The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, Reverend Gustav Briegleb, and the LA police’s moribund reputation in the ‘20s

It was the late ‘20s and the Los Angeles police department’s reputation was not in good light.

There were allegations of unfair treatment and police brutality, as publicly and blatantly decreed by Reverend Gustav Briegleb, a Presbyterian minister and radio evangelist who led the publication of many causes in the city in the ‘20s and ‘30s. One of the famous cases that shook LA police at that time was the series of abductions and murders of young boys in California, an event now popularly known as The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.

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In 1926, ranch owner Gordon Stewart Northcott sent his 13-year-old nephew Sanford Clark from his home in Canada to his farmstead in Wineville, California. Northcott physically and sexually abused Clark, which soon came to the attention of the former’s sister, Jessie, during the day she visited the ranch. At the night of her visit, she learned of the murders that had taken place at Northcott’s place, and immediately reported it to the American Embassy in Canada. At once, the news became known to the entire Los Angeles and entire America after the LA police came to gather evidences against Northcott, leading to his arrest. But this did not leave the LA police unscathed.

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Reverend Gustav Briegleb’s social activism was essential to the reformation of the LA police, following the futile attempts of the police department to find the missing son of a single mother named Christine Collins. Reverend Briegleb castigated the police department’s duplicitous acts to close the Collins case instantly and refusal to accept that it was related to the Wineville murders.

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After Northcott’s capture and execution, the LA police went to several reforms, in the hopes of finally creating a good name and gaining back the public’s trust.


Atty. Craig Seldin’s broad law practice includes civil rights-related cases. Learn more about his legal expertise here.

Unlike: The dark side of social media

The deaths of teenagers Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott has put the spotlight back again on social media just a few weeks after the Stubenville rape case judge warned teens to watch what they tweet.

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The suicides of Parsons and Pott, and the Stubenville case highlight how crimes linked to the use of social media sites have increased remarkably since 2008, when the phenomenon of social networking crime was comparatively minor. These days, however, social media has revealed its “dark side,” as perpetrators have used sites such as Facebook and Twitter to further torment their victims.

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Rebecca Campbell, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University wrote for CNN, “The ubiquity of cell phones with cameras and the power of the Internet make for faster, farther-reaching gossip, name-calling, character assassination, and ultimately, despair for the victim.” This became very clear in the cases of Parsons and Pott when evidence of their alleged sexual assault went viral, pushing the teens to end their own lives.

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The tragic deaths of Parsons and Pott have prompted calls for more stringent measures to curtail cyberbullying and other social media-related crimes. But since laws are not yet in place to protect young people from such acts, the best action for now is to educate the youth about the benign use of social media.

A member of the State Bar of Texas, Craig Seldin was voted Texas’ Wow Attorney of the Year for 2011. Learn more about his practice and areas of specialization here.

The rules of structural encroachment

This is the quandary: You have decided to rent a place near your new office because it was too far from your home. Now, two years have gone by, and you decided to go home, only to find out that somebody has invaded your place, or precisely, a part of your ownership. Your neighbor has just extended his backyard to yours.

This circumstance is called encroachment, or when another person builds a structure that meddles on your property, be it just an awning, or any physical structure for that matter.

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Like any other civil case, you can just ignore it. You can also settle it with the offender democratically. However, if things went irreparable through these two constitutional processes, you can always take it to court.

In court, you just have to prove that you own the property, which is legally called as “quiet title action,” and that your neighbor is without doubts using your land, which lawyers call an “ejectment action.”

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However, reducing litigation length can be done in two ways: through adverse possession and prescriptive easements. In order to win in a claim for adverse possession, you just have to prove that you own your land legally by presenting important documents—titles, deed of sale, tax records—that would establish your claim. Conversely, one of the most popular methods of prescriptive easements is by just easing your accusation to “claiming” instead of “possessing.” In this way, your neighbor would end up paying for the taxes that encompass the entire period of his intrusion, making him appear as a renter, not as an intruder.

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Atty. Craig Seldin’s broad law practice includes civil cases, such as different encroachment issues. This website provides additional information on Atty. Seldin’s practice.

Irreconcilable differences: A staple ground for divorce

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In a country that is administrated through a federal government, laws and their respective implementations may differ from one state to another—including the divorce law.

Nonetheless, though each has its own unique tenet about divorce, the states share a very strong probable cause to nullify a marriage: irreconcilable differences.

“Irreconcilable differences”—as ground for divorce—becomes valid when it is already impossible for a married couple to live together normally and harmoniously, or when a wedded male and a female can no longer agree with basic and fundamental issues involving the entire family or the marriage itself.


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The good thing about using “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for divorce is that there’s no such thing as “trifle” when it comes to determining its weight of validity. A simple difference in choosing what particular bed sheet color would be used for the week or disagreeing on each other’s political view or a plain annoyance on hearing the other party’s loud snorting when sleeping can be enough to nullify a marriage. Any matter, as long as it becomes a hindrance to a couple’s harmonious living, can be a solid cause and foundation to push for a marriage’s revocation.

At some point, both parties have to agree

Divorce, however, will not come to a conclusion if both parties would not agree that their marriage can’t be saved due to their differences in opinion. If this is the case, it would not arrive to its final stage, to irrevocability.


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Atty. Craig Seldin has several years of experience in handling divorce case. This website provides more information about his practice.

Criminal minds: When neuroscience takes the stand

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It is a type of defense that is seen more often in movies and television shows than in real life, but these days, lawyers are increasingly using brain scans and other neurological evidence to defend their clients, a study reveals.

Duke University researcher Nita Farahany asserts that the number of cases in which judges have mentioned neuroscience evidence in their opinion increased from 112 in 2007 to more than 1,500 in 2011. Farahany believes that the actual number of cases in which neuroscience evidence is presented is likely much higher as many lawsuits are settled outside of court.

Some scientists believe that neuroscience can explain—if not predict—criminal activity based on brain scans. Neurocience—the science of the brain and how it works—is taking the stand and beginning to challenge society’s notion on crime and punishment.

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The advances in science have put on center stage new technologies, like structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and DNA analysis which criminal defense lawyers use to explain their client’s mental makeup as the reason for their criminal behavior.

A series of recent studies has established that psychopathic rapists and murderers have distinct brain structures that show up when their heads are scanned using MRI.

The new technologies, however, leave unanswered the issue of whether criminal courts are the right place to use this new information. Nevertheless, as science continues to improve, neuroscience will continue to be used by both criminal attorneys and prosecutors. And questions, such as to what degree a brain injury can make someone commit a crime, will only become harder to answer.

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Atty. Craig Seldin has several years of experience in criminal defense. This website provides more information about his practice.

Consumer protection: Deceptive trade practices

From consumerprotection.uslegal.com

Federal legislation and statutes in every state prohibit employment of unfair or deceptive trade practices and unfair competition in business. The Federal Trade Commission regulates federal laws designed to prohibit a series of specific practices prohibited in interstate commerce. Several states have established consumer protection offices as part of the state attorney general offices.

The Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA), originally passed in 1914 and amended several times thereafter, was the original statute in the United States prohibiting “unfair or deceptive trade acts or practices.” Development of the federal law was related to federal antitrust and trademark infringement legislation. Prior to the enactment in the 1960s of state statutes prohibiting deceptive trade practices, the main focus of state law in this area was “unfair competition,” which refers to the tort action for practices employed by businesses to confuse consumers as to the source of a product. The tort action for a business “passing off” its goods as those of another was based largely on the common law tort action for trademark infringement.

Because the law governing deceptive trade practices was undefined and unclear, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1964 drafted the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The NCCUSL revised this uniform law in 1966. The law was originally “designed to bring state law up to date by removing undue restrictions on the common law action for deceptive trade practices.” Only eleven states have adopted this act, but it has had a significant effect on other states. Most state deceptive or unfair trade practices statutes were originally enacted between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s.

Craig Seldin on Hurricane Sandy and America’s disaster preparedness

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Urban America could not be less hysterical in anticipating the landfall of Hurricane Sandy, although it was not alone in the damages. Power outage and flash floods in New York contrasted with a death toll of more than 200 in countries that the Atlantic hurricane affected. Only the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans presented a more devastating picture in both casualties and worth of damages.

It is disheartening to see a ravaged urban landscape, with its bustling life disrupted by the forces of fire and flood. Communities burned to the ground in Queens while the subway system in New York was an intractable piece of technology for days. For a country with a record of penetrating outer space, this picture presented a truly remarkable contrast of helplessness.

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All the more as arguments about disaster preparedness have been floated in the following days of damage assessment. The damage is estimated at more than 20 billion dollars, calling in the nightmare of destruction that was Hurricane Katrina. In that particular disaster, people have wondered whether better disaster preparation could have been a mitigating consolation. All the floodwater under the bridge could only render useless the flashback of solutions.

What’s certain is that federal assistance will bankroll recovery for New Jersey and affected communities. But given the record of the United States’ vulnerability against disasters, federal action and budget could (and should) be split by post-disaster response and the anticipation of the next hurricane’s landfall.

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Craig Seldin is a Houston-based lawyer specializing in labor law, among others. Subscribe to his Facebook and Twitter for more.