weird news - Jailed for singing national anthem badly

China has been cracking down on dissent for some time. Given that the country is a dictatorship, the decision making process in the country can be quite unique. Leaders at different positions in the hierarchy have been dethroned for allowing certain levels of openness, or not showing ideological purity. In the current situation, the Great Firewall is meant to ensure that citizens do not get exposed to information that could corrupt them, or show something that portray the country or its leaders in a bad light. Anything pops up, there are censors present to remove the information quickly.
As a part of the leadership portrayal of any current leadership, there was a law that threatened persecution for anybody who could take an action that is construed as disrespect of the national anthem, and when such laws are present, there will be pressure to take action. So it was in this case when there was a 10 second section of an online broadcase that was interpreted as disrespect to the national anthem and the online pop singer was punished accordingly (link to article):

Shanghai police said this weekend they punished Yang Kaili, one of China's most-followed online celebrities, with five days of "administrative detention" after she bumbled through the first line of the Chinese national anthem while wearing fuzzy moose ears and waving her arms cartoonishly during a live stream. The offending segment, broadcast from what looked like Yang's bedroom on Oct. 7 to some of her 2 million followers on the "Huya" app, lasted barely 10 seconds. But it was enough to have violated China's new national anthem law that prohibits playing or singing the "March of the Volunteers" in a "distorted or disrespectful way in public," police said. "The national anthem is an embodiment and symbol of our country, and all citizens and organizations should respect and defend the honor of the anthem," Shanghai police said in a social media announcement. "Live-streaming webcast is not lawless territory and users should obey the law and uphold moral standards. The police will resolutely crack down on such behaviors that challenge the legal bottom line or public order and good social morals, in order to purify the Internet's public sphere."

Weird news - Man dangles baby from window for Facebook likes

Fun and games for somebody can seem like endangering the life of somebody else. Especially when a baby is involved. It may seem like a prank, but can lead to massive outrage by others when they see somebody apparently being uncaring for the life of a baby (who after all, is incapable of taking care of itself and only survives due to the care of others around it, mostly parents). And when it seems that such a prank is being done to become popular or 'viral' on social media, it can become even more problematic and lead to more outrage.
In this case, a photo showing a man holding a toddler by the T-shirt and dangling the baby out of the window, apparently demanding 1000 Facebook likes to let the baby back into safety cost the man dearly. It may have been a prank, it may have been a Photoshopped image, but the image cost the man dearly. He was sentenced to 2 years in jail for endangering a child (link to article):

An Algerian man has been sent to prison for two years for dangling a toddler out of a window of a high-rise building in the capital Algiers while asking for 1000 Facebook likes. The unnamed man shared a picture of himself holding the baby by his t-shirt with a caption ‘1000 Fb likes or I will drop him’, according to news site Al Arabiya. Social media erupted with anger and shock after the post went viral, leading to his arrest on Sunday. He has, however, defended himself, saying the image was photoshopped by Facebook users, reports said.

Weird news: In South Korea, you can now have an extra-marital affair

When living with the practices of the modern world, the presence or absence of love in a marriage is a private affair between the married people, and it cannot be a criminal offence if one of them decides that the love between them is lost and strikes out for an extra-marital affair. The only one who has a right to feel affected is the spouse who has been cheated, and he/she is the one who can take further steps - such as filing for separation, seeking alimony, etc. However, when nations and laws get guided (or forced) by religious considerations, then society steps in and decides what is wrong and what is right, and specifically this case of extra-marital affairs is deemed adultery, and there can be numerous punishments.
In the case of societies run on strong Islamic laws, there are severe laws against adultery, which can be extremely barbaric such as the one followed by the Taliban, and more so by the recent terror Islamic State, where a woman could be accused of adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death (with lashes happening before that), and men can also be accused and sentenced for the same 'crime'. However, it was surprising that a country seen to be extremely developed, such as South Korea had a similar law on its books, with the sentence for adultery being 2 years in prison. Even though being sent to jail was rare, there were numerous people charged with the law. Finally the courts have realized that an affair is not a criminal act, and has decided to drop the law. (link to article):

A South Korean court on Thursday abolished a 62-year-old law that criminalized extramarital affairs, and the stock price of a prominent condom maker immediately shot up 15%. The Constitutional Court's ruling that the law suppressed personal freedoms could affect many of the more than 5,400 people who have been charged with adultery since 2008, when the court earlier upheld the legislation, according to court law. Any current charges against those people could be thrown out and those who have received guilty verdicts will be eligible for retrials, according to a court official who declined to be named, citing office rules. Under the law, having sex with a married person who is not your spouse was punishable by up to two years in prison. Nearly 53,000 South Koreans have been indicted on adultery charges since 1985, but prison terms have been rare.

The co-relation was interesting though. With the striking down of this law, the share price of a leading condom maker shot up significantly.

Weird news: Teen in jail for an offensive Facebook post

There are a number of cases where young people have committed grave crimes; the recent bombings in Boston, the shootings in Columbine and other places, in all such cases, the crimes have been committed by people who are like old teens or young adults. In a number of such cases, when the crimes have been committed and then a lot of digging into the background is done, there are indicators about how the culprit had made some kind of intentions clear already - there would be postings on forums, there would be Facebook posts that are angry or threatening, and there are questions about how these indicators were not picked up. As a result, there are now tendencies that tend to ensure that such threats on public forums are not taken lightly, and in fact, the people making such threats can be jailed under stiffer terms, such as in this case (link to article):

The Texas teen facing a felony terrorism charge over an alleged threat on Facebook has been released on bail after an anonymous donor posted a $500,000 bond. Justin Carter, 19, had spent five months in prison for posting, during an argument about a video game, what he said was a sarcastic comment about how he was going to "shoot up a kindergarten." "I just think it got taken out of context, and it's been blown out of proportion," Carter told Kate Bolduan on "New Day," CNN's morning show. The brief interview marked Carter's first public comments since he was jailed in February.

Just jailing somebody on the basis of their comments (even if the comments are horrific) unless it is a specific threat is dangerous, but at the same time, there is also pressure on enforcement authorities to read these indicators early.

Weird news - Man sentenced to 3 years in jail for not paying bill

Seems a bit strange. What was the normal expectation when you go to a restaurant and then refuse to pay the tab once you are done with your food and drinks. In older days, the joke used to be that you would be expected to roll up your sleeves and spend the rest of the evening and the night doing cleaning of all the dishes as compensation for the expense. In modern times, this is no longer insisted upon (you would not want to get sued by the person being forced to do the dishes later on), instead you could call the police and they would take the next action.
However, typically you would expect some minimal action on the person, or some settlement between the person and the restaurant. But would you ever expect this to result in a 3 year jail sentence ? Seems odd, but this is exactly what happened in an Illinois trial where prosecutors sought a theft charge on the person and the charge stuck because of his past history. Seems very odd (click here for the news article):

CHARLESTON, Ill. – A Mattoon man was sentenced to three years in prison after authorities say he skipped out on a $70 restaurant bill after ordering an appetizer, drinks and an entree. Anthony M. Malabehar, 47, pleaded guilty to felony theft charges after authorities say he didn't pay for his meal at the Alamo Steak House in Mattoon. Authorities tell the Mattoon Journal-Gazette that the April theft took place about a month after Malabehar was convicted of a similar theft from another eastern Illinois restaurant. Prosecutors say he was charged with a felony because of his previous criminal record includes other theft convictions.

Weird news - Debate about taxpayers paying for a sex change operation

This is the season where there is a lot of pressure to control costs, not to spend in ways that seems excessive and out of control. So when there are cases which show taxpayers money being spent on something that seems outrageous, there can be a lot of resentment about such expenses. Further, there is a section of the population that believes that Governments really do not make too much effort to cut expenses and watch their spending, and that it is only public outrage that causes politicians to make efforts to check the flab in Government spending.
This gets more interesting when this relates to expenses on people who are in jail, since a section of the population would not want excessive money to be spent on such people; after all they have committed some crime or the other and that is why they are in jail. If then there is un-necessary money being spent on them, it is just an example of how Governments do not try to control money. This would be all the more true when you consider the following case where a convict is asking for state money for a sex change operation (link to article):

In a potentially groundbreaking ruling, a federal judge has ordered Massachusetts to let a transgender prisoner undergo a sex-change operation — and make taxpayers foot the bill. In 1993, Kosilek, who then went by Robert, was convicted in the 1990 murder of his wife, Cheryl Kosilek. Also in 1993, Kosilek officially changed his name to Michelle. Diagnosed with severe gender identity disorder, Kosilek has been living as a woman in an otherwise all-male prison in Norfolk, Mass., for the last two decades. Wolf now says that even though his ruling is "unprecedented," the surgery is the only way doctors see to adequately treat Kosilek's condition, and that denying her request would amount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Wolf, who was appointed to the bench in 1985 by Ronald Reagan, writes that the government can't deny an inmate necessary medical treatment just because it is controversial and "unpopular."

Weird news - Prisoners in Kyrgyz stitch up their mouths in jail in a protest

Protest can take many novel forms. The most common form of protest that people in jail employ is the hunger strike, whereby people start indefinite hunger strikes or a group of prisoners go on a relay hunger strikes, with the expectation that such a step would force the authorities to agree to some of their demands. In some cases, this works, and in other cases, people have died with hunger strikes in jail.
In some other cases, the protest by prisoners takes a more violent form, with prisoners going to the extent of a riot in jail, sometimes causing riot police or the army to step in to stop such riots. However, in recent times, protests are taking on more unusual forms, such as this case where the prisoners sewed their mouths shut (link to article):

Over 400 Kyrgyz prisoners stitched up their mouths Tuesday as part of a nationwide hunger strike that has spread throughout the country's pre-trial detention facilities, Kyrgyz human rights ombudsman Tursunbek Akun said.
The protest follows a riot in mid-January during a routine cell check in one of Bishkek's pre-trial detention centres, when inmates started a fire and some slashed their wrists, protesting violence from the prison staff and visitor restrictions.

Weird news - Man sentenced to 500 lashes for blasphemy

When you pick up novels about medieval times, you see so many cases where people were sentenced to many sorts of different sentences for crimes against God, such as the extreme one of being burned at the stake for blasphemy. A number of people were convicted and killed in such a manner, which even encompassed acts such as proposing that the universe did not center around the earth, rather that the earth moved around the sun. But these were all stories of what used to happen many centuries earlier.
So, it seems very surprising that such cases happen even now, primarily in Islamic countries where uttering anything that could be construed to be against god can actually be punished by death. And this is not a hypothetical case, there have been numerous cases where people have been convicted of blasphemy on flimsy evidence, or in the more horrid cases, mobs have believed about these utterances of blasphemy and lynched people. Consider this case, where a person on the Haj was convicted of uttering something against the relatives of the Prophet Mohammed and sentenced to a prison term as well as 500 lashes (which could actually kill him) (link to article)

Mansor Almaribe, 45, was found guilty of blasphemy after he was arrested last month in Medina while on a pilgrimage, Australian officials said.
It's unclear what Almaribe, a Shia Muslim from Victoria state, said or did to get arrested.
"The ambassador has urgently contacted Saudi authorities and will make strong representations, including to key figures in the Saudi government, seeking leniency," said Kate Sieper, a foreign affairs spokeswoman.

Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide

Is Critique Secular?: Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech

Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam (Liturgy, Worship and Society Series)

Weird news - Prosecuting and sentencing people for posting on social networking sites

In recent times, social networking sites, derided initially as tools of no consequence, showed their power by their usage in the attempts to overthrow governments of many countries, including the attempts in Egypt, Syria, China, Libya, and many others. Some of these attempts were successful, others were unsuccessful. In some countries, the governments actually tried to shut down internet and mobile services in order to prevent the mobilization that happens with these services. But one thing was true; these social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, were extremely popular in galvanizing and organizing people, and played a major role in the protests by people.
Social networking also was widely used in the recent riots in Britain, thus showing even societies that were supposedly people friendly could face turbulence from the power of social networking. As a result, there is an increasing trend to prosecute people for their opinions expressed online, whether these be through blogs, facebook or through Twitter. Consider the following case where people are sought to be prosecuted and jailed for their twitter feeds (link to article):

A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account.
Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools. Gerardo Buganza, interior secretary for Veracruz state, compared the panic to that caused by Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds." But he said the fear roused by that account of a Martian invasion of New Jersey "was small compared to what happened here."
"Here, there were 26 car accidents, or people left their cars in the middle of the streets to run and pick up their children, because they thought these things were occurring at their kids' schools," Buganza told local reporters. The charges say the messages caused such panic that emergency numbers "totally collapsed because people were terrified," damaging service for real emergencies.

Imagine hiding from police dressed up as sheep, after escaping from a prison

How often would you have heard of stories of people taking on animal disguises to escape from police ? Not very often, right ? These are mostly part of comics or fiction, but normally you would consider that the physical structure of humans is very different from those of animals, and to consider that a human being could wear an animal outfit and hide from people seems to be a difficult concept to accept. Yet, you have these convicts escaping from a high security prison by wearing outfits in the shape of sheep (which are very different physically from humans) and managing to escape from the police who were looking for them (link to article):

Maximiliano Pereyra and Ariel Diaz stole the sheep hides from a ranch after fleeing from an Argentinian maximum security prison a week ago, The Sun has reported.
The duo managed to evade 300 policemen on their trail by disguising themselves as sheep. Locals have seen them running through farmland at night.
"They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheep's heads, over their heads and back," a farmworker was quoted as saying.

Thai man kept in prison for 3 extra years because of a typo, finally released after a visit by a Minister

Who says that meetings with politicians cannot be helpful ? This Thai man, serving a long sentence in an Indonesian jail, certainly valued his meeting with the Minister. The jailed man had been sentenced to life in 1987 for a drug related sentence (should have been thankful not to have been sentenced to die, like Singapore and other countries in the area do so), and was later given a slight reprieve, with the sentence changed to 20 years by a presidential decree. So he should have been out in 2007, but when setting the decree, the year of entering the jail was set as 1997 instead of 1987, with nobody seeming to correct it. It was only in 2010 when a minister was visiting the jail that the inmate got a chance to be able to present his case, and was promptly released (link to article):

A single clerical error can change the course of one’s life. Just ask Kamjai Khong Thavorn, 53, a Thai national who spent nearly three extra years in the maximum-security Pasir Putih Penitentiary in Nusakambangan, West Java, because of a typing error. Kamjai was due for release in 2007 after a 20-year sentence he received in 1987 for heroin possession, but up until Wednesday, he was still behind bars.
Having spent an extra three years in jail for no fault of his own, Kamjai was promptly released on Thursday after a chance meeting with Justice Minister Patrialis Akbar, who happened to be visiting the prison for an inspection.

Getting arrested for a Facebook poke

A Facebook poke is a pretty innocent event, with many of us even ignoring when somebody gives us a poke. However, when you combine the 'online' world with the real world, you end up in dangerous zones or questions that are only resolved by courts. Consider the case when a person has been warned by a court against communicating in any way with somebody else, and a facebook poke happens. Is this a violation of the court order, or will the 'poke' be seen as a continuation of the earlier activities that led to the restraint order ?
A court resolved this to some degree by finding the person in this case guilty of violating the restraining order, and was sent to jail with a bail set at $1500. Now, the person faces a possible jail sentence and a fine (link to article):

Beware: a Facebook poke could land you behind bars. Just ask Shannon D. Jackson of Hendersonville, Tennessee, who faces that very real possibility.
Jackson was arrested and transported to Sumner County Jail on September 25th with a bond set at $1,500 after she violated an order of protection by allegedly poking a woman on Facebook. The alleged poke broke the terms of the court order: “no telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner.”

Man sent to jail for yawning in courts

One knows that judges treat the courts as their domains, not letting anything happen in their can that could be seen as dis-respecting, or as subverting the majesty of the law. The law of contempt of court is made so that if a person acts in a way that could lower the dignity of the judge or the courtroom, then the person can be punished. For the whole judicial system to work, it is necessary that the entire judicial system is held with respect and seen to be efficient and un-biased; equally important is that judges do not misuse this facility and send people off to jail if they feel offended by something.
In this particular case, a person in the courtroom yawned loudly, to the extent that the judge felt that it was a deliberate attempt at being dis-respectful, and the person was sent off to jail for 6 months (link to article):

Drowsy spectators in one suburban Chicago courtroom might want to stifle their yawns from now on. Clifton Williams, 33, of Richton Park, is facing six months in jail for making what court documents call a yawn-like sound in Will county judge Daniel Rozak’s court last month. The yawn happened as Williams’ cousin, Jason Mayfield, was being sentenced for a drug charge.
Rozak found Williams in contempt of court and sentenced him to six months in jail. However, Rozak could free Williams after a status hearing, if Williams apologizes and the judge accepts.

Mom arrested for neglecting 555 pound baby

Being obese has its own health problems, with diabetes, heart problems, liver, back problems and numerous other problems. For the case of people who are very obese, the terms is called 'morbid obesity' and requires urgent medical attention in order to reduce the weight and improve health. In cases such as these, the health of the patient is supreme and may require forceful medical attention; when you balance that against the obligations of the parent, then there can be conflicts. Consider the case of this lady whose son now weighs 555 pounds, and she has not been getting him the attention that he requires (link to article):

South Carolina authorities have located a 555-pound teenager and his mother, who faces a charge of violating a custody order, police said Thursday. The mother is being held in a detention center and will be extradited to South Carolina on an outstanding warrant, he said. "The understanding was that the individual was of the weight where it was decided by medical authorities that he needed treatment that was not being provided for by his mother," Armstrong said. Earlier in the day officials said the boy "is possibly at a stage of critical health risk."
Gray was supposed to appear in family court Tuesday with her son and failed to do so, the sheriff's office said. During the family court hearing, the boy was ordered into state custody because of medical neglect, as well as his mother's failure to appear. The Department of Social Services then contacted the sheriff's office, authorities said.

For a teenager, the parents bear a lot of responsibility for their well being and need to take this condition seriously.

Man in US jailed 83 days for missing jury duty

The United States has a system of justice that depends on jury trials for a large number of cases, based on the belief that a citizen should be judged by a jury constituted of 12 of their fellow citizens, and it is these citizens who can be depended upon to deliver a judgment. A condition of that is that every citizen can be called for jury duty, and it is only those who can show some sort of valid reason who are excluded from being on the jury. However, it was shocking when it was found that a person was jailed for 83 days for avoiding jury duty (link to article):

A man arrested for allegedly failing to appear for jury duty was released on Saturday after spending 83 days in jail, a length of detention that a judge called "unacceptable." Douglas Maupin was released a day after The Dallas Morning News brought his plight to the attention of a Collin County judge.
All American citizens and permanent residents are required to report for jury duty from time to time to supply potential jurors for court cases. District Judge Chris Oldner said he was unaware of Maupin's detention until Friday, even though the case was assigned to his court. The judge who signed the original 2003 warrant had retired, and officials said the case was assigned to the court of his replacement but the offense didn't fall under that court's responsibility.

This is part of the blind nature of the legal system. Maupin was caught as part of an earlier warrant issues in 2003 and when caught for speeding, this warrant showed up and he was jailed; further, he could not afford the bail amount.

Cannibal jailed for 30 years: Irony, he was a chef

In this time and world, it is hard to imagine the concept of cannibals. There are umpteen religious, moral and legal restrictions against the consumption of human flesh. In fact, the mind would get all disgusted with the thought of eating human flesh. So, when somebody is observed doing it, it gets all the more repulsive:

A British chef who killed a man with a knife and cooked and ate his flesh was sentenced Monday to minimum of 30 years in prison. Judge James Stewart said Anthony Morley, 36, showed no remorse for the killing of Damien Oldfield.
Morley attacked Oldfield, 33, during a night the pair spent together in April at Morley's home in the northern city of Leeds. Morley slit Oldfield's throat as he lay in his bed, stabbed him repeatedly and cooked some of his flesh. Stewart rejected Morley's claim that he had been provoked when Oldfield unexpectedly initiated sexual contact after the pair watched "Brokeback Mountain," a film about two cowboys who try to conceal an affair. Morley claimed Oldfield's actions reawakened traumatic memories of childhood sex abuse and that he feared he was going to be raped.

It is always strange to try and visualize as to why somebody would do something like this ? What thoughts were going on in their head when they did something like this ? In such cases, even the judges must be horrified. They would have to look at photos of the victim, and hear detailed information about what happened, something that would shake even the most hardened of people.

Saudi professor to be lashed for meeting woman alone

Read this article, and was revolted by what I read. You do read from time to time that people have different cultures and social norms, but there must be some amount of humanity to all norms. Saudi Arabia has strict interpretations of what a female can do and cannot do (more controls on what she cannot do), but the bottom line is that freedoms that others take for granted are not available to her. In this case, a professor in Saudi Arabia is going to be in prison for 8 months and be lashed 150 times for the big crime of meeting a woman alone:

A Saudi Arabian man is to get 150 lashes and spend eight months in prison after he was caught meeting a woman without a chaperone in a coffee shop.
Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology professor in Mecca, was arrested by the Kingdom’s feared religious police, the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. He was accused of breaking the Islamic injunctions under the Khilwa code, which restricts the independence of women. It stipulates that women must not meet men alone, other than relatives.

Now, there are many people who would say that this is the way that the society over there is governed and this is the choice that people have made, but that is nonsense. Just because some societies had the policy of apartheid does not mean that the world let that continue; and further, Saudi Arabia is not a democratic country where people have made this choice - this is a decision by the rulers to have such laws so that they get the support of the religious clergy.

Thieves steal sperm sample

Thieves will try to steal anything valuable, but maybe they need to learn that not everything that is valuable can be sold. An example is something that is of great personal value to one person, but no value to anything else. Another example is of something like sperm samples from a sperm back, that cannot be sold since any user will want to have the history of the sample. So, the thief steal sperm samples and tries to sell them to a doctor, but no doctor would want to buy something like this since they would want to know previous details of the sperm sample, including the profile of the donor:

A laboratory technician who allegedly tried to make a quick buck by stealing samples from the sperm bank where he worked has been arrested after a suspicious doctor tipped off police.
The doctor contacted police because they [doctors] usually refer patients to infertility clinics for treatment. They are never approached with sperm vials on sale. Infertility experts in Mumbai were astounded by the alleged theft.

And now these would be thieves are facing fines and jail terms for trying to sell something that could not be sold.

Client-attorney privilege keeps man in prison

Imagine that you have been prosecuted for a crime that you did not commit; and then you discover that there were people who knew that you could be innocent, or that there was enough information that could be available that put your trial in question and the legal matter of attorney-client privilege was the reason that you spent so many additional years in prison. This is a case that shows how a regulation can end up harming the life of a human; but in the end, the person would have been happy that he eventually got out of prison:

A man locked away 26 years for murder was granted a new trial and freed on bail Friday with the help of two attorneys who came forward with a client's confession after the client died in prison. Two attorneys recently revealed that their former client, Andrew Wilson, admitted committing the crime that sent Logan to prison, but attorney-client privilege had kept them from coming forward.
Wilson's death last year allowed the attorneys to unseal an affidavit stating that Logan was not responsible for the fatal shooting of security guard Lloyd Wickliffe at a McDonald's restaurant in January 1982. Dale Coventry, one of the attorneys who signed the affidavit, said Friday night that he hopes prosecutors will acknowledge that they went in the wrong direction with the case.

It was good for Logan (the wrongfully sentenced person) that he finally got a chance to get out of jail and enjoy life again, although one is not sure whether he will get compensation for wrongful imprisonment. And even though the attorneys did the wright thing, maybe they could have explored some actions to take the right action earlier.

Horrific crime: Cooking a baby in a microwave

A father was sentenced to 25 years in prison for badly hurting his daughter in a microwave; yes you read that right - a father actually put his baby girl in a microwave in a hotel and cooked her for 10-20 seconds, causing so much harm that the infant, now in the custody of a foster mother, has spent a prolonger period under treatment. How more horrific can this get ? The father claimed that he was insane at that time, a defense not bought by the jury (given that he first hit his own daughter, put her in a safe and then a refrigerator, before actually putting her in the microwave):

His daughter Ana's foster mother fought back tears as she detailed how after being injured, the girl's left hand was so burned that there was no skin, no muscle, no fat, only tendon and bone. Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder and has required several skin grafts. Part of her left ear had to be amputated.
Prosecutors said Mauldin hurt his daughter because he was angry that he was in a loveless marriage and he didn't want to take care of the infant. They also said Mauldin had a history of violence and of lying about being mentally ill to get out of trouble. Cammack said Mauldin has been wracked by mental illness since he was 10. Mauldin claimed he started hallucinating when he was left alone in the hotel room with his daughter, feeling like mud was running up his body and consuming him.

Maybe what the defendant, Joshua Mauldin said was true. How can any sane person actually put his own daughter into a microwave ? You have to be mentally ill to do something like that.