People Different From Us | Annals of Injustice

• Cry for Help: Calvin Nicol, 31, complained that he was obviously the victim of a "hate crime" when thugs beat him up in Ottawa, Ontario, on Nov. 1 -- just because he is intensely tattooed and pierced, with black-inked eyes, a split tongue and implanted silicone horns on his forehead. (Though "hate" may have been involved, so far "body modification" is not usually covered in anti-discrimination laws.

However, Nicol suggested one legal angle when he explained that "piercing myself and changing my appearance, and making me look like the person I want to look like is almost a religious experience to me.") [Ottawa Citizen, 11-15-2014]

• Richard Rosario is in year 18 of a 25-to-life sentence for murder, even though 13 alibi witnesses have tried to tell authorities that he was with them -- 1,000 miles away -- at the time of the crime. (Among the 13 are a sheriff's deputy, a pastor and a federal corrections officer.)

The "evidence" against him: Two "eyewitnesses" in New York City had picked him out of a mugshot book. Rosario had given police names, addresses and phone numbers of the 13 people in Florida, but so far, everyone (except NBC's "Dateline") has ignored the list, including Rosario's court-appointed lawyers.

As is often the case, appeals court judges (state and federal) have trusted the eyewitnesses and the "process."

(In November, "Dateline" located nine of the 13, who are still positive Rosario was in Deltona, Florida, on the day of the murder.) [WNBC-TV (New York City), 11-21-2014]

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