More on the Josh Powell Fiasco

This is really a response to BMan’s comment on my last post, and I felt it was worthy of a new post. He put a lot of thought into it and I put a lot of thought into my response.

When we go to Nostradamus’s quatrains, they can be interpreted in any number of ways to suit the person or group that’s trying to prove a link between him and the event. For instance, Hister became Hitler, but in actuality, Hister is the Latin word for Danube. Sure, that’s in Germany, but no reputable source lists any support for the claim that it was a prediction of war brought on by Hitler’s Nazis, nor was it a war forged against him by the Allies. That’s but one example and we all know they are legion, meaning lots and lots of interpretations to fit the mood du jour.

In “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, the dialogue between the newspaper editor and the hero, Senator Rance Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, was pretty much the way it was when bad guys roamed the west. By that, I mean John Ford, who directed many westerns from 1939-1965, pretty much wrote the script for what we now perceive was the true old west. In real life, it wasn’t. To be blunt, almost every town had prostitutes, but not Shinbone, for example. Anyway, what the editor said as his interview with Stoddard ended was, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

It came near the end of the movie after Stoddard explained what really happened to villain Liberty Valance, played by Lee Marvin. Stoddard said that he wasn’t the town’s hero, it was Tom Doniphon, played by the iconic John Wayne. Doniphon shot the bad guy.

That’s how legends are borne, and the name Nostradamus is legendary.

If we pay heed to the Mayan calendar the way some read Nostradamus, then yes, the world will end this year, but that’s not at all what the calendar infers. The Mayans created a long count calendar to document past and future events. They also had a 52 year calendar, but the long count calendar spans 5,126 years, beginning in the year 3114 B.C and ending on Dec.21, 2012 if, and only if, it’s based on our Gregorian calendar. Dec. 21 is also the beginning of the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, so if you live in Australia, you won’t die that day.

Here’s where the interpreters got it all wrong, and that’s why the ‘end of days’ predictions are way off kilter. As I said in the prevoius post, there are no such things as predictions, although educated guesses may work based on factual information that supports the propositions. In other words, A conditions B; if this, then that could happen – only there’s nothing to base the prediction on because it would mean the earth was formed in 3114 B.C. And it will end 5,126 years later, in 2012. But guess what? The earth is a lot older than 5,126 years and, therefore, the 2012 date is rendered meaningless. There’s nothing to base the hypothesis on. It does not compute.

As for Josh, yes, it could have been established that he was a risk, but first we have to address the issue of what separates a “person of interest” and a “suspect.” During the Bush administration, it came about, in a round-about, straightforward sort of way, if that makes sense, as a means to classify terrorists. It soon trickled down to law enforcement. The main difference between POI and suspect comes in the form of constitutional protection. If someone’s name is plastered all over the news as the suspect and it turns out law enforcement goofed, all sorts of lawsuits can be filed. Look at the case of Richard Jewell, the first named (and only) suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the summer of 1996. He was completely exonerated, but by then, the mess had turned into a huge fiasco. He filed a series of suits against media outlets that libeled him, including NBC, Tom Brokaw in particular. He settled that suit for $500,000, but bear in mind, Jewell was sued by some of the injured while a suspect and it complicated things further. His exoneration came later that same year by a US Attorney; unprecedented at the time.

What we’ve learned is that you’d better be sure before you name someone a suspect because it could open the floodgates to potential legal problems.

Okay, fine, but what about Josh Powell? Certainly he was a suspect from Day 1, right? Yes and no. No, meaning there wasn’t any evidence. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Just that his wife didn’t come home and he took his very young sons out camping in sub-freezing weather. Very suspicious. Utilizing the “person of interest” euphemism instead of the direct finger pointing nomenclature of “suspect” for Josh meant there hadn’t been enough evidence to do much of anything, and it most likely meant that the Utah police department investigating the case had little to share with their Washington counterparts. It also meant they had nothing to keep him from leaving the state with his sons.

Unfortunately, if someone is named a POI, their life will change, but at the same time, if someone is named a suspect, it could ruin an innocent person’s life for years to come. There’s always that stigma. If you look at Dale Smith II, in the missing Michelle Parker case, if it turns out he is not responsible for Michelle’s disappearance, he could possibly file lawsuits. However, that does not mean he’ll win, but the odds are much better than if he were just named a person of interest.

Do I think the Washington police were keeping their eyes focused on Powell? Of course they were, but their hands were tied by law. It was the court’s responsibility, but it could only be based on what was presented to the judge in the first place.

I can tell you some interesting stories about legal custody cases and how the state is extremely particular about how they handle each one. Surely, the case worker knew about Josh’s problem in Utah, but she couldn’t really base any court testimony on what he did –- or may have done –- out-of-state. The court would have called her on the carpet for it. It was second-hand information garnered from newspaper clippings, radio, and watching the news. Oh yes, and the Internet. If she contacted Utah authorities, what could they have told her other than he was a person of interest?

So, in the interest of keeping lawsuits in check, her hands were tied. Many police departments will call an almost suspect “a person of interest” for a very good reason, but the results of the psychological evaluation Josh had last October should have sent sirens blaring. If the court felt it was necessary to examine him further by administering a psycho-sexual test, why allow him to see his children at all, especially now that they were aware that anime child porn was found on his computer? In my opinion, he shouldn’t have been allowed to see his sons until he passed that one. Surely, there should have been concern over the polygraph test, too, because he would have been probed about the disappearance of his wife.

Despite the fact that all of the visitations between Josh and his sons were supervised, it wasn’t enough, obviously. The thing the judge could have done would have been to be much more prudent. Yes, it’s nice you moved away from your perverted father, but we found some pretty sick stuff on your computer, so until the results of your psycho-sexual test are in my hands, you will meet your children on neutral ground or not at all.

Ultimately, no one else but Josh Powell was to blame. He plotted this course and if it meant blowing up a McDonald’s PlayPlace, he would have done that, too. Judges sometimes base their decisions on how the person handles themselves in the courtroom, or they take it into consideration. Powell was really good at lying and crying. He was a real wolf in sheep’s clothing, alright, but wolves don’t usually eat their young. Who knew he would be capable of doing such a horrible thing?

I’m sure his psyche will be studied for a long time by many professionals, but will it stop other people like Josh from doing the same thing if there’s nothing to “suspect” because they are merely “a person of interest” in another state? I just don’t know.