Oops, My Bad, er, My Glock I Mean

Thomas Grassia, (pic) a Natick, Massachussets attorney makes the news for leaving something more embarrasing than his wallet in the bathroom.  Here's reporter Norman Miler's story from the MetroWest Daily News:

A Natick attorney admitted in Framingham District Court yesterday that he accidentally left a loaded gun in an office bathroom in May.  Thomas Grassia, 64, of Wayland, admitted there were sufficient facts to find him guilty of the improper storage of a firearm. That admission is not a guilty plea.

On May 10, police went to 5 Commonwealth Ave., Natick, an office building that is home to Grassia's law office. Someone had called police and said they found a gun in a fourth-floor bathroom, according to a police report filed in Framingham District Court.

Officers found the loaded 9mm Glock 26 on a toilet paper dispenser in one of the bathroom stalls. No one in the building knew who the gun belonged to, police said.

The same day, Grassia called police and said he had left the gun there accidentally while using the bathroom. Grassia had a gun permit at the time [ . . . ]

Judge James Barretto fined Grassia $500, placed him on administrative probation for one year and said he could not carry a gun during his probation.

This is not Grassia's first brush with the law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals last month upheld a federal judge's ruling that Framingham Police did not violate Grassia's constitutional rights when they arrested him in 2004.

Even though the criminal harassment and witness intimidation charges against Grassia were later dismissed, the detectives who obtained a warrant and arrested Grassia at his Natick law office acted reasonably, a panel of appellate judges ruled.
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Ouch, how to get some old stuff dredged up. 

Personally, I don't get the whole gun thing as I suggested many times, here, at Bad Lawyer.  My lunatic father handed out shotguns one Christmas when my brother and I were 13 and 14 and took us hunting.  I shot a rabbit that did not immediately die.  My father beat its brains out.  I was so disgusted I never went hunting again.  At 17 I went into the US Army and shot lots and lots of weapons as part of my MOS (military occupational specialty) as a M60-A1 tanker.  Maybe I got it out of my system, but I've no interest in guns, weapons, or armament of any sort. 

Then there is my healthy fear.  I read about the idiots like this bozo who showing off a gun at a Memorial Day picnic kills himself, or this Darwinian triumph who kills himself demonstrating the safety features of his nifty new handgun by pointing it at his head and pulling the trigger.

What is the obsession?  As I write this, another mass murder drama is unfolding in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I can assure you that the preemptive pushback by the NRA and its cadre of political and media elites is already underway.  God forbid that we the people ever come ot our collective senses over the need to fondle our guns...even while we're in the shitter.

Manilla Gets 10-25 Years

In May I told you about the Pennsylvania lawyer with the felony history who nonetheless continued to illegally possess and shoot guns with the net result that he killed a friend on the first day of hunting season.  As I reported, then, David Manilla (pic, right) entered a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter of Barry Groh (pic, left). Today, Bucks County Judge Albert J. Cepparulo told Manilla he would never hold a gun again, or pull a trigger as long as he lived.  Judge Cepparulo sentenced Manilla to 10-25 years in prison.

At the link there is an excellent local account with video of Manilla being walked out of the courtroom to begin his incarceration.   At right, is a picture of Manilla entering the courthouse in the company of his girlfriend and her daughter. 

Guns.

"I'm Gonna Kill Myself!"..."Okay, Here's Your Gun, Go For It."

The Miami Herald is reporting on the manslaughter arrest of the area woman who gave her drunk, depressed, suicidal husband a handgun.  This is reporter, David Ovalle's coverage:

Tired of their bickering and her husband's complaints that he wanted to die, an exasperated Cutler Bay woman asked him if he wanted his pistol.  Yes, he replied -- so she fetched the weapon from another room and tossed it on the couch next to him, police said.  Then he shot himself, fatally, in the head.

For her `reckless disregard for human life,'  Valerie Jenkins will be charged Wednesday with manslaughter with a deadly weapon for the May 2009 death of her husband, Robert Jenkins, prosecutors say.  The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is expected to file formal charges against Valerie Jenkins, 56, on Wednesday in front of Circuit Judge Reemberto Diaz.

Robert Jenkins, 51, a longtime South Miami-Dade auto mechanic, was an avid fisherman who loved life and never talked of suicide, relatives say. `We all have to be accountable for our actions,' said Robin Jenkins, the dead man's sister-in-law. `Her actions resulted in Bob's death.'  Robert and Valerie Jenkins were married for seven years and lived in a home in the 10000 block of Martinique Drive. They had no children.

Her attorney, James Best, did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Jenkins told Miami-Dade police homicide detectives that she and her husband fought frequently, and he often said `he wanted to die,' according to an arrest warrant. On May 4, 2009, the couple fought over his not taking his blood pressure medicine. Robert Jenkins was `probably depressed' and had been drinking beer, his wife told police.

Robert Jenkins again said `he wanted to die.'

Angry and frustrated, Jenkins asked her husband if he wanted his gun. After he said yes, she retrieved his .22-caliber pistol, in a zippered pouch, from a dresser drawer, she told police. She flipped it onto the sofa where Robert Jenkins sat.  When she turned to enter the kitchen, `she heard a single gunshot, and when she turned back, she observed the victim slumped over on the sofa with a gunshot wound to the side of the head,' the warrant states.  Jenkins frantically called 911, saying that while her husband had threatened to use the gun in the past, `he had never actually asked her for it while they were arguing.' The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death a suicide. Robert Jenkins' blood alcohol level was .14, nearly twice the legal limit for driving.

In preparing its manslaughter case, Miami-Dade prosecutors Lody Jean and Kathleen Hoague relied on the successful case against Jeramy Ricky Rushing, who in February 1986 gave a cocked, loaded gun to a despondent woman outside a Dania Beach bar.  A Broward County judge dismissed a manslaughter charge against Rushing, but the Fourth District Court of Appeal reinstated it, clearing the way for a trial. In 1992, jurors convicted Rushing and he was sentenced to two years of house arrest plus 300 hours of community service.

Prosecutors said Valerie Jenkins `engaged in a course of conduct that was gross and flagrant, showing reckless disregard for human life' by giving the loaded gun to her intoxicated husband."
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This prosecution will turn on intent.  The "frantic" 911 call may vitiate against the prosecution.  Intersting story, though.

Oh, Detroit!

From the Mouthpiece Hall of Infamy, Geoffrey Fieger surfaces again as counsel for the grieving relatives of the Detroit child, 7 year old, Aiyana Stanley-Jones gunned down by the Detroit police who mistakenly stormed a Detroit home while being filmed for a A & E reality television program, The First 48. 

This tragic tale is being reported thoroughly at MLive.com and nationally because the story lies at the intersection of all these awful truths that we have talked about since the inception of Bad Lawyer: children, poverty, guns, and abuse of police power.  Fieger's involvement with a picture (above) in the New York Times Saturday that looks like a study for the Last Supper, caps another nightmare for Detroit, again of Detroit's making.