Bread Fraud? In 1915 Cheating Omaha Bakers Hauled to Court!

The shocking Omaha Bee headline on February 28, 1915: 

BAKERS TAKE LAW
INTO OWN HANDS!

The price of flour inflated. Loaves of bread shrank.

One hundred years ago Omaha families noticed they were getting smaller loaves of bread than they had been promised. Bakers and grocers where hauled into court to face the consequences of their stinginess.

Mirroring today’s battles overs government regulation, consumer protection, and balancing price with serving size, the great Omaha bread wars made front page of The Omaha Bee in 1915.

Omaha Bee, February 28, 1915

At the time the size of a loaf of bread was regulated by city ordinance to assure people were getting what they paid for. According to an article in The Bee “The present bread ordinance was passed
 nearly twenty years ago (that would be around 1895) and provides 
that a loaf of bread shall weigh sixteen 
ounces and that a double loaf shall weigh
 thirty-two ounces, no mention being made
 as to price.”

The professional bakers in town didn’t like being told what size bread they could sell and proposed the city council get rid of the law.

The bakers, however, were not making any allies by ignoring the ordinance and selling lighter loaves. It seems as the price of flour went up, the bakers wanted to keep the price of a loaf steady at five cents for sixteen ounces of bread.

Customers, according to The Bee, complained to city hall.  “In response to complaints made by
 citizens at the office of the city sealer of 
weights and measures, that official has 
started to get busy.”

John Grant Pegg, Omaha’s “sealer of weights and measures, the stalwart protector of the consumer, led the investigation. Some loaves baked by the Jay Burns Baking Company under the "Holsum" brand were up to three ounces short of the promised weight. Charges were filed against both bakers and the grocers. (Pegg explained to the newspaper charges against the grocers were necessary so “he can get evidence against the man who baked the bread.”)

1913 Holsum Bread Ad

The city prosecutor, much to Pegg’s distress, was not a zealous and dawdled on advancing the bread fraud cases to district court. The indignant weights and measures man told the reporter from The Bee “he does not feel warranted in
making other arrests on the existing
bread ordinance as long as these cases
are pending.”

The paper discovered apparent collusion among the bakers.

“A south side grocer said he was given to understand that within the last two weeks the master bakers met and decided to reduce the weight of loaves two ounces on the sixteen ounce loaves rather than raise the price from 5 to 6 cents,” noted the article in the Bee. The common term today would be “price fixing.”

Omaha no longer regulates bread.

KEYSTONE BACK TO COURT: Nebraska landowners file new lawsuits to block pipeline

Landowners in two Nebraska counties opposed to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline have filed lawsuits challenging the right of the project’s developer, TransCanada from taking their land using eminent domain. 

Holt County Nebraska

This is a new a separate action taken in the courts in the wake of the Nebraska Supreme Court’s review of state law which left unanswered the question of whether the state had improperly given the authority to choose the pipelines route to then Governor Dave Heineman.

The lawsuits, filed in Hold and York Counties, cover much of the same ground covered in the case of Thompsen V. Heineman dismissed last week. The landowners claim LB1161, the law passed by the Nebraska State Legislature is in conflict with the state’s Constitution.  As a result the lawsuits claim “TransCanada is without eminent domain authority or an approved pipeline route across Nebraska because … the Governor’s actions are TransCanada’s sole basis for claiming an approved route or power of eminent domain.” 

In both the Holt and York County cases a total of seven landowners filed the lawsuits. They claim, in nearly identically related briefs, their property is along the pipeline route. Four of the seven have already received written notice from TransCanada that they intend to proceed with condemnation proceedings against their land to advance the pipeline project.

In the matching legal briefs the landowners who have been served notice state they have declined and refused to “declines and refuses to voluntarily convey ownership rights” to TransCanada.

York County Nebraska

No date has been set yet for follow up hearings in either county.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have yet to state whether the United States government will object to the Canadian-based project from crossing the northern border.

BOLD Nebraska, leading the state’s opposition to the project announced the filing on its website late Friday, adding “it is only the President who can provide peace of mind to farmers and ranchers along the route. Our fight will continue even if the President rejects the pipeline.”

Representatives of TransCanada and the State of Nebraska were not available for comment at this writing.

Facing Execution, Nikko Jenkins Continues His Bizarre Legal Journey

Nikko Jenkins told everyone he understood.

He understood he was giving up his right to a trial.He understood he was admitting to the murder of four people.He understood what happened in court could land him on death row.

Just when everyone thought, "okay, this should wrap things up," Jenkins started back-tracking, bobbing, weaving, and (I say this without fear of libeling or slandering the man) talking crazy. 

By the end of this day in court Nikko Jenkins talked his way into, at the very least, a lifetime in prison without parole and the prospect of being executed by the State of Nebraska.

He entered the court room of Judge Peter Bataillon demanding to enter a guilty plea to four counts of murder, being in possession guns and using them to commit the crime. Two hours later, stretching the patience of judge and prosecutor, Jenkins changed his mind again, pleading no contest to every count. It gave the judge the authority to pronounce him guilty on all counts.

Nikko Jenkins (Douglas Co Corrections)

Jenkins did it his way. The people who could have helped, the defense attorney "advisors" from the public defenders office, stayed close but stayed silent. The confessed killer wanted to serve as his own attorney. He wanted to explain the murders.

And what an explanation.  

The judge asked him if he killed his first two victims. "My physical person may have been there but I was not in that spiritual moment."  Jenkins claims he was moved to kill when he "heard the voice of the underworld god. That's who assassinated these individuals." It all has something to do with the "War of Revelations."

Growing more agitated as he spoke of each of the murders, Jenkins told the court he recalls seeing the victims before they were murdered but doesn't remember firing the shots or seeing their bodies. At times during his explanation he slipped into speaking in tongues or some sort of unidentifiable language. (Todd Cooper of the World-Herald earlier wrote it was the language of Jenkins personal "serpent god" Opophis. I have no reason to doubt that.)

The confession Jenkins gave to police after his arrest did not place as much of the blame on Lucifer and Opophis, according to Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine.

If there is any temptation to smirk at the absurd and surreal courtroom antics, its necessary to remind oneself why Jenkins was here. Jenkins killed four people within ten days.

The first two execution-style murders made the news barely two weeks after the Nebraska Department of Corrections released Jenkins from prison. Juan Uribe-Pena and Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz were shot in the head while sitting in a pick-up truck in South Omaha. A week later a man who became friends with Jenkins in jail, 22-year old Curtis Bradford, was found outside a garage in a residential neighborhood on the north side. Two days later on the city’s west side Andrea Kruger, a waitress heading home after her shift, was shot to death and her SUV stolen. It took a few days for Omaha police to make sense out of three seemingly unrelated homicides and pull together the evidence tying them all back to the recent parolee, Nikko Jenkins.

Always methodical prosecutor Kleine laid out the details of each murder in court today. It was a 30-minute summary of what would have been presented over two or three weeks had the case gone to trial. The autopsies. The ballistics tests. The witnesses. The confessions. (Jenkins apparently killed Ms. Kruger to steal her SUV because he wanted a nice car to drive to an upcoming Lil' Wayne concert.)

Jenkins interrupted Kleine a couple of times to have him repeat descriptions of the victim’s wounds. That was too much for the family of Curtis Bradford, who fled the courtroom in tears. 

To accept Jenkins guilty plea Judge Bataillon needed the accused to say he accepted as fact statements made by the county attorney.  Jenkins wouldn't do it.  "Everything he said is completely false," said the man who started the day telling the court he was guilty. 

Clearly frustrated, the Judge changed course and asked Jenkins if he would be willing to submit a no-contest plea instead of admitting his guilt. Yes he would, but....

Jenkins launched into a rehash of claims about being treated unfairly, violations of his constitutional rights, and accusations against police involved in the murder investigation. As he spoke the five sheriff deputies providing security moved in closer to the fidgety defendant. 

The judge had enough. He cut Jenkins off in mid-sentence telling him if he had complaints he wanted to share with the world to contact the media and "do it on your own time."

A few minutes later, Jenkins was found guilty of four counts of murder.

Jenkins had one more choice to make. Should a judge or a jury decide if he deserved to be executed?  The U.S. Supreme Court says anyone facing a death sentence gets a hearing to weigh factors favoring the death penalty (like the cruelty of the crime) against factors favoring mercy (like not having a prior criminal record). Jenkins chose to leave it up to the judges. 

County Attorney Kleine leaves court (Photo: Kelly)

Judge Bataillon all but begged Jenkins to turn over his case to the public defenders office for this stage of the proceedings and stop trying to represent himself in court. It was clear throughout the day Jenkins had no grasp of the most basic legal procedures. 

Jenkins continues to insist he can go it alone. At a hearing in March Judge Bataillon warned him it’s a job that “would be very difficult for any lawyer.” Jenkins didn’t flinch. “I understand all those risks.” While mental heath experts had serious doubts about the man’s grasp on reality, Jenkins insisted he was “intellectually able” to represent himself. Back in court a couple weeks later the scope of his intellectual abilities was on full display as he swore at the judge, mocked the prosecutors, laughed manically when asked if he was competent, and howled at the bank of cameras in the hallway when being lead back to jail.  

It's likely that Jenkins' mental health will come up for discussion again. He stated repeatedly in court that he's schizophrenic and two doctors came to the same conclusion. Three other psychiatrists doubt that diagnosis and indicated he's a man capable of playing deranged to work the system.

Leaving the courtroom, in the few seconds Nikko Jenkins appeared before the wall of waiting TV cameras, he shouted out something or other in the language of his serpent god, disappearing behind a door on his way back to jail.

Will the definition of “Graffiti” derail a Nebraska hate crime case?

An ugly little purported case of racial bigotry started small. It’s become a big deal at the Scotts Bluff County courthouse in Nebraska’s panhandle.

This week a judge is reviewing a county court’s decision to toss out a hate crime case involving local high school students. At issue is the legal definition of graffiti.

Seeing the case in limbo for what one newspaper writer called “a technicality” angered people in Gering and Scottsbluff. Many were already hurt and embarrassed by the incident. Some are trying to make things better outside the courtroom.

Isaiah Wilson (Courtesy Photo)

It started last October, in the Scottsbluff High School parking lot during a volleyball game, with crosstown rival Gering High. The car of a biracial student from Gering was vandalized. The racially charged “N-word” had been written with “window chalk” seven different times on a car belonging to student Isaiah Wilson. Big-hearted and popular, he is a fixture on the basketball team and in school plays. The principal at Gering High School told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald “this went beyond a school prank. This was a hate crime.” The county attorney agreed.

Police arrested 18-year-old Alysha Schwartzkopf. She was charged with violating the state’s graffiti laws, but with an enhancement because the choice of word took it to the level of a hate crime.

If you did an online search for Schwartzkopf prior to her arrest the only articles you found were about her accomplishments as an honors student and soccer player at Gering High. Her ‘selfie’ photos are all smiles and teenaged goofy.

The trial took place in February, with County Court Judge James Worden presiding. Schwartzkopf’s attorney, Todd Morten, claimed the graffiti didn’t rise to the level of a hate crime, since it grew from a $5 bet between friends resulting in a bad choice. “Maybe (using the N-word) is mean, careless, reckless and hurtful, but that doesn’t make it a crime,” Morten told the judge during opening statements.

The court heard about three hours of testimony that day. On the witness stand for the prosecution, students testified Schwartzkopf vandalized the car to retaliate against Wilson. His offense? A couple of weeks earlier the girl’s cousin also used the N-word, but to Wilson’s face. The school suspended her cousin and the pair wanted revenge.

Isaiah Wilson also took the stand. He claimed no one had ever used that racial insult to him prior to hearing it from the cousin. Faced with it again, written on his car just a few days later, it made him mad.

That’s pretty much all the court heard. All of a sudden defense attorney Morten asked the judge to throw out the case. He claimed the vandalism law at the heart of the case did not apply. The legal definition for graffiti, he pointed out, specifies its appearances on buildings, or walls, or fences. It doesn’t mention cars. Judge Worden agreed. The charges against Schwartzkopf were dismissed.

Judge Worden's ruling from the court record.

That day the Scottsbluff Star-Herald ran an editorial entitled “We’re Sorry.”

“Isaiah, we’re sorry.

It’s important for you to know that many people who learned about this dispiriting incident are deeply ashamed and dismayed about what happened to you. From what we’ve read, you don’t harbor a lot of hatred in your heart. You still deserve better than this. We wish that more people could purge the ugliness from their own hearts, or at least keep it to themselves.”

Kay Grote wrote a column in the Gering Citizen a few days later:

“A technicality of state statute dashed the hopes of justice and closure for Isaiah Wilson, his family, many friends and supporters. A failed verdict and a flawed statute in the case left the community wondering what to do. But I’m moved to caution in this column, don’t let the anger at the outcome lead to more hate. The real challenge now becomes loving our enemies.”

From the IsiahWINS Facebook page.

If the act was intended to diminish the victim in the eyes of the community, it seems to have backfired. Individual residents came forward, moved by the quiet character shown by Isaiah Wilson during his unwelcome time in the spotlight. 

Phil Kelly, a panhandle lawyer (and no relation to this writer), set up a scholarship fund for the young man. He told Steve Frederick, editor at the Star-Herald, “as a community, we should send a message that we’re better than that.” More donations from the community started arriving. An “Isaiah Wilson WINS” Facebook page attracted hundreds of supporters.

Case closed? Not quite. The Scotts Bluff County attorney has appealed to the District Court. The prosecutor argues graffiti that ended up defacing Isaiah Wilson’s car is included in Nebraska state law. This is from the statute titled 28-524. Graffiti; penalty.

 (6) For purposes of this section, graffiti means any letter, word, name, number, symbol, slogan, message, drawing, picture, writing, or other mark of any kind visible to the public that is drawn, painted, chiseled, scratched, or etched on a rock, tree, wall, bridge, fence, gate, building, or other structure.

But earlier in the statute the law refers to “graffiti of any type on any building, public or private, or any other tangible property.” The appeal hinges on whether Wilson’s car is “tangible property” or, as one county judge and one defense attorney believe, the state’s definition remains vague enough to provide Schwartzkopf a way out.

Both sides have filed arguments and the judge in the higher court is reviewing the case. A ruling should be issued in a couple of weeks.