Thieves like us?

It's hard to say if these people who are looting after the earthquake in Chile are really thieves or if they are taking food in order to survive. Even the law recognizes that people who steal from neccessity will not be punished with the same severity. With electricity most likely not working, and no one working, what are people to do when they have no food?

Here is a link. I just don't see it as the same. Nor do I see it as the same thing when someone is taking a medication which definitely can influence behavior.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_chile_earthquake

Please note that they did figure this out:

To strip away any need for looting, Bachelet announced that essentials on the shelves of major supermarkets would be given away for free, under the supervision of authorities. Soldiers and police will also distribute food and water, she said.

The Devil Made Me Do It

After thinking for several months that it would make a difference, after my medical records were subpoenaed, after crying about the medication causing me all these problems...

I was told today that I should take the plea.

Because if I got up on the stand and said that I was stealing stuff under the influence of this medication, and that I was doing it all the time that I was risking more than 3 years of probation. I was risking jail time.

Because my reaction to the medication was severe and out of the ordinary, even if my doctor and counselor were willing testify for me that it was medication related, it didn't matter.

To a jury...

My tears were crocodile tears.

My defense began to sound like, "The devil made me do it."

It doesn't matter that these impulses are gone after getting off the medication. Never mind that my hair is still in the process of growing back. No matter that my face is scarred from acne. Never mind all of that. Never mind the truth.

Thanks to the Twinkie defense, it sounds like "The devil made me do it."

My attorney said, "I don't care what the truth is. I care about protecting you."

When I entered my plea, the judge seemed to feel sorry for me from the expression on his face. Maybe he knew that pleas aren't always the truth. I was so disoriented I couldn't find my car in the parking lot. I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses somewhere. I have to pay fines and restitution. I now have a record with two misdemeanors. I have to do community service.

People have lied to me. My first lawyers said "Trespassing isn't priorable." When I first went in to talk to someone at the DA's office. I was told, "You have a good case for trial." Another attorney decided to subpoena all of my medical documents because he said he believed me. Today I was told by my final attorney, "He just didn't have the backbone to tell you. He knew he was being transferred and so he left it to me to tell you the truth."

The "Irresistible Impulse" defense didn't work. "Entrapment" didn't work either. The drug defense didn't work because she had friends who said they had friends who were on that same drug and they didn't do those things.

So all that was left was, "The devil made me do it." No one believes in the devil anymore. And no one believes he can do anything.

Shit.
I took the plea.

Trail on Monday, I hate my life.

After many postponements, the trial will finally happen this Monday.

I am not taking any psychotropic meds. Except for being severely stressed out, I am almost normal. I am so fortunately to have people around me who believe me and this will become part of the trial.

Unfortunately, something else is coming down the pike that I thought I would be cleared of. Unfortunately, our justice system is an injustice to us. I haven't been arrested on this. My lawyer is appearing for me on Monday at one court while I attend at another.

The thing is, I didn't do this. But the investigation was probably negligible. I even told the detective what to look for and he didn't do it.

I've been falsely accused of a hit and run. I worry about writing all the details. But I didn't do this. I was falsely imprisoned against my will. I was falsely accused of trying to hit a man. I was given a parking ticket and then I asked if I could leave. I was very disturbed about the way that they treated me when this occurred and I called 10 minutes after I left to report the event to the concierge desk. Somehow in the course of the next few days, the men who detained me invented a wild story and in this version I hit him at a high speed. News to me. I really wouldn't do that. When I called, I left my phone number at their workplace. No one said anything about an injury. They waited 7 days to contact the police. Does anyone else think these people got in trouble at work and then lied to cover it up??

The problem is that I now have a record. I hate my life. This is really serious. I'm scared that something bad will happen, even though they have my complaint on file at the place where this happened. I can only hope that there is video somewhere that hasn't been destroyed. This happened nearly 1 year ago.

I had just started to feel happy and like I could go on with my life again. I thought for sure that they would find the videotape and the complaint I made to drop this. They just didn't. They didn't believe me.

The cruelest twist of fate that ever occurred in my life was the head injury I had a few years ago. It placed me on medication that did awful things to me. And everything else that has followed as I reacted to it worse and worse has been a nightmare.

I wish I could be someone else. I hate my life.