By using text messaging, MySpace and calls to cell phones, they’re reminding newly-registered voters to get out and vote.

Whether you’re a doctor, a lawyer or a skydiver, you can be sure there are entire electronic communities targeted at your specific career, hobby and even political interests.

Keep in mind though: more than a few salaries have accidently been discovered and if you find a jury summons in your mailbox, there just might be a consultant plundering around your past to determine if you’re suitable for an upcoming trial.