Anti-abortion doctor encourages opponents to act like 'principled' 9/11 hijackers
February 03, 2023
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Life sentence for Michigan mom who says SpongeBob told her to brutally murder 3-year-old daughter
March 27, 2023
A Michigan woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to the brutal murder of her 3-year-old daughter.
Justin Johnson told the court she had been diagnosed at 13 with borderline personality, bipolar and other mental health disorders, but she had gone without prescription mental health medication for a year by September 2021 and had been abusing heroin and methamphetamine when she experienced hallucinations urging her to kill her own child, reported MLive.
“She was getting hallucinations from the TV that had instructed her to take her daughter’s life or they would kill her,” said Ryan Eberline, an investigator with Child Protective Services. “It was SpongeBob who was saying these things on the TV. If she didn’t do what she did to her daughter they would kill her. She said she was afraid for her life and she had lost her mind.”
The 23-year-old Johnson told the court she did not remember Sutton Mosser, who had turned 3 two days before her Sept. 16, 2021, death, was in her care and she did not recall details of her death, and she told the court she continued to endure hallucinations for months until medication and treatment stabilized her mental health.
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“I spent one year and eight months in therapy helping me cope with the death of my daughter, dealing with my mental illness, and will continue (to do so) in prison,” Johnson said.
Johnson told the court she was filled with remorse and wished she could trade places with her daughter.
“First, I trust the police department has investigated the event to their best,” she said. “Second, I lost my child and as any mother would want justice, I also want justice for Sutton. If it was me who committed this murder, I expect to be punished as any other person would be. It is what’s fair for her. I apologize to my daughter, my family, her mother, and to this court for my crime.”
Johnson's 17-year-old brother testified that he found his sister in a bathroom apparently snorting drugs on the evening of Sept. 16, and she told him to mind his "f*cking business" when he asked where her child was, but he said that was a "normal response" from her.
The teen did not look for his niece at that time, and Johnson left a short time later, but he made a grisly discovery when he returned hours later from an outing at the beach and told his older brother Knesley Johnson Jr.
“There was like a foot sticking out of the bag,” he said. “I ran up and told Knesley, ‘There’s a foot in a bag.’ He didn’t believe me. He thought I was joking.”
Sutton's body had been wrapped in a blanket and stuffed into a tote along with some bloodstained clothing, and investigators encountered a gruesome crime scene in Johnson's bedroom.
“What I saw was something I’d never imagine I would see in over 30 years as an attorney,” said Iosco County prosecutor James A. Bacarella. “It was something truly insidious. It’s difficult for me to imagine, first off, how anybody could murder a child, a toddler, a 3-year-old. But for its mother to murder it, it’s just beyond what I can comprehend.”
Investigators found fingerprints, DNA and other evidence tying Johnson to her daughter's murder, and Bacarella said blood spatter patterns made clear the girl fought for her life.
“Instead, her mother chose to stab her 17 times,” Baracella said. “I don’t know you can reconcile with that. I don’t know how you can recover from that. I don’t know a way any person could be reformed from that. The most vulnerable of lives was entrusted to this mother and then brutally murdered by her.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced a pause to a set of divisive judicial reforms moving through parliament. The move came hours after the head of Israel’s top trade union called for a general strike following weeks of mass protests.
"Out of a sense of national responsibility, out of a will to prevent a rupture among our people, I have decided to pause the second and third readings of the bill," he told the legislature.
Israel's parliament, known as the Knesset, will go on recess next week for the Passover holiday.
Earlier in the day, Israel's unions threatened to expand the movement against the judicial reform plans.
"I am calling a general strike," Histadrut chairman Arnon Bar-David said in a televised address, adding that "from the moment this press conference ends, the State of Israel stops".
The Histadrut labour federation, representing hundreds of thousands of workers, issued the ultimatum amid expectations that Netanyahu would be making an announcement regarding the fate of the overhaul.
"Bring back the country's sanity. If you don't announce in a news conference today that you changed your mind, we will go on strike," Bar-David said.
Reporting from Jerusalem, FRANCE 24’s Irris Makler explained that a general strike call is extremely rare in Israel.
“The people have spoken, and today we saw the union movement speaking,” said Makkler, adding that the Histadrut press conference on Monday featured unusual scenes rarely seen in Israel’s history.
“It was quite an interesting press conference because it felt like the protests. People were carrying flags, they were shouting “democratia” – democracy – and the union leaders were flanked by industry leaders,” she said. “It’s a sign that there’s chaos everywhere: teachers’ strike, schools are closed, and now, there’s a potential for a general strike.”
Israeli media reported that takeoffs from Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International Airport have been suspended.
Earlier Monday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged the government to halt its bitterly contested judicial overhaul
"For the sake of the unity of the people of Israel, for the sake of responsibility, I call on you to stop the legislative process immediately," he said on Twitter.
Herzog’s call followed massive demonstrations over the weekend that saw tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets after Netanyahu fired his defese minister.
Yoav Gallant had spoken out against controversial plans to overhaul the justice system.
As news of the dismissal spread, tens of thousands of protesters, many waving blue and white Israeli flags, took to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Crowds gathered outside Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, at one point breaching a security cordon.
Netanyahu's plan to hand more control to politicians and diminish the role of the Supreme Court has regularly ignited protests and been questioned by Israel's top allies, including the US, which expressed concern Sunday.
Critics say the reform project threatens Israel's democracy, but the government argues changes are needed to rebalance powers between lawmakers and the judiciary.
Netanyahu on Sunday decided to "dismiss Defence Minister Yoav Gallant", the prime minister's office said in a brief statement.
In response to the decision, Gallant countered on Twitter: "The security of the State of Israel has always been and will always remain the mission of my life."
Some three months since taking office, Netanyahu's nationalist-religious coalition has been plunged into crisis over the bitter divisions exposed by its flagship judicial overhaul plans.
Slim majority
Gallant's call for a halt to the reforms came as lawmakers are due to vote this coming week on a central part of the proposals, which would change the way judges are appointed.
The US said it was "deeply concerned" about the day's events and called on Israeli leaders to reach a compromise.
The White House noted that President Joe Biden recently told Netanyahu that "democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the US-Israel relationship".
"Democratic societies are strengthened by checks and balances, and fundamental changes to a democratic system should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support," White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
Two other Likud lawmakers tweeted their support for Gallant, raising questions over whether the government could count on a majority if it pushes ahead with a vote.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the prime minister could fire Gallant, "but he cannot fire reality and cannot fire the people of Israel who are standing up to the insanity of the coalition.
"The Prime Minister of Israel is a danger to the security of the State of Israel," Lapid added.
Adding to the political uncertainty, Israel's consul general in New York, Asaf Zamir, tendered his resignation Sunday over Netanyahu's "dangerous decision".
"Following today's developments, it is now time for me to join the fight for Israel's future to ensure it remains a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world," Zamir tweeted, posting his resignation letter.
Gallant, a former general, was named to his post in December as part of Netanyahu's coalition with far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies.
He is the first casualty, but other high-level officials have also expressed reservations.
'Illegal' intervention
A parliamentary committee amended the draft law to make it more acceptable to opponents, but the opposition has ruled out backing any part of the reform package until all legislative steps are halted.
In a televised address last week, the prime minister vowed to "responsibly advance" the reforms and "end the rift" they have caused in the nation.
In response, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Friday accused Netanyahu of "illegal" public intervention on the process of adopting the judicial reforms.
Netanyahu is on trial over charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which he denies.
His broadcast gave rise to contempt of court accusations filed with the Supreme Court by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a non-governmental, anti-corruption group.
The NGO's complaint alleges Netanyahu violated an agreement with the court that an accused prime minister does not have the right to act in a matter that could constitute a conflict of interest.
Demonstrators have announced a "national paralysis week", including countrywide rallies, protests outside ministers' homes and on Wednesday outside parliament.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
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Reacting to a report that former Donald Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran sat down with a grand jury for over three hours last Friday after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. paved the way to pierce the attorney-client protections, an MSNBC legal analysts claimed Donald Trump's use of his lawyers to delay proceedings may come back to haunt him in devastating ways.
In a column for MSNBC, attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa wrote that, among the myriad of lawyers the former president has retained, the strongest evidence that Trump committed criminal acts or knew he was breaking the law could come out if more judges rule the way the Court of Appeals did.
Taking it to the extreme, she wrote one of them could deliver the "fatal blow" that ends in a Trump conviction.
As Rangappa notes, the case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pursuing against Trump is based on testimony and evidence provided by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen -- and he might not be the last.
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With regard to the DOJ's investigation into Trump's hoarding of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago report that required the FBI showing up with a warrant, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb was put on the spot for her part in obstruction of justice by signing off and saying all documents had been returned when they had not.
According to Rangappa, "A subsequent search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago, which turned up about 100 additional classified documents, however, revealed that certification to be false. Under questioning by prosecutors, Bobb stated that she had been instructed to sign the certification by Trump’s other attorney, Corcoran. But when Corcoran was brought in to testify in front of the grand jury, he avoided answering the prosecutor’s questions — which presumably concerned how he came to believe from Trump that all of the documents had been returned — citing attorney-client privilege."
With that protection now stripped away, the former president might see his defense fall apart based on Corcoran's testimony.
"While we don’t yet know what transpired during Corcoran’s testimony Friday, we can say that breaking the cone of silence between Trump and his attorney may be the fatal blow for Trump in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. One of the most difficult elements to prove in an obstruction of justice investigation is the defendant’s state of mind," she wrote before adding, "Corcoran is in a position to provide direct evidence that Trump knowingly lied to him that all of the documents had been returned. That can seal the deal for the special counsel — and as icing on the cake, Smith could also charge Trump with making a false statement, since his lies would have induced Corcoran to sign a false certification."
She then added, "But by pulling back the curtain on Trump’s communication with his lawyer, [special counsel Jack] Smith can remove Trump’s Teflon protection and demonstrate why his case is different."
You can read more here.
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