Savagely Stolen News: Italian Laws

Perhaps freedom should be on the march in Italy, where in some places it is now illegal to lie down in a park to read, build sand castles on the beach, or mow your lawn on weekends.

Lisl Auman

Yesterday I gave you the particulars of Lisl Auman’s case.  No one disputes that she was under arrest and handcuffed in the back of a police car when her partner, Matthaeus Jaehnig, shot and killed a police officer.  Jaehnig then killed himself so *somebody* had to pay for the policeman’s death.  This led the prosecutor to charge the Lisl with the murder and as 7 News in Denver wrote, “The jury had convicted Auman of felony murder, saying she had set in motion a chain of events that led to the deadly shootout.”

So even though she was totally innocent of the physical crime itself- by ALL accounts including police- she was found guilty of the murder largely because her partner killed himself.  Luckily, she wrote a letter to an aging Hunter S Thompson who had one more fight in him.  Thompson led a charge to free Lisl, calling in favors from lawyers around the country and having friends like Warren Zevon champion her cause.  All the hell raising sparked new interest in the case and her sentence was eventually reduced.

The story has been written by a variety of firsthand sources so I won’t bore you with my own spin.   Go here, here, here, here and watch “Free Lisl: Fear & Loathing in Denver” by Wayne Ewing.

Cheers,

Tom