LEE MURDER TRIAL: The jury in the Lee murder trial acquitted Minnie Lee of the charge of poisoning her husband and made her a free woman. The jury filed into the court room, Tuesday afternoon, shortly after court convened at 2 p.m. and in response to the query by Prothonotary Foster, A. J. McKeeby, the foreman, announced the verdict as “not guilty.” Mrs. Lee, who was sitting beside her attorney, W. D. B. Ainey, did not seem to hear the welcome words, but when the question was put “What say all of you,” and the twelve men responded as one voice: “not guilty,” she straightened up and a transfiguring light flooded her face, in strong contrast to the masked countenance that concealed her emotions during the weary eight days’ trial. Other than the grasping of her attorney’s hand in mute thanks, there was no demonstration in the court room, but a short time afterward in the sheriff’s office, when congratulated by men and women and in her joy she appeared a changed woman. The daughter, Mrs. Flossie Butts, who had remained at the jail with her mother since the preceding Saturday, when told that a verdict had been reached, was overcome with emotion and could not accompany her mother to the court room. When Dep. Sheriff, H. E. Taylor telephoned the verdict to the jail, the young woman alternately and simultaneously laughed, cried and danced in a hysteria of joy. When they later appeared on the streets together, you could not have found in the whole country a pair who showed their happiness more than they. They left on the 5:25 train for Great Bend, where Mrs. Lee intends to remain some time with a brother named Van Vleck.

BRIDGEWATER TWP.: We hear of a groundhog in Bridgewater that got the dates mixed and came out of his hole Thursday, but discovering his mistake, scampered in again.

SOUTH MONTROSE: It is believed that the recent derailment of a Lehigh Valley passenger train near here was caused by some party placing a fish-plate on the rails in such a position as to derail the train. A fish-plate was found embedded in the snow as though hurled by a force and Engineer Geisinger felt a jar as though the locomotive hit an obstruction before the engine left the track. An investigation is being made. Thoughtless youths sometimes fail to recognize such pranks as one of the most serious they can commit and upon conviction will land them in the penitentiary.

BROOKLYN: T. B. Morgan, of Dixon, Ill, writes of the great storm of 1836. I was there in person and took part in the fight to keep stock alive. Deacon Gidding was browsing cattle and met with an accident, breaking his arm. Our folks sent me to take his place. One cow determined to commit suicide by going where a tree fell across the road. Kill her? No. I scraped away the snow and chopped her out - 76 years ago. This will not be found in the “Register,” but I have it in my head O. K. I was born in 1824. Now, if you have any old settlers living in Brooklyn who had experience in the big snowstorm, trot them out. Rodney Jewett, who lived a little north of David Kent, had a little child crippled by being run over by a load of potatoes. I think F. B. is a son of Rodney, and is a member of the M. E. church in Brooklyn. Well, I married a wife from that church and never regretted it. Over 60 years ago we turned our backs on Brooklyn and the Lord has been good to us all these years. I guess by this time you need no introduction, but will say that Capt. David Morgan was my father and Jezreel DeWitt, my father-in-law. [The brick Morgan home is located on 167, south of Tall Pines Farm.]

RICHARDSON’S MILLS, HARFORD TWP.: Don’t forget the box social at the schoolhouse this Friday eve. Come and see the black bear - he will be out - and all will have a good time.

HOPBOTTOM: A merchant’s telephone has been installed in the National bank here.

THOMPSON: Nearly every cottage at Coxton Lake has been burglarized recently. Mrs. Ellen Messenger and Mrs. Carrie Clark visited their cottage and found everything ransacked from cellar to garret.

CHOCONUT: We have a scarlet fever scare in this neighborhood. If persons will take the following prescription they will have a sure preventative: Extract of belladonna, 2 grains; cindamon [cinnamon?] water, 1 oz.; alcohol, 10 drops. Dose, one drop for each year of the age of the child, two or three times a day. Ten drops maximum.

PLEASANT VALLEY, AUBURN TWP.: Who said “no winter?” This has been the coldest winter so far in years, accompanied by severe biting frosts. A number of our men have even lost their mustaches.

MONTROSE: Susanna Bush Beebe was born in a log cabin near her late home, Jan. 29, 1820, and died Jan. 24, 1912. She was a daughter of Adrian and Amy (Kellum) Bush, pioneer settlers here, both her father’s and mother’s families coming from Connecticut. She was married Jan. 8, 1846, to Wm. L. Beebe, to whom were born four children. Mrs. Beebe had lived in her late home for more than 50 years. Her husband died 18 years ago, leaving her alone in the old home, but her daughter and family were near and came often to attend to her wants and cheer her loneliness, that her wish to remain in the old home so dear to her might be gratified.

SOUTH GIBSON: Cyrus Tanner, an old veteran of the Civil War, died at the home of Carl Peck on Sunday morning last. Interment in the Tower Cemetery.

DIMOCK: Rev. Parker J. Gates, of Prohibition Park, S. I., died Jan. 10, in his 78th year. He was born in Dimock and upon the formation of the 141st Penna. Volunteers, enlisted in Co. H. serving until the close of the war. He was seriously wounded at both Gettysburg and Poplar Spring Church. In every respect he was a brave and faithful soldier and for meritorious conduct was promoted from private to first sergeant. After the war he entered the ministry of the M. E. church in the Wyoming Conference.

JACKSON: Jackson has an industry that few towns of its size can boast of - “an automobile factory.”

HALLSTEAD: Glen Lane, a lumberman, had a severe accident on Wednesday. He was drawing a load of lumber to the chair factory and when about to turn down the roadway to the factory the wagon slid around on the ice and went over the retaining wall, falling about eight feet, carrying with it team and driver. Mr. Lane jumped and saved himself from the falling mass of lumber, but was seriously bruised about the legs. The horses escaped with slight cuts and the wagon was wrecked.

A few months ago, I wrote a column about a pending United States Supreme Court case involving whether it was permissible to use of GPS equipment to surreptitiously track suspects with a search warrant. In the case, law enforcement placed a GPS tracking device on the motor vehicle belonging to Antoine Jones, a nightclub owner in Washington, D.C., whom was a suspect in a drug trafficking investigation. Through the use of the GPS, law enforcement was able to track all of Jones’ movements with his motor vehicle, including his frequent trips to a residence in Maryland, which turned out to be a stash house, i.e., the place were Mr. Jones kept his drugs that he distributed.

There is no prohibition against the police tailing a suspect in public places as the suspect’s expectation to privacy was never violated. In other words, you do not have an expectation of privacy when you are driving around on public streets. The simple question was whether you could use GPS to accomplish the same thing that an undercover tail would do. During the oral arguments, Justice Breyer suggested that there was Orwellian about the use of GPS - and I noted my agreement with his assessment. I also noted that the “legal experts” were predicting that the Supreme Court would allow the use of GPS tracking without a warrant. Well, the prognosticators were dead wrong as a unanimous Supreme Court (that means all 9 justices) decided that you need a search warrant to surreptitiously use a GPS system on a suspect’s motor vehicle.

Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion which noted that attaching a GPS unit to a suspect’s car did constitute a “search” that violated the Fourth Amendment as it involved a trespass upon a person’s private property, i.e., the automobile, without consent from the owner. In the absence of consent, Justice Scalia indicated that a search warrant was necessary in order to permit law enforcement to surreptitiously attach the GPS device to the motor vehicle. Justice Scalia’s decision was narrowly tailored - only finding that the motor vehicle itself was private property and that the government needed consent or a warrant to trespass upon that private property.

Interestingly, one of the other conservatives on the court, Justice Alito, parted ways with Justice Scalia in a concurring opinion, and suggested that the opinion did not go far enough. Justice Alito, joined by justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan, argued that more than property rights were violated. Alito argued that individual privacy rights were violated in that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy that protected them generally from constant government surveillance without a search warrant. Alito advocated a more sweeping ruling that would have curtailed the use of advanced technologies to track private citizens for long periods of time without their consent. In response, Scalia simply noted that the present case did not require the Court to answer the broader question of the extent to which law enforcement can track private citizens with advanced technologies.

For now, law enforcement now knows that a search warrant is required to surreptitiously attach a GPS unit to a suspect’s motor vehicle. The extent to which law enforcement can utilize other non-invasive technologies to secretly track suspects will have to be determined in later cases. The question is a simple one: Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in what you do everyday in the public arena without fear of being constantly watched and tracked by the government with sophisticated technologies?

Please submit any questions, concerns, or comments to Susquehanna County District Attorney’s Office, P.O. Box 218, Montrose, Pennsylvania 18801 or at our website www.SusquehannaCounty-DA.org or discuss this and all articles at http://dadesk.blogspot.com/.

Dear EarthTalk: I understand that some companies are now looking to cut down forests and burn them as “biomass” for generating electricity. Is nothing sacred? ~Audrey

In theory, burning biomass (any kind of plant material) to derive energy is a carbon-neutral endeavor, meaning that the carbon dioxide released during the process is in turn absorbed by other plants and put to use in photosynthesis - and as such does not contribute to the greenhouse effect. Biomass is also flexible: It can be turned into ethanol to power up automobiles, or can be burned like coal to generate heat and/or electricity. Factor in that biomass feedstock is usually inexpensive, widely available and a seemingly perfect alternative to the carbon-spewing, foreign-derived fossil fuels we rely on so much these days.

Typically unmarketable trees, brush and logging debris becomes the feedstock for biomass processing plants or for coal-fired power plants equipped to “co-fire” with plant material. But environmentalists warn that some timber companies and their utility and state customers are taking things too far by levelling entire forests - including some within publicly owned national forest land - to generate more feedstock for otherwise underutilized biomass energy production facilities.

Among the negative environmental impacts, chopping down forests to burn for ethanol production - even if replanted as tree plantations - is like biting the hand that feeds you. “Natural forests, with their complex ecosystems, cannot be regrown like a crop of beans or lettuce,” reports the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group. “And tree plantations will never provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat, and other ecosystem services that natural forests do.”

Another negative for biomass is that burning it, like coal or anything else, produces air pollution including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and a variety of toxic substances. According to NRDC, these pollutants increase the incidence of asthma, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory ailments, and premature death.

But perhaps most troubling about plans to cut down forests for biomass feedstock is taking carbon neutrality out of the equation, given the fact that tree loss in and of itself is already responsible for some 20 percent of the world’s total carbon pollution. “When biomass is harvested from forests, carbon stored in the soil is released into the atmosphere,” reports NRDC. “This is in addition to the carbon that is emitted when the wood is burned for energy. And there’s no guarantee the lost trees will ever be replaced.”

NRDC concedes that there is still a place for biomass in the alternative energy universe, but cautions that “only biomass that is carefully chosen, grown responsibly, and efficiently converted into energy can reduce carbon and other emissions compared to fossil fuels.” The group would like to see Congress put in place tighter regulations on biomass harvesting and processing. “Biomass can be harvested and utilized in ways that reduce pollution and protect forest habitats, but only with sustainability safeguards and proper accounting for carbon emissions - including carbon released due to deforestation,” concludes NRDC.

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that the bathroom is where over half of our household water usage takes place? What are some ways to take a bite out of that? ~Shelby

Yes indeed, some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. As such, updating old leaky fixtures and changing a few basic habits could go a long way to not only saving fresh water, an increasingly precious resource, but also money.

Undoubtedly, the toilet is the biggest water hog in the bathroom. Those made before 1993 use up to eight gallons of water per flush, five times what modern toilets use. “It’s a good idea to replace pre-1993 toilets if you can,” says Patty Kim of National Geographic’s Green Guide. (FYI, usually a toilet’s manufacture date is stamped under the lid if you want to check how old it is.) If it is older and you can’t or don’t want to upgrade it, Kim recommends rescuing a two liter soda bottle from the recycling bin and filling it partially with some water and sand or pebbles and then putting it into your toilet’s tank, where it will take up space and force your toilet to use less water every flush. Or get a Toilet Tank Bank for less than two bucks; it hangs in your toilet tank and displaces almost a gallon of water to save water on every flush.

Plumbing leaks account for some 14 percent of the total water usage in an average U.S. home. Toilets are often a major culprit. Kim recommends testing your toilet by putting 5-10 drops of food coloring into the tank, then put the lid back on but don’t flush. Check back in 15 minutes or so to see if any of the colored water leaked down into the bowl. If so, you have a water-wasting leak, and it might finally be time to replace that aging toilet after all. The EarthEasy website reports that replacing an older 18 liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6 liter flush model “represents a 70 percent saving in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30 percent.”

The shower can also be problematic as a water-waster, especially if the shower head in question was made before new regulations went into effect in 1992 mandating lower flow. Kim says you can check to see if your shower head is older or not by turning the shower on full blast and catching its output for two minutes in a bucket. If the bucket is overflowing, then your shower head is an older, more wasteful model. Newer low flow shower heads won’t come anywhere near to filling the bucket after two minutes. A new shower head costs around $10 and is a great investment because you can save water and money with every ensuing shower. Regardless of whether or not you have a newer shower head, you can save more water by turning off the shower to soap up, then turning it back on to rinse. Eartheasy reminds us that even with a new shower head, even a moderately short shower can still use between 20 and 40 gallons of water. But that’s nothing compared to a bathtub, which can hold as much as 50-60 gallons of water.

Additional pearls of wisdom in regard to reducing bathroom water waste include turning off the faucet while brushing teeth. Better yet, fill up a glass with just enough water to rinse after brushing. Likewise for shaving, stop up the sink with a little warm water in it and wiggle your razor around in the basin between strokes. And if you suspect your faucet may be spraying harder than it needs to, unscrew the aerator tip where the water comes out and take it into a hardware store for a more stingy replacement.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.