It's over.

I have borrowed a friend's account for one final post: David Josephssen is dead. He was hanged about an hour ago from Diagon's famous white oak tree in the park at the corner of Diagon Alley and Lonesome Valley Road.

Technically, this was not a lynching. It was performed in daylight by Sheriff Grayson and his deputies as instructed by an Emergency Execution Order from Judge Bean.

I think the judge may have been tipped off by someone, because less than half an hour after the hanging, two US Marshals showed up with a Writ of habeas corpus and a Stay of Execution. In what passes for wit around here, they were told that "habeas corpse beats habeas corpus." Sheriff Grayson told them they were welcome to cut down the body and take it with them, to save him the trouble of arranging a burial, which they did.

Whatever he did on the Internet, David certainly didn't deserve this. May his soul rest in peace.

Grounded! :-(

I'm grounded. This is my last post (at least for a long, long time). I should have known that the DA and all those three-piece suits would wonder how the ACLU found out about the case of David Josephssen, and that it wouldn't take them very long with Google to find my blog. Diagon's such a small town that anyone seeing the blog would know it was me.

So the DA came around to the house today. I'm not sure if my folks were madder because I had cut classes, or because the DA told them, "I don't want to see that kid around the courthouse again. Ever. Even on the sidewalk. On the other side of the street. And you'd better keep him away from the Internet."

I told them I had to log on one last time to close the account, and they don't know I'm making this post. They're taking away my Powerbook. Mom says that maybe I'll get it back on April 1, if I make straight A's ("An A- doesn't count") on my next report card, but Dad says he'll kick my butt if I don't go out for spring football practice, and that I won't get my computer back until I make the first team. ("And then you won't have time for it.")

Please don't forget that David isn't out of trouble yet. Please do whatever you personally do to keep a kid from being killed: Write your Congressman, pray, make a contribution to ACLU, blog, wring your hands, whatever.

Sincerely,

texasdirt

- 30 - 30 - 30 -

ACLU will help! :-)

I just got an email from the American Civil Liberties Union saying that they will have an attorney investigate the case, and if my blog is accurate (and it is!) they think there's a strong case for habeas corpus in a federal court that will take the case completely out of Diagon. No way that was a fair trial.

So there's hope for David Josephssen. And I guess some folks in Diagon are going to find out about the power of the blogosphere! And I was the first to blog about it! The only blogger in Diagon! And I did it!!!

HELP!!! He's just a kid.

I made sure to get to court early this morning to catch the sentencing hearing for David Josephssen, dvdjo. It was worse than I imagined, even after Friday's day in court. Somebody's got to save this kid.

The sentencing hearing started promptly at 9:00, with the judge asking the DA and public defender for their recommendations on sentences. The DA wanted to throw the book at him: 10 years each for the three ordinary felonies, to be served consecutively, and the death penalty for the aggravated felony.

DiagonAl started "In view of the defendant's tender years--"

"Tender year, my ass!" the DA interrupted. "When I was his age, I was supporting a wife and three kids by bagging groceries at Piggly Wiggly, and taking a correspondence school law course, to boot."

The judge told him to "Shut up, sit down, and let the counselor make a fool of his own self."

"As I was saying, in view of his tender years, I think you should go for five years, served concurrently, on the minor charges, and I advise life without possibility of parole for the aggravated felony.

"If you go for the death sentence, you know you're just going to make a lot of trouble for all of us, because it's sure to be appealed up the ying-yang, and we just don't need the aggro. A life sentence will just as surely keep him off the Internet and out of trouble."

Well, the judge thought for a couple of minutes, and then asked David to stand. He was scared, but he stood straight and tall, and just towered over the court.

"For the crimes of accessory to grand theft, before and after the fact, I sentence you to ten years each in the state penitentiary, to be served concurrently.

"For professional malpractice, you get a break, son. I checked my lawbooks over the weekend, and malpractice is a tort, not a crime, so they'll have to sue you in civil court."

Then he went all grave and formal: "For the aggravated felony of practicing software engineering without a license in furtherance of a crime, I, Judge Roy Bean, by the powers vested in my by the State of Texas, sentence you to be taken by the Sheriff of this county to the appointed white oak tree, at dawn on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, there to be hanged by the neck until dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul."

Well, DiagonAl was on his feet in a shot. (The fastest I've ever seen him move.) "Judge, have you forgotten about the complications I mentioned?"

The judge said, no, he hadn't forgotten, but he'd seen something else in the lawbook over the weekend, "The defendent can waive the right of appeal. Does your client wish to do so?"

David was mouthing, "No! No!" but he couldn't seem to get the words out, and DiagonAl just rode over him, saying, "Yes, if it please the court, my client would like to do that and get this over with."

The judge said, "The record will show that the criminal waived his right of appeal. Court is adjourned. [Bang! Bang!]"

Well, David was white as a sheet, but he didn't cry or say anything, just stood there looking stunned until the sheriff and the Ranger hustled him out of the courtroom.

What can I do? There's nobody in Diagon that I can talk to about this. Nobody messes with Judge Roy Bean's court.

What can anybody do? Do any of my readers (if I have any yet) have suggestions? Contact me at texasdirt@comcast.net. Telephone and snail mail aren't secure, but my parents don't understand computers and email, so that's the way to reach me.

Travesty in the courtroom

As I was going to school yesterday morning, I noticed that there were more black cars than I'd ever seen in front of the courthouse, and a Ranger car. I decided to cut classes and see what was going on. What I saw made me sick, and just about too mad to type straight.

When I got inside, they were just starting to arraign the suspect. He's not a lot older than me (17, I found out), and he was looking like one sick puppy. (Later, I heard the Ranger say that he'd grabbed him as soon as he stepped off the plane that morning--he'd just flown in from Iceland--so maybe there was some jetlag, but he had more than jetlag to worry about.) He was charged with abetting grand theft before and after the fact, professional malpractice, and practicing software engineering without a license. He sure didn't seem old enough to have done all those things, and he pleaded Not Guilty.

The DA was handling the case himself, but there were two whole rows of out of town suits beside and and behind him. And the kid, turns out his name is David Josephssen, had the bad luck to get as his public defender the laziest attorney in the county: Al Legorry (everybody calls him DiagonAl, (pronounced die-AG-u-nal) 'cause that's the angle he sits at in the courtroom).

Well David was wide-eyed and paying real close attention, but DiagonAl was just slouching there, playing Tetris. Judge Bean had to ask him twice if there was any objection to moving directly to trial. He gave a jerk, said "Judge, no disrespect, but I was close to a personal best score there when you interrupted me. What was the question again?" He didn't object to going to trial. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Do you think we can finish this today?"

So the trial commenced right then and there. Turns out that David--everybody was calling him dvdjo--was accused of helping some John Doe (they never said much about him) to burglarize a virtual vault in a virtual bank in a secret virtual world called Third Life. Seemed to me that they should have had a virtual trial in their virtual world and given him a virtual sentence ("What happens in Third Life stays in Third Life"), but no, they wanted to punish him in Real Life.

There wasn't a lot of evidence. One night the virtual goodies were in the virtual vault when they closed up, and the next morning when they opened up, the goodies weren't there. But when they checked the virtual security log, the virtual tapes from the virtual security cameras, etc., they found nothing. That is, according to all the evidence, no one had been in or near the virtual vault all night. The virtual cops even virtually dusted the virtual combination lock for virtual fingerprints, but only found those of authorized employee "avatars" (I had to look this word up) of Fifth Third Life Bank (isn't that a crazy name? like they took it from phishing spam).

So they concluded that it was an inside job, and they decided it must be dvdjo, because he's the guy they'd hired to write a virtually invulnerable security system for the bank. They'd never even seen him before today and it came out that they didn't know he was only 15 when they virtually hired him to do the job. You'd think that there'd be a lot of suspects in an inside job, but somehow they decided it could only be him.

There was only one Texas witness, from the Texas Engineering Board, and all he said was that the Board had no records of any David Josephssen, either applying for or being granted a license to practice engineering on the Internet. They also asked about dvdjo, but the answer was still no.

The main witness was the bank's Chief Information Officer, John Quill Macavity. He looked a little nervous at first, until it became clear that DiagonAl wasn't going to ask any questions, wasn't even going to look up from his Tetris game and miss another chance for a high score. Then he got more confident and mean. It had to be dvdjo, he said. In the first place, dvdjo lied about being a software engineer. In the second place, none of the bank's fulltime employees would do a thing like that. (I wanted to ask how many employees they had, and whether they had checked them more carefully than they did dvdjo, but DiagonAl just kept playing Tetris.)

Macavity went on to say "We contracted with dvdjo to produce a virtually invulnerable system. The burglary proves that it wasn't. I can't be sure whether he bungled the software or whether he deliberately betrayed us, but if he'd done his job right there's no way that stuff could have been gotten out of the vault outside banking hours. I think that it was probably a setup from the beginning, and that he deliberately put a trapdoor in our software and then sold it to the highest bidder. What a despicable hacker. He doesn't deserve to be called a software engineer!"

When asked if he was sure that dvdjo was the only one who could have cleaned up the security logs, he replied "Damn straight! He was the only one who had the admin password. He's the one who printed out the logs for us to check--he could have sabotaged them right then, if he didn't do it before. And ever since we told him we knew he was involved in the theft, the little swine [David's about 6' 7", but he was probably thinking about the dvdjo avatar] has stopped resetting passwords for us when we forget them. Now about half the staff and 80% of our customers can't log in any more! [David looked up and actually smiled at this. It was the only time I saw him smile all day. DiagonAl didn't notice.] When I get my hands on the rat, I'm going to hold his feet to the fire until he coughs it all up..." At this point Judge Bean interrupted and asked him to answer just the questions.

Macavity looked so fat and smug and mean, I'd pick him out as the most likely criminal in the room, but I don't think he's smart enough to have done this job.

Then the DA wrapped up, and the Judge asked DiagonAl if he wanted to call any defense witnesses. "Hell, no, Judge. I'm getting paid by the case." I think that surprised even Judge Bean, because he said "The record will show that the defense declined to call any witnesses."

So the judge charged the jury and sent them out to deliberate. It only took them about 15 minutes. "We find the defendent guilty on all charges, including the aggravated felony of practicing software engineering without a license in furtherance of a crime."

At that point, both the DA and DiagonAl wanted to go directly to the sentencing hearing, but Judge Bean wasn't having any of it. "I note that the time is 4:05. It is a standing policy of this court that employees shall be free to leave at 4:30 on Fridays. [This isn't true, but it's a trick he likes to pull on out of town lawyers.] This court is adjourned until 9:00 on Monday morning. [Bang!] I'm sure all you fancy out of town lawyers will manage to bill your clients for the whole weekend, whether you do any work or not. [Bang!]

By that time the Ranger and the Sheriff were hustling David out of the courtroom to the county jail, and making sure that no one got a chance to talk to him, and everyone else was scattering.

I feel so helpless. SOMEBODY ought to be able to do something to help that poor kid, but I don't know how. If any lawyer or capable grown-up reads this, please get in touch with me, texasdirt@comcast.net, as soon as you can.

Black cars

I've noticed that when there are a bunch of Lincoln limousines in front of the courthouse, and a bunch of lawyers in three-piece suits, there's certainly an out of town case being tried.

I've heard lawyers saying they like to bring urgent cases here because there's no waiting, juries are very pro-plaintiff and pro-DA, and because Diagon is such an out of the way place. (Diagon doesn't even show up on some maps.) Lawyers call it the "Kazoom Courtroom," when Judge Bean isn't around to hear.

NOBODY covers trials here, except sometimes the Diagon Daily, which is so small that its "press" is an inkjet printer. And I've noticed that all the judge or sheriff has to do is nod to the reporter, and he'll quietly close his notebook and drift out. Sometimes, even when he stays, there's no story in the Daily, even though there's never enough news to fill both sides of the page.

But nobody worries about me hanging around the court. I'm just a kid. They don't know I'm a blogger. (In fact, most of them don't even know what a blog is.) I plan to report on the cases that the Diagon Daily doesn't.

Just yesterday, passing the courthouse after school, I overheard one of the three-piece suits saying "Well, I guess we TRUMPED his little real estate deal! His lawyers really should have been here!" and they all laughed.

Last week there was a trademark infringement suit. Macrosoft sued Electrical Arts for infringing its Game® trademark. I only heard the preliminaries before I had to head back to school, but I heard later that they won, because no one showed up to argue EA's side of the case. Doesn't seem fair to me. Game is a pretty common English Word®; how can they claim it as a trademark?

I bet you never heard of either of these cases, right?

This blog

There isn't much to do in Diagon, so I like to hang around the county courthouse. People don't pay much attention to a kid of 14 (little do they realize that I'm the blogger texasdirt), so I get to eavesdrop on some pretty amazing conversations and see the crap that goes on inside and outside the courtroom.

I sit in the back with my PowerBook, and people assume that I'm playing a computer game. (Some of the attorneys do that, too, during the boring parts.) So nobody realizes that I'm taking notes. But to be honest, what goes on outside is often more interesting.

I'll be sharing some of those things here.

texasdirt