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United States v. Moore was a 1973 case heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Police officers found the defendant, Raymond Moore, in a hotel room with heroin capsules in his pocket and charged him with narcotics possession. Moore claimed at trial and on appeal that his addiction to heroin forced him to possess and use drugs. He argued that, because he lacked the free will to keep himself from possessing drugs, he should not be criminally liable. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. The D.C. Circuit upheld Moore's conviction in a 5–4 vote, refusing to create the addiction defense. The five judges, split across two separate opinions, doubted that addicts physically cannot keep themselves from taking drugs; they also worried that the defense could apply to crimes more serious than possession, or lead people to fake addiction. The dissent supported Moore's legal arguments and argued that the justice system accomplishes nothing by imprisoning an addict for possession. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Katie Phar, c. 1910

... that ten-year-old Katie Phar (pictured) supported the Industrial Workers of the World during the Spokane free speech fight?
... that around 1,000 graves were exhumed to make way for Zim Cyber City, a development project in Mount Hampden?
... that Deng Ken placed a newspaper advertisement to find his elder brother, who initially believed it was a trap set by Nationalist Chinese intelligence agents?
... that a building in Boston was named after slain US president John F. Kennedy, after which one writer stated: "the building mocks the martyred president. It does not memorialize him"?
... that English princess Mary of Blois may have colluded in her own abduction from her nunnery by Matthew of Alsace?
... that Ivan Murray Johnston's prediction that Penstemon angelicus would be described as its own species came true more than five decades later?
... that, according to tradition, King Ahenzae lost the Kingdom of Benin's royal coral beads to a palace priest through repeated games of dice?
... that the French Navy used catapults on their ships after trials with the dispatch ship Bapaume concluded that launching platforms were unsafe?
... that Jacob F. Wolters broke his shoulder by crashing his car into a hog?

In the news

Gloria Steinem in 2016

In Yemen, heavy fighting between the Houthis and the Presidential Leadership Council leaves hundreds of people dead.
American journalist and feminist activist Gloria Steinem (pictured) dies at the age of 92.
Following the Kazakh legislative election, Oljas Bektenov is reappointed Prime Minister of Kazakhstan by the newly established Kurultai.
Duane Davis is convicted of orchestrating the 1996 murder of American rapper Tupac Shakur.

On this day

September 12

Portrait of Yax Nuun Ahiin I

379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I (depicted) took the throne as the ruler (ajaw) of the Mayan city of Tikal.
1910 – Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire and popularly known as the "Symphony of a Thousand", was first performed in Munich.
1928 – The Okeechobee hurricane first struck the island of Guadeloupe; eventually it reached the United States and caused over 4,000 deaths overall.
1952 – Three boys in Flatwoods, West Virginia, U.S., reported seeing a ten-foot-tall (3 m) monster in the woods while investigating a UFO.
2015 – An explosion involving illegally stored mining detonators in Petlawad, India, killed 104 people and injured more than 150 others.

Andronikos I Komnenos (d. 1185)
Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg (d. 1876)
Joe Schmidt (b. 1965)
Joshua Cheptegei (b. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

The Wounded Angel is a 1903 painting by Finnish symbolist artist Hugo Simberg. It depicts two boys carrying an injured angel, who has a bandaged forehead and a bloodied wing. The scene is set in Eläintarha, Helsinki, with Töölönlahti Bay in the background. Simberg declined to explain the painting's meaning, preferring viewers to form their own interpretations. He later produced a larger version of the painting as a fresco in Tampere Cathedral. Held by the Ateneum in Helsinki, the painting was voted Finland's "national painting" in a 2006 poll held by the museum.

Painting credit: Hugo Simberg

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