Let's face it, people will say anything to get out of going to jail.

For instance, stats show that less than one percent of insanitypleas actually work, since for every one guy who truly has somethingbroken in his brain, there are at least 99 scumbags who're just makingshit up.

Here are seven of the most bizarre criminal defenses ever mounted incourt... some of which are made even more bizarre by the fact that theyactually got off.

The Crime:

In July of 2002, Tonda Lynn Ansley of Hamilton, Ohio shot her landlady in the head. This is generally fatal.

The Defense:

Ansley told police, "They commit a lot of crimes in The Matrix."Following her lead, Ansley's attorney reasoned that the "our world isjust an illusion generated by our machine overlords" argument wasbulletproof and used it as the cornerstone of an insanity defense.

They claimed that Ansley thought her landlady was part of a schemeto "brainwash and murder" her while in reality everyone was presumablyliving in pods of red goo.

Did it Work?

All too well. Ansley's defense was able to prove that she believedshe was inside a computer simulation, and as such felt she was entitledto waste anyone around her that could possibly prove a threat. A juryof her peers found her not guilty by reason of mental defect.

On the surface this case seems to echo John Hinckley's famous "Taxi DriverDefense," but there are a few subtle differences we would like to pointout: Hinckley claimed he tried to kill President Reagan to impressJodie Foster by emulating the character of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

Tonda Lynn Ansley, on the other hand, shot her landlady in the facebecause she saw Keanu Reeves jump over buildings and stop bullets withhis mind in The Matrix. We feel Ansley went the extra mile.

Note that this defense was so successful that it was used a yearlater by Vadim Mieseges of San Francisco for, you guessed it, murderinghis landlady.

Legislation to rename "The Matrix Defense" to the "Kill Your Landlady, Everyone's Doing It, Defense" is still pending.

The Crime:

On May 23, 1987, Kenneth Parks drove 14 miles to his in-laws' house and brutally attacked them, fatally stabbing his mother-in-law.

He then hopped back in the car and took himself to the policestation to surrender, telling them "I think I may have killed somepeople," which is just the sort of thing you want to be uncertain aboutwhen surrounded by cops.

The Defense:

Parks claimed he had no recollection of any of the events of thenight in question, and could only remember waking up in police custody.

His defense counsel proposed that he had committed the murder whilesleepwalking and therefore could not be held responsible for hisactions (Parks had evidently been dreaming about his mother-in-lawblowing a huge lead on Family Feud).

The sleepwalking defense is normally used to escape blame for thingslike pissing in the sink, so prosecutors found it a little far fetched,a phrase which here means "That's seriously the best he could come upwith?"

Did it Work?

Not to take Parks at his word, doctors and detectives ran an Electroencephalography (EEG) scan to check his story.

For those of you unfamiliar with an EEG scan, it consists ofattaching multiple electrodes to the head and measuring neuron firingactivity in the brain.

It also resembles anime tentacle brain rape.

The results of the EEG showed that in fact Parks had abnormal brainactivity indicative of extreme parasomnia, a dissociative sleepdisorder that can lead to anything from night terrors to nightstabbings.

Given these results, Parks's unwavering testimony and no discerniblemotive for the crime, Parks was acquitted of murder and never invitedto spend the night at anyone's house ever again.

The Crime:

On October 4, 2002,a transsexual woman named Gwen Araujo was tortured and murdered bythree men who had sex with her, while somehow unaware of her biologicalorientation (either her male genitalia had been disguised by a Romulancloaking device or her attackers weren't the brightest bulbs in thechandelier--evidence supports the latter).

The Defense:

The defendants claimed they were enraged to insanity when they realized that Araujo had man parts.

Whereas most people would've had a couple more drinks and a hotshower, these gentlemen decided the most appropriate reaction would bea brutal murder by way of shovels and pickaxes.

Apparently there is no greater trauma than a blowjob from a transsexual (an experience Cracked writers refer to as "Wednesday").

Her name is Stanley.

Did it Work?

Yes and no. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, essentiallyindicating that a room of 12 people couldn't decide whether killingsomeone for having weird genitals was wrong.

In the second trial, the defense attorney realized that none of thejurors were drooling into cups or wearing special "indoor helmets" andabandoned the Trans Panic Defense in favor of a more reasoned, lessretarded approach.

This probably seemed like less of a good idea when the murderers were quickly found guilty.

The Crime:

Richard M. Scrushy,the founder of healthcare service provider HealthSouth, was chargedwith violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, which in essencepunishes corporations for routinely dicking over their investors a laEnron.

Five of HealthSouth's Chief Financial Officers pled guilty to fraudcharges, and in turn pointed the finger at Scrushy as the ringleader ofthe firm's unethical douchebaggery.

Also: Weird, right?

The Defense:

Scrushy's lawyers claimed he was completely ignorant of anywrongdoing, arguing that as head of a major corporation, his attentionwas diverted from trivial matters (accounts, shareholders, humanresources, white collar crime) so that he could be free to focus on themore important aspects of high-level management (golfing, sleeping onhuge piles of money).

So they essentially had Scrushy walk into the courtroom like RickyRicardo, throw up his hands and exclaim, "WHAT HAPPENED?" as if he hadjust come home from the Babalu show to find that Lucy had zanilyembezzled millions of dollars from company shareholders.

"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to- IS THAT EIGHT MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS??"

Did it Work?

Scrushy was found not guilty on the grounds that no one could provehe was aware of the skullduggery going on in his own company,demonstrating once again that race, religion, age and sexualorientation aren't relevant in deciding a person's guilt or innocenceso long as they're willing to act like a complete fucking moron in opencourt.

That wasn't enough to fool a later judge, however, when a lot of the screwed shareholders sued Scrushy and won $2.9 billion, a sum Scrushy said he would be happy to pay because, "I have a lot of extra money, from all that fraud."

The Crime:

If you watched even one minute of late night talk show monologues in the 90s, then you know this story well.

On June 23, 1993,John Bobbitt came home after an evening of heavy drinking and decidedthat assaulting his wife Lorena would be the perfect nightcap (he waslater acquitted of the charge, but we're guessing if your wife refersto a sexual encounter as "rape," it was neither welcomed norappreciated). Once he was passed out in an alcoholic stupor, Lorenawent to the kitchen and grabbed a carving knife.

She then returned to the bedroom to perform an amateur penectomy onher sleeping husband, presumably after shouting "IT'S COCKSLICINGTIME!" like The Thing.

Here is a picture of The Thing, because the alternative is a picture of dick-chopping.

The Defense:

Lorena's lawyer claimed that she removed her husband's penis due to"an irresistible impulse to sexually wound" him after years of domesticabuse.

For those of you less familiar with the English language,"irresistible impulse" is basically an academic way of saying "Icouldn't control myself" or "that dick was ASKING to get chopped."

Shut up. There's nothing funny about cutting someone's dick off.

Numerous cross-examinations of John Bobbitt did little to suggest he hadn'tdeserved what happened, though we imagine if his dick had been calledto the stand it would have delivered a powerful testimony.

Did it Work?

In a verdict that sent shivers down the spines of drunken shitbagseverywhere, Lorena was found not guilty. On one hand it's hard not tosympathize with the battered wife.

On the other, it seems like every crazy thing you've done in your life could be written off as "irresistible impulse."

We think this will be renamed the "I NEEDED to (punch thatdouchebag, steal those Cheetos, masturbate on the subway) Defense" inthe near future. Possibly on our way home from work.

The Crime:

Colin Ferguson boarded a train in Long Island on December 7, 1993, wholly dissatisfied with the level of service being provided.

Unable to locate any comment cards, he chose to vent his frustration by pulling a gun and shooting 25 people, killing six.

He was eventually overpowered by three passengers on the train and turned over the police.

The Defense:

Ferguson's lawyers put together a defense based on "black rage,"following the rule that the best criminal defenses all share titleswith 70s era blaxploitation movies.

Ferguson's defense argued that he was driven temporarily insane withblack rage as a result of living in a white-dominated society, and assuch could not be held criminally liable for his actions.

Did it Work?

We may never know. Ferguson's high priced team of attorneys hadprepared their opening remarks, claiming in several interviews that itwould be a landmark case for race relations in the United States.

Fortunately for race relations, Ferguson fired all his lawyers at the last second and chose to defend himself.

Rage- BLACK

Ferguson, being crazy, came up with the even more landmark defenseof alleging a computer chip had been implanted in his brain andrequesting President Bill Clinton be called to the witness stand.

He was unsurprisingly convicted on six counts of murder and 19counts of attempted murder, and was sentenced 315 years to life inprison.

Dude should have just said he was pissed off.

The Crime:

Mr. Raj(a name which undoubtedly fills its bearer with the insatiable urge tokill James Bond) was a 27-year-old Malaysian entrepreneur of sorts,working as a transport logistics manager moving a fiercely demandedproduct with a massive profit margin.

In other words, he was a drug trafficker.

As all good things must come to an end, he was arrested and chargedwith transporting 166 kilos of cannabis and 1.7 kilos of raw opium in2003.

And while many parts of the world are coming around to the ideal oflegalizing marijuana completely, the penalty for trafficking the stuffin Malaysia is death by hanging.

The Defense:

It appeared to be a slam dunk for the prosecution.

Mr. Raj had been caught in the act and the powerful case against himincluded DNA, widely regarded as the Michael Jordan of physicalevidence.

The only problem was that there were two Mr. Rajs.

You see, R. Sathis Raj and Sabarish Raj were identical twins, and they decided to Parent Trap that shit.

When questioned as to "Who dunnit?" each man pointed the finger at the other, blurring the line between good Raj and evil Raj.

Malaysian prosecutors were baffled, presumably because neither Raj had a goatee.

Did it Work?

Here's the bitch about identical twins. Even if you caught one ofthem in the act, all you have to do is leave them alone in a roomtogether for 30 seconds and you don't know who's who.

Ultimately, both men were set free as neither the prosecutor nor the judge and jury could figure out which one was guilty.

They couldn't even be certain which twin was arrested at the scene of the crime.

Thus they gave the brothers a new lease on life and one of the best bar stories ever told.

-- Source: cracked.com

Date: 4 Jul 2009 | Author: mesmerX | Category: News, Pictures | Views: 1544 » TrackBack » Print » RSS Enojyed this article? Share it and let others know: