Is “Inure” Really a Magic Word?

Over at the Language Log there is an interesting post about the word “inure.”  The writer Roger Shuy is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, at Georgetown.  He now works as a linguistics expert, often, it seems, with lawyers.  

In the post he first describes the ordinary use of the word “inure,” giving an example from a Newsweek article, “Shoppers seem inured to the relentless Christmas spirit.”  Then he goes on to describe another use of “inure” that he found in a legal document, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to get the lawyers to change to something plainer, like “financially benefit.”

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Iranian Police Raid and Close Offices of Human Rights Centre Led by Shirin Ebadi

Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2003, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for Mission Week here in February.  The story of her life is an inspiring one. She was the first woman to serve as a judge in Iran, but was removed from her post after the Iranian revolution in 1979, because she is a woman and the revolutionaries thought women should not be judges. In 1992, she was able to obtain a license to practice law, and she has fought for freedom of expression, the rights of women and children, and other human rights.  

The offices of her Human Rights Defender Center in Tehran were raided and closed by Iranian police today, on order of the judiciary:

In a statement, the judiciary said it had ordered the closure of the Human Rights Defenders Centre in Tehran because it did not have the required legal permits, the Mehr news agency reported.

It had also been “promoting illegal activities such as issuing statements on different occasions, sending letters to domestic and foreign organisations, holding press conferences, meetings and conferences” which created an atmosphere “of media publicity against the establishment in recent years”, the statement added.

An AP article reports that the center was banned last year but had continued to operate.  In that article, Ebadi states in that article that her group was planning on Sunday to honor Taqi Rahwani, who was imprisoned for 17 years after the Iranian revolution, and to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Human Rights Day (which passed on December 10th).

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Seventh Circuit Week in Review, Part I: Search & Seizure, Interrogation, and Sentencing

The Seventh Circuit had a busy week, with seven new opinions in criminal cases.  Two dealt with the same question of what constitutes a criminal attempt to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.  I’ll discuss those two opinions in a separate post.  The remaining five, considered below, addressed a diverse range of issues relating to Fourth Amendment rights, police interrogation, and the application of the federal sentencing guidelines.

In United States v. Budd (No. 08-1319), the defendant was convicted of possessing child pornography on his home computers.  After Budd left one of his computers at a shop for repairs, a shop employee found a file titled, “A Three Year Old Being Raped,” and reported the matter to police.  An officer took custody of the computer, but police otherwise did almost nothing on the case for the next month.  Eventually, Budd contacted the police department himself to report what he believed to be the theft of his computer by the repair shop.  Budd’s phone call led to his interrogation at the police station, a search of his apartment (where another computer was found), and (finally) a search warrant for the computers.  After he was charged, Budd moved to suppress incriminating statements he made to police, as well as images found on the computers, contending that these were all “fruits of the poisonous tree” of the illegal seizure of the first computer.  The district court denied the motion. 

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