Hoping to get some input from folks who know better than me. I’m a 350 hour commercial pilot and just started working on my CFI. In the midst of making a career change with the goal of going to the airlines.
As is the case with many, I’m not super jazzed about going the CFI route but realize it’s a rite of passage more or less.
For me the toughest part is leaving the pay at my current job (~$140k/yr) to make 1/5 of that as a CFI. I think I have a workaround but would like some input about the legality/ethics:
Purchase an IFR trainer. Get my CFI/II, offer instrument training at a discount rate under the condition that they can’t fly my plane solo (this would be to avoid the extra cost of insurance and the headache). Students could get their first 30ish hours of instrument training with me and go to a flight school to get signed off or if they can rent a plane, I could sign them off.
I would do the majority of my time building on my own/splitting with friends (I love flying around to new places and visiting folks), but I would be able to recoup a fraction of the time building cost, keep my current income, and possibly write off some of the costs associated with plane ownership (no idea if I could—would need to talk to an accountant).
I’m coming largely from a place of ignorance here so would love to hear if y’all think this idea is stupid and dead in the water or has some legs.

Has anyone known someone who's gone through this program? Or have firsthand experience? Another member in this sub messaged it to me and I realized I have seen a handful of listings for it job boards before
https://www.usi.com/siteassets/images/about/developing-talent-and-careers/early-talent/commercial-insurance-career-track-program_2024.pdf?v=4928ac
I graduate in December as a Finance major with a minor in Insurance and Risk Management. I will have my ARM completed then as well. I'm seeing lots of "entry level" roles but know I don't want to end up in auto or health claims if I can avoid it because I know myself and anticipate getting bored of redundancy. I'm looking at openings from UW trainee to Acc management trainees. I understand I may have some school type knowledge but I'm ready to get started and focus in on soaking up as much knowledge as I can. I think E&S would be fun to work in with the uniqueness I may see. My non insurance career choice would be sales so I also have interest in working as a producer or similar role one day.
A mentor who I've had conversations with through a mentorship program at the university has recommended that I be less concerned on what I'm doing and what the title is at first, but try to get a feel for what organization will really be able to help me build the knowledge and teach me, which makes a program like this attractive.

I accidentally posted this to my username instead of my subreddit so here is is:
The Mortgage, Part 3
“Fuck,” I said as I drove to work in the old beater that only started on the fourth try because it could tell that I was pissed off. Ray’s case started at two o’clock, and I was heading to the office to get ready. “Fuck fuck fuckity fucking fuck. Fuck.” I’d wanted to tell Angela about Ray’s case, and how I was sorry that I hadn’t wanted to help him, but now I would, I would help him, and I would win, but then I’d gotten her all riled up on something else, something totally different, something way more serious.
My wife had given me a triple ultimatum: fix things up with her father, save idiot Ray from Sy-Co Corp., and somehow find a downpayment for the place she wanted to buy, in the little townhouse infill project in Bixity. It was like demanding I do a double bank shot, and then run over to the baseball diamond and hit a home run after first pointing to where it would land, Babe Ruth style.
Angela was mad at me, seriously mad. She’d slipped out that morning before I was even awake, sliding quietly past me on the couch. I didn’t realize she was gone until I heard the faint click of the front door closing. I jumped up, tripped over a blanket, and by the time I got up and my robe on, the elevator down the hall dinged, and Angela was gone before I opened the apartment door.
I swore at myself some more and pounded the steering wheel, “I fucked up,” I said, several times as I hit the wheel over and over again, until I accidentally honked it, and then looked all sheepish when the guy in front of me gave me the finger. I reached my office without further incident, but instead of walking in the front door, I went further down the hall, and into the office of Mark Cecil-Rowe, Barrister, LL.D, the man with the finest speaking voice I ever heard. When I entered his office I forgot for a minute about Angela and her father and sleeping on the couch the night before. I forget about everything, except the reason that I had come to Cecil-Rowe’s office: to stump him with a legal problem that I had solved, but which I was pretty sure he could not. In other words, I had come to preen and to brag and to boast. No one likes a showoff, and I had come to show off. I put my hand on the door and turned the knob. After a brief pause, I flung open the door.
“I’m a goddamn genius,” I said as I strolled into the older man’s office.
I noticed the echo of a hastily closed desk drawer hanging in the air. In Aaron’s office, where I rented space, a sudden act of concealment implied cocaine, but with Cecil-Rowe, the item in question was probably a mickey of vodka. I had the sense that he’d been drinking a bit before I arrived, but his powers of observation were unimpaired, and when he looked into my face, his expression showed sympathy, and actual pain.
“What have you done now?” he said, as set the papers before him to one side, and readied himself to hear my latest tale of legal brilliance.
“I’m a genius,” I said.
“Oh dear. Have a seat.”
“No really, I am. I’m a genius. I got this case that everyone says you can’t win, but I’m gonna win it, and when I do, I’m gonna look like a genius.” Cecil-Rowe gave me a sad indulgent smile.
“Whenever you tell me you’re a genius, I am always concerned about what is to follow. When you get wrapped up in what you call your genius, you tend to ignore the more mundane things we lawyers have to do to win a case. You think you’re going to win by genius alone.”
“Let me tell you why I’m a goddamn genius.” With effort I wiped the smug, self-satisfied expression that was on my face.
“Tell me why you’re a genius,” Cecil-Rowe said, “while I pour us a coffee.” He heaved his bulky body up from his chair and shuffled over to a counter. He picked up a carafe of hot coffee sitting on a hot plate, and poured two cups. “Speak,” he said, handing me one. I took a sip of the coffee, and told Cecil-Rowe the tale of Cousin Ray: his purchase of a franchise from Sy-Co Corp, its swift demise, the crash and burn in Commercial Court, the Minutes of Settlement, the seventy-one kilometer limit, and lastly, Sy-Co’s motion scheduled for two p.m. that very day, seeking an interim injunction shutting down Ray’s place.
Cecil-Rowe absorbed all this without the need to take notes. Instead, he sat back while he eyed me, taking the occasional sip of coffee, and smiling at the extravagant flourishes and details that brought out Ray’s story to full effect.
“Obviously Ray is dead on arrival,” he said, “but I guess this is the part where you tell me how you’re going to win.”
So I told him how I was going to win, but it didn’t have the desired effect. “I told ya I’m a genius, Mr. C,” cueing him to applaud, to admit what a brilliant lawyer I was. But there was no applause from Mark Cecil-Rowe. He looked at me without so much as a smile.
“You can cling to that genius notion as a consolation prize, after you get whipped this afternoon in court.”
“No way,” I said, “not a chance. I got this thing won hands down. I’m gonna kick ass in court today and--”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that, if you don’t have evidence?”
“What?”
“Evidence, Calledinthe9os. It’s what lawyers like me use to beat geniuses like you.”
“But I’m gonna win without proof. I don’t need proof. The argument I’m gonna make, relies on simple facts that are totally obvious, so the judge is gonna--” Cecil-Rowe stuck up his hand.
“Stop right there. I know what’s coming. You’re going to ask the judge to take *judicial notice.”
And he was right. That was exactly what I was going to do.
There are some things so obvious that you didn’t have to prove them, things that everyone knew. You didn’t have to prove that water froze at zero degrees and boiled at a hundred, or that Bixity was between West Bay and East Bay.
“You got it,” I said, “judicial notice all the way.”
“You’re going to tell the judge that the centerpiece of your argument, the lynchpin of your case is a fact known to pretty well everyone, and so you don’t need proof.”
“Exactly,” I said. Cecil-Rowe took another sip of his coffee, and left me hanging in the silence for a while before he spoke.
“If that’s true, then why does coming up with that argument make you a genius?”
“Oh, I said,”I didn’t think of that.”
“It is acceptable to rely on judicial notice for minor, ancillary points. But you never should walk into court thinking that the court will take judicial notice of your entire defence. It’s just too risky.”
“But how am I going to rustle up a witness in time for this afternoon?”
“Worry about that after you leave my office. I can’t help you with that. What I want to know, is why you’re doing this at the last minute.”
“What makes you think I’m doing this at the last minute?”
“Because you never would have resorted to judicial notice if you were properly prepared. If you’d opened this case a bit earlier, you’ve have everything lined up. But you got to work on it late, and so you want to rely on judicial notice. You’ve messed up, Calledinthe90s, and you know what my rule is when you mess up.” Cecil-Rowe didn’t extend aid to me, until I admitted the error of my ways. It was infuriating, but he was inflexible. So I fessed up.
“My idiot cousin Ray’s been trying to retain me for almost two weeks, but I was putting him off because I was mad at him. So now my wife’s mad at me, and if I don’t win this case, I’m dead. Plus her dad’s mad at me too and --” My brain roared into overdrive, a mess of family and law and fear, and at the centre of it, thoughts of Angela’s anger and her father. My mind took off, and then came to an instant halt at a helpful destination.
“Yes?” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Sorry. I just realized how to solve the evidence problem. Look, can I ask you about the thing I actually came here to ask you about?”
“You have a problem that’s worse than having no evidence? What could be worse than -- oh. You don’t have a retainer. Your client doesn't have any money.”
“Exactly. How do I get paid? That’s the problem.” I explained that Ray had no money, as in none, and that if he did have money, he wouldn’t spend it on me. Instead, he’d go back downtown and throw his cash at some big firm, who would take on his case, and proceed to lose it in a calm, careful, sober manner, ending in a reporting letter to Ray telling him that he’d lost.
“Now that’s a problem I can solve,” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Really? ‘Cause I can’t see a way around it. I think I’m gonna have to do this for free, and that really pisses me off.” Cecil-Rowe shook his head.
“You may or may not get paid, but you can set things up so that if you win, you’ll win pretty good.”
“How? Ray’s a deadbeat. Tapped out.”
“But is he desperate?”
“Totally. The first time he failed, he lost his own money, but if he goes under this time, he’s taking family money with him, and he’ll be the black sheep forever.”
“And he’s using family to emotionally blackmail you into helping him?’
“Like no shit. That’s the part that pisses me off the most. I’m like a goddamn slave, being forced to work for free.”
“Never fear, young apprentice. I have just the thing in mind.” He reached into a drawer, and pulled out a form. “Fill in the blanks, and have him sign.”
I looked it over, and saw that the document was a retainer agreement. I whistled. “Holy shit. If he signs this, he’s almost my slave.”
“Close, but not quite” Cecil-Rowe said, “the Latin term for this is "contractus pro venditione animae"”. It’s the ultimate retainer agreement. Once Ray signs that, you own any cause of action he has against the person suing him. You can settle the case on any terms you like, and you get to keep whatever proceeds there are.” Cecil-Rowe placed the folder back in a drawer, and from his manner you could tell that the interview was over.
“Awesome, Mr. C. I’ll call you from Commercial Court when we’re done.”
“Commercial Court?” he said.
“Yeah, Commercial Court.”
“This just keeps getting worse. Take notes, Calledinthe90s, while I school you on Commercial Court. Commercial Court is a jungle, and without preparation, you’ll get savaged.”
“That’s what happened to Ray when--”
“Take notes, young apprentice,” he said, tossing me a pad and a pen. He started to lecture, and I took notes that I have with me to this day, in a safe deposit box downstairs in the vault at Mega Bank Main Branch.
* * *
By the time Cecil-Rowe finished schooling me, it was close to ten, and the case started at two. I didn’t have much time. I ran down the hall to my office, and called Ray’s restaurant. No answer. Then I called Ray’s house. I expected to get Ray’s wife, but the man himself answered.
“You’re not at work. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Sy-Co Corp served all my employees with a cease and desist letter. They all got scared and took off. The place is shut down.”
“You gotta fax machine at home?” He did, and asked why.
“I’m taking your case, but only if you sign the paper I’m about to send and fax it back.” I sent the fax, and five minutes later it came back signed, and it was official: Ray had sold me his legal soul.
I went out to the parking lot, got into my beater and drove fast. In less than thirty minutes I reached my destination. I knocked on the door, and when it opened, my diminutive mother-in-law poked out her head. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said.
“Sorry, Mrs. M, but I’m in a super hurry. I gotta rush to get to court to help Ray. But first, I gotta speak to Dr. M.”
“He’s not here,” she said.
“Not here?”
“He’s on his way to his bridge game. He left just a few minutes ago.”
“Where’s the club?”
“He’s walking there,” she said, and pointed down the street.
“Thanks.” I got into my car and headed where Mrs. M had pointed, passing big houses and new project with an “Opening Soon” sign. And walking past it was the figure of Dr. M.
“Hey, Dr. M,” I called out the window. He stopped and looked around, startled. But he didn’t see me, not at first.
“It’s me, Dr. M. Me, Calledin90s.” He leaned forward as if to see me better. I got out of the car.
“Is something wrong with Angela? Or the baby?”
“No, no not at all, sorry to scare you, it’s nothing like that. I need your help.”
“Oh.” He started walking again, and now it was my turn to be a bit stunned, watching my father-in-law walk away from me. I caught up with him in a few quick strides.
“Listen, I really need your help.”
“And I really need to get to a bridge game.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about Ray.” That brought him to a halt. He turned to me, angrier even than he’d been the night before.
“Did you drive all the way out here just to make fun of me? To remind me of how you won, distracting me with nonsense about Ray’s case?”
“I mean it,” I said, “I can win Ray’s case. I can prove it in a few words.”
“Prove it, then.” So I did. I spoke words, only a few words, but they were the right words to speak to Dr. M, for the words I spoke were in his language, words that he understood perfectly.
“I understand,” he said, “you’ve come to boast some more, to prove that you were right after all.”
“I want to win Ray’s case, but I don’t have any proof of what I’m saying.”
“You don’t need to prove that two plus two is four.”
“This, I gotta prove, and I need you to help me prove it. I need you to come to court with me, as my witness.”
“I can’t do that. I didn’t witness anything.”
“As my witness. My expert witness.” Unlike a normal witness, an expert witness can give an opinion. An expert is there not to advocate, I explained to Dr. M but to instruct, to teach.
“My bridge partner won’t be very happy,” he said.
“But Ray will, and so will Mrs. M and Angela and--”
“Very well. Do you have a cell phone? We can call the bridge club from my car.”
* * *
We were on the highway getting close to the downtown exit, when my wife called my cell phone. Back then cell phone service was super expensive and my wife only used it for emergencies. Or when she was really angry. I picked up the phone, wondering which it would be.
“I’m so happy that you made things up with my father,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“My mother called. She says you took him with you, that you went out together.”
“He’s with me right now,” I said.
“Where are you going?”
“To court. Going to court to win Ray’s case for him.”
“And you brought my father with you to watch?” She was so happy, I could hear in her voice that she was smiling. “That’s a great way to bond with him, Calledinthe90s. Look, I’m sorry I got so mad at you earlier, I really am. My dad’s a bit too sensitive and--”
“Sorry, Angela, your dad’s not coming to watch me.”
“Why is he with you, then?”
“He’s my witness,” I said.
“What?”
“His expert witness,” Dr. M said, loudly enough for Angela to hear.
My wife’s anger exploded into the phone. She wanted to know how I could expose her elderly, vulnerable father to the stress of a court case. I tried to tell her how I needed him, how there was literally no one else I could turn to, that her father was an expert, a true expert, and the judge was legally bound to believe him, but Angela heard none of this.
“Look,’ I said, “I promise you that--” And then I lowered the phone and pushed the red button, terminating the call. I’d learned that the best way to hang up on someone, was to do it when I was doing the talking. That way it looked like the call had dropped.
“I’m going to steal that move,” Dr. M said.
We rolled into the parking lot. I grabbed the cloth bag out of the back of my car, the bag that held my law robes and shirt and tabs, plus the other stuff I needed for court. It was one-thirty, still thirty minutes to go, not a lot of time to get robed and ready for court. It was just past one-forty five when I, with Dr. M in tow, opened the door to a courtroom on the eighth floor of an old insurance building that had been converted into a courthouse, the home of Commercial Court.
“Commercial Court is an exclusive club,” Cecil-Rowe had explained to me earlier that day, “the legal playground of the rich and powerful. They’ll know instantly that you’re not one of them.” And he was right. It was clear from the moment I walked in that I did not belong, for I was the only lawyer in robes. Everyone else was wearing a suit, and not some cheap thing off the rack like I wore.
There were a half-dozen lawyers present, and after they saw me, they exchanged knowing looks about the stranger amongst them. I ignored them, and walked up to the Registrar. I told him the case I was on, and he signed me in.
“First time in Commercial Court?” he said, eyeing my robes. “You know you don’t have to be robed in Commercial Court.” In other Superior Courts, you always had to bring your robes and get all dressed up. But Commercial Court had its own set of rules, and in the court for rich people, their lawyers did not have to wear robes.
“You’re here on the Sy-Co case?” a young woman asked. She was a junior like me, give a year or two either way. She was dressed in the finest downtown counsel fashion, some designer thing that Angela would know if she saw it.
“Just got retained,” I said.
“You know there’s no adjournments, right? We don’t do adjournments in Commercial Court. I’m just trying to be helpful, because I don’t think you've been here before. You know you don’t have to be robed, right?
“So I heard.”
“So where’s your material? You haven’t served anything, so how do you plan to argue your case?”
“I gotta witness,” I said.
She smiled. “There’s no viva voce evidence, either. Affidavit only.”
“We’ll see what the judge says.” There was a knock from the other side of the door to the judge’s chambers, and then the man himself entered.
I was amazed to see that even the judge wasn’t wearing a robe; instead, he was wearing a light coloured suit and a bright blue bow tie. He was dressed as good as the lawyers, all part of the downtown Commercial Court club, the playground of the richest and most powerful corporations in the City.
“Commercial Court’s not like other courts,” Cecil-Rowe told me earlier that day, explaining that most cases were over in fifteen minutes or less. A plaintiff showed up with some papers, and had a short consultation with the judge. The judge signed an order granting an injunction, or taking away a man’s business, or freezing his money. Commercial Court is where you went to get quick and simple court orders that eviscerated your opponent before the case even got going.
Defendants would appear sometimes in Commercial Court, Cecil-Rowe explained, but it was usually their last time up. Defendants always died a quick death in Commercial Court.
The judge took his seat, and then looked over the lawyers before him. His eyes moved along, and then stopped when they reached me, the one lawyer who was not like the others.
“You don’t need robes in Commercial Court,” the judge said to me.
“I’ll remember that for next time,” I said.
“What case are you on?”
I told him.
“He’s filed no responding materials,” my opponent said, “nothing at all.”
“I’m just vetting the list,” the judge said, “I’ll circle back to you two in a few minutes.” I listend while the judge vetted the rest of the afternoon list: a Mareva, plus a Norwich order, with counsel on those cases sent away in a matter of minutes.
Now the courtroom was almost empty, just the judge, two lawyers, the registrar and my star witness and father-in-law, Dr. M, who sat in the back of the courtroom dressed in an old business suit, put on hastily at his place two hours earlier, when I urged him to hurry it up, to not waste so much time on picking a suit.
“Back to you,” the judge said, addressing my opponent, “I thought this was an uncontested matter. That’s what your confirmation sheet said.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honour, but I didn’t know until I got here that the case was defended.”
“I got retained at the last minute,” I said, “barely three hours ago, the day after I read the papers. But I’m ready to go, ready to argue the case on the merits, so long as you grant me an indulgence, and let me call my witness, to let him testify in person instead of by affidavit, there being no time for me to draft anything.”
Opposing counsel was on her feet. “That’s not how things are done in Commercial Court,” she said, “or any court that I know of, for that matter. My friend (that’s what they make lawyers call each other in court, ‘my friend,’ even though you might hate the other guy’s guts),” the lawyer said, “my friend should have served his responding materials and filed them with the court. Instead, he’s taken us totally by surprise.”
“I’m sorry my friend is surprised by opposition,” I said, “but then consider, it’s my client’s livelihood that’s at stake. If my friend gets her injunction, Ray Telewu’s business is dead, and he loses everything. So yes, my client opposes the injunction, and yes, I’d like to call evidence.”
The judge didn’t consult the papers before him nor the books, but instead, he looked up at the big white clock on the courtroom wall. Its hands said two-fifteen.
“How long will your witness take, counsel?”
“In chief, ten minutes.” I’d practiced with Dr. M on the way in, and I was pretty sure he could do it in five, but I gave him a bit of extra time, just in case.
“We’ve got about two hours,” the judge said, “but I want to be fair to you and your client. Let’s take a fifteen minute recess so you can get instructions. Either we go ahead today with viva voce evidence, or we adjourn, and that will give Calledinthe90s time to file responding materials.”
When everyone came back, the junior’s boss was there, Senior Counsel, a heavy weight, one of those big guys downtown. Plus they brought this guy from Sy-Co Corp, the head of some bullshit division, with some bullshit title, Head of whatever, so that’s the title I’ll give him here. He was The Head. He was the man, the big cheese, the signer of the affidavit on which Sy-Co relied that day.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked Senior Counsel.
He stared at me, all lean and steel grey, looking every inch the hard hitting lawyer that commanded the biggest fees. “If you’re calling a live witness, then so can we. The Head will give evidence today, in advance of your client, so that the judge hears it from him first.” His junior smirked at me, and the two of them sat down, delighted that they’d thought of a way to one up me.
Except that they’d done it by exposing their client to cross-examination. The judge came in, allowed the Head to testify, and when he was done, I stood up.
“Just a few questions,” I said. Senior Counsel was stunned for an instant, and then he stood.
“This serves no purpose, Your Honour. The witness has confirmed the simple facts of his affidavit, and there’s no disputing it. Ray Telewu opened a restaurant less than seventy-one kilometres from Bixity City Hall, and that’s in breach of the Minutes of Settlement he signed.”
I did not bother to respond. Instead, I just stood, and I started to ask questions.
“Have a look at that map in your affidavit,” I said, and he did. I picked up my copy, and tore the map out of it. I passed it up to him.
“What do you notice about this map?”
“That it’s accurate,” the Head said, repeating his evidence in chief, amplifying it, talking about how the map contained perfect measurement.
“You will notice that the map is flat,” I said, laying it on the witness box before him.
“Of course it’s flat. That’s what maps are. Maps are flat.”
“But the earth is round,” I said, “or more properly, a sphere.” Senior Counsel was on his feet in an instant.
“What difference does that make?” he said.
“What you’ll hear from my expert witness, is that a flat map cannot accurately show Earth’s curves. A flat map distorts distances, and in this case, reduces them.”
“But that can’t be by very much.”
“In this case, by just over twenty meters,” Dr. M said from the back of the court.
“That’s my expert witness, the esteemed Dr. M.” I didn’t actually say Dr. M. Instead, I said his real name. But I’m not going to use the real names of my family here, so I’ll just keep calling him Dr. M. “Dr. M was a professor of Physics at the University of Bixity for almost thirty years. He has published numerous papers on particle physics, and is the first Canadian winner of the Wolf Prize for physics.”

• * * *

It went downhill after that for Sy-Co Corp. My father-in-law testified, explaining in simple language, language that even a child could understand, that the Earth was a sphere, that the shortest distance between two points on Earth was a curve, not a straight line. He summarized his calculations in plain English, dumbing down the math, so that everyone present imagined, if only for the moment, that they shared his understanding of a difficult mathematical equation.
Senior Counsel tried to cross-examine Dr. M, but it did not go well, my father-in-law indulging him, gently chiding him, continuing his explanations until the lawyer sat down, defeated by Dr. M’s mastery of the subject,his own lack of preparation and his inability to improvise. When counsel said that he had no further questions, the judge addressed us all.
“I’m not going to reserve, and I don’t think I need to tell everyone why. I think it will take about a minute for me to write a decision saying that the Earth is not flat. I’ll give you some more time after that, but after fifteen minutes, I”ll be back to render my decision.” He rose, everyone bowed, and he disappeared behind the door to judge’s chambers.
I pulled a piece of paper out of my file, and slammed it on the desk before Senior Counsel and his junior. “Fill in the blanks, and sign,” I said.
Dr. M’s head shot up at the commotion, and he shuffled over to see what was going on.
“What’s this?” Senior Counsel said, picking up the paper I gave him..
“Minutes of Settlement. You fill in a number, a big number, for the costs you gotta pay me. Your client signs, and then we’re done.” Senior Counsel opened his mouth to bargain, but I overrode him.
“You know your client’s going to lose; the judge made that obvious. Hurry up if you want to settle; we don’t have much time.”
At the end of most Canadian court cases, the loser has to pay at least part of the winner’s legal fees. That’s the way it’s been since forever, and I think it’s a good rule. Sy-Co Corp had lost, so it had to pay a good chunk of Ray’s costs, and Ray’s costs were somewhere between whatever bullshit figure I claimed they were, and where they actually ought to be. Senior Counsel took the paper over to his client. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back, with the form signed, and a number written in the blank space.
I’ll give it to Sy-Co Corp and their lawyer. It wasn’t a bullshit number, a low ball number. They gave me a real number, a number more like something I’d actually accept, a number that made sense to pay me in costs, in light of the success I’d had, and how I got it. It was a respectful number, a common sense number, and I appreciated it an awful lot.
I tossed the paper back at them.
“Add a zero,” I said, continuing on when Senior Counsel blanched, and his junior retreated a step. “I know what’s going on here. Your client sold mine a bullshit franchise, one with a history of failing.” The franchise had opened up again under a new owner not long after Ray had lost it and then it promptly failed again. Like I said at the start of this story, it’s an old story. It’s how some franchise companies make money. “Your client makes more money selling bullshit franchises doomed to fail, then it does from the honest ones that make money. So add a zero to that number, or Ray’s gonna sue you, class action and all that, for all the people you’ve fucked.”
The Head stepped forward from the benches and spoke to me.
“We get threats like that all the time, but no one follows through. They don’t have the money to fight us, and neither does your client. So go ahead and sue.”
“It’s true that Ray doesn’t have jack shit,” I said, “not a pot to piss in, but he’s my cousin, Ray is, and even if he doesn’t have money, he’s got me. Ray’s family, and for Ray, I’ll sue you guys for free. Hell, I’ll even pay the expenses. Plus I’m gonna put a jury notice in, too, come to think of it, ‘cause juries--”
Senior Counsel cut me off, and moved his client to the back of the courtroom. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back. I watched as Senior Counsel wrote a single digit on the Minutes, a zero, written right where I wanted it.
“You’ll have to initial the change,” I said to the Head of Sy-C0, and it gave me great satisfaction to watch him sign.
“Don’t forget,” I said the moment his pen stopped moving, “for the settlement to be valid, I need to get the money today. Right now.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” the Head said.
“Not if you want the settlement to stay in place. I’ll follow you back to your office, and you can put a cheque in my hands.”

• * * *

“What’s this?” my wife said when I entered the apartment later that day, after I’d driven Dr. M home, stopping first at a local pub for beers.
“It’s an absurdly expensive bunch of flowers,” I said, “although no flowers, however beautiful, however expensive, could expiate my--”
She took the flowers, and gave a kiss.
“My mom called. She told me what happened. You fixed things with my dad.”
“Yup,” I said. I had certainly done that. I’d made Dr. M a professor again, if only for a few minutes. Not only a professor, but an expert witness. The judge had declared him an expert in plain terms and Dr.M had beamed when he’d heard those words.
“And you won Ray’s case, too. But my mom didn’t know how, and I don’t know how you did it either.”
“I’ll tell you over dinner tonight,” I said.
“But we agreed no more dinners out; we have to save money, now that a baby’s coming.”
I passed her the envelope that I’d received a few hours before. She opened it, and took out a cheque, a cheque drawn up for an amount I specified, made payable to Mr. and Mrs. Calledinthe90s.
The moment I got that cheque, all I could think about was how my wife would react when I put it into her hands. I could not wait to see her eyes bulge, to hear her voice say “oh my god,” to hear her laugh.
She did none of these things. Instead, she cried.
“Does this mean we can buy a house?” The money wouldn’t be enough to buy a house, not nowadays, with prices being so crazy. But things were different back then in the 90s. Sure, the internet was barely a thing and cell phones were super expensive and a lot of things sucked, but I’ll give the nineties one thing: houses were cheap.
“I think so,” I said.

I'm looking to take my mom's side business of selling her oil paintings online, and wanted to get some feedback from other entrepreneurs.
Some background - my mom is a talented painter who has been selling her artwork locally for years through her personal Facebook and Instagram pages. She has separate accounts for her personal use and for showcasing her paintings, but all the posts/descriptions are currently in our local language. Customers can only get pricing information by directly messaging her - she does not publicly list prices for her paintings. After being contacted, she then coordinates payment and shipping the sold pieces.
While this approach has worked so far, I think we can streamline and potentially grow the business by launching an ecommerce website on a platform like Shopify. Some benefits I see are:
1) More professional online presence to showcase her artwork portfolio 2) Easier for customers to browse available paintings 3) Can expand beyond just our local market for sales 4) Translate/repost her existing social media content to English to reach wider audiences
However, I have a couple of concerns about making this transition:
1) Right now, there is a more personalized interaction when someone messages to purchase a painting. I'm worried publicly listing set prices on a website could make her art seem more commercialized and negatively impact the perceived value/exclusivity.
2) Expanding sales outside our home country could bring up some legal/regulatory hurdles around things like customs, taxes, insurance for shipping valuable items internationally etc.
I'd appreciate any advice from those who have gone through similar transitions, or insights into optimizing an ecommerce art business. Some specific questions:

• How can we maintain that personalized experience even with an online store?
• What potential challenges should we be aware of selling internationally?
• Prerequisites/marketing strategies for a successful art ecommerce business?
• Any better platforms than Shopify to consider?
• Tips for reposting/translating existing social media content to English?

Thanks in advance for your guidance! I'm happy to provide any other details about the business. My main goal is making this transition as smooth as possible for my mom while opening up more sales opportunities.
For context, I'm a senior software engineer (back-end focused) with a computer science degree, so I have some technical experience to draw from. However, launching an ecommerce business for artistic products is a new area for me. I'd greatly value any advice from those with relevant experience.

⚜️ Freeman Old Star Shipyard of Tortuga ⚜️

🔥 HOT SALE & SPECIAL OFFERS & Warbond CCU 🔥

CCU - FROM	-> TO	Save $	Warbond Bonus	Price
Razor	Retaliator Base	-	-	$7
Prowler	600i BIS 2953	🔥	+paint & poster	$40
Hull D	Orion	$50	120m	$50
Prowler	Hull D	$65	-	$45
Razor	SRV	$15	-	$5

⚜️ ➤ If you want to buy something, SEND PM me or send me DM to AlexFreeman#8529 in Discord. ⚜️

My old store pages with trade history: vol.1, vol.2, vol.3

Tip: Use on keyboard to search for the ship you want  
⚜️ ➤ I want to buy store credits ⚜️ I am waiting for your commercial offers  

⚜️ ➤ REFERRAL SERVICE ⚜️

Quantity	Price, $
1 referral	$--
5+ referral	$-- for each

Information about rewards can be found here - https://robertsspaceindustries.com/referral-program Consider using my referral code STAR-57F5-QBC9 when creating a new account and receive 5000 UEC in game. 🔥Anyone who uses my referral code becomes my guest of honor and receives discounts in my store🔥
 

🔥Hot discounts🔥

Item	Insurance	Price,$(CCU-ed)
Pulse +Dominion Paint	LTI	$25🔥
Pulse LX +Dominion Paint	LTI	$25🔥
F7C Hornet Mk II +Ironscale Paint	LTI	$160🔥
600I BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$575🔥
Redeemer BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$430🔥
Corsair BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$350🔥
Vulture BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$275🔥
600i Explorer BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket CCU'd	LTI	$400🔥
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket CCU'd	LTI	$210🔥
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2952 + RED ALERT Paint CCU'd	LTI	$260🔥
CARRACK BIS 2952 + RED ALERT Paint CCU'd	LTI	$600
LTI Upgrade - Reliant Kore to CNOU Nomad	LTI	$80
LTI Upgrade - 315P to CNOU Nomad	LTI	$100
M50 Subscriber Edition	LTI	$98
Cutlass RED Subscriber Edition	LTI	$133
Mantis Subscriber Edition	LTI	$148
Sabre Subscriber Edition	LTI	$168
Add-Ons - Endeavor Telescope Pod	10y	$135
Add-Ons - Endeavor Biodome Pod	10y	$110
Add-Ons - Endeavor Fuel Pod	10y	$40
Add-Ons - AEGIS Idris P After Market Kit	LTI	$260

   

⚜️ ➤ CONCIERGE PACKAGES:

Item	Insurance	Includes	Price
UEE EXPLORATION 2948 PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$800
SCOUNDREL PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$740
ENTREPRENEUR PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$640

   

⚜️ ➤ ORIGINAL CONCEPTS and Cross-Chassis Upgraded ships:

Item	Insurance	CCU-ed	Original concept ♻
100I	LTI	$60	-
125A	LTI	$60	-
135c	LTI	$65	-
300I	LTI	$60	-
315P	LTI	$65	-
325A	LTI	$70	-
350R	LTI	$145	-
400I	LTI	$235	-
600I TOURING	LTI	$390	-
600I EXPLORER	LTI	$400	-
600i Explorer BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket	LTI	$400	-
890 JUMP - IAE	10 years	-	$1250
A1 SPIRIT	LTI	$160	-
A1 SPIRIT + Intrepid Paint	LTI	-	$255
A2 HERCULES	LTI	$735	-
A2 HERCULES - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$750
Ares Inferno	LTI	$235	-
Ares ION	LTI	$235	-
Argo MOLE	LTI	$299	-
AVENGER STALKER	LTI	$60	-
AVENGER WARLOCK	LTI	$85	-
Avenger Titan - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$67
APOLLO TRIAGE	LTI	$235	-
APOLLO MEDIVAC	LTI	$260	-
ARROW	LTI	$75	-
BALLISTA	LTI	$125	-
BUCCANEER	LTI	$115	-
BLADE	LTI	$245	-
C1 SPIRIT	LTI	$110	-
C2 HERCULES	LTI	$385	-
CARRACK	LTI	$585	-
CATERPILLAR	LTI	$255🔥	-
CATERPILLAR BEST IN SHOW EDITION	LTI	$333	-
CENTURION	LTI	$105	-
CONSTELLATION TAURUS 🚚	LTI	$175	-
CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA	LTI	$225	-
CONSTELLATION AQUILA	LTI	$295	-
CORSAIR	LTI	$189🔥	-
CORSAIR + Name Reservation	LTI	-	$777
CRUCIBLE	LTI	$335	-
CUTLASS BLACK	LTI	$99	-
CUTLASS BLACK BEST IN SHOW EDITION	LTI	$110	-
CUTLASS RED 🚑	LTI	$120	-
CUTLASS BLUE	10 years	-	$175
CUTLASS BLUE	LTI	$160	-
CUTTER	LTI	$70	-
CUTTER SCOUT	LTI	$80	-
C8R PISCES	LTI	$65	-
C8X PISCES EXPEDITION - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$62
CYDNUS	LTI	-	In Development
DEFENDER 🛸	LTI	$185	-
DRAKE DRAGONFLY RIDE TOGETHER TWO-PACK	LTI	-	$190
E1 SPIRIT	LTI	$135	-
E1 SPIRIT + Olympia Paint	LTI	-	$235
ECLIPSE	LTI	$265	-
ENDEAVOR BASE	LTI	$335	-
EXPANSE	LTI	$135	-
F7A HORNET	LTI	-	In Development
F7C HORNET	LTI	$112	-
F7C-S HORNET GHOST	LTI	$110	-
F7C-R HORNET TRACKER	LTI	$125	-
F7C HORNET WILDFIRE	LTI	$160	-
F7C-M SUPER HORNET	LTI	$165	-
F7C-M SUPER HORNET HEARTSEEKER	LTI	$180	-
F8C LIGHTNING	LTI	-	In Development
FREELANCER	LTI	$100	-
FREELANCER DUR	LTI	$120	-
FREELANCER MAX 🚚	LTI	$135	-
FREELANCER MIS	LTI	$160	-
Fury +Leatherback Paint	LTI	-	$80
Fury MX +Leatherback Paint	LTI	-	$80
GALAXY + Protector Paint	LTI	-	$450
GALAXY	LTI	$365	-
GENESIS Starliner	LTI	$385	-
GLADIATOR	LTI	$150	-
GLADIUS	LTI	$90	-
GLADIUS VALIANT	LTI	$110	-
GLAIVE 🛸	LTI	$295	-
HAWK	LTI	$102	-
HAMMERHEAD	LTI	$710	-
HERALD	LTI	$85	-
HOVERQUAD	LTI	-	$50
HULL A	LTI	$90	-
HULL B	LTI	$125	-
HULL C	LTI	-	-
HULL D	LTI	-	-
HULL E	10 years	-	$777
HURRICANE	LTI	$180	-
KHARTU-AL 🛸	LTI	$155	-
LIBERATOR	LTI	$560	-
LYNX + Moonrise Paint	LTI	-	$105
M2 HERCULES	LTI	$505	-
M50 INTERCEPTOR	LTI	$102	-
MANTIS	LTI	$135	-
MERCHANTMAN	LTI	$585	-
MERCURY STAR RUNNER	10 years	-	$250
MERCURY STAR RUNNER	LTI	$199🔥	-
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket	LTI	$210	-
MPUV Cargo - ILW	10 years	-	$40
NAUTILUS	LTI	$710	-
NOMAD	LTI	$80	$110
NOVA TANK	LTI	$110	-
ODYSSEY	LTI	$685	-
ORIGIN G12 (Touring)	LTI	-	$78
ORIGIN G12A (Combat)	LTI	-	$88
ORIGIN G12R (Racing)	LTI	-	$78
ORION	LTI	$560	-
P-72 ARCHIMEDES EMERALD	LTI	$150	-
PERSEUS	LTI	$660	-
PERSEUS - ILW	10 years	-	$690
PERSEUS + Thundercloud Paint - VIP Exclusive	LTI	-	$900
PIONEER - IAE	10 years	-	$1150
POLARIS	LTI	$745	-
POLARIS - ILW	10 years	-	$760
PROSPECTOR	LTI	$140	-
PROWLER	LTI	$360	-
RAILEN 🛸🚚	LTI	$190	-
RAFT 🚚	LTI	$115	-
RANGER CV	LTI	-	-
RANGER RC	10 years	-	$50
RANGER TR	10 years	-	$50
RAZOR	LTI	$130	-
RAZOR LX	LTI	$135	-
RAZOR EX	LTI	$140	-
RETALIATOR BASE	LTI	$135	-
RETALIATOR BOMBER	10 years	-	$280
RETALIATOR BOMBER	LTI	$260	-
RECLAIMER	LTI	$385	-
REDEEMER	LTI	$310	-
REDEEMER - ILW	10 years	-	$300
RELIANT KORE	LTI	$65	-
RELIANT TANA (SKIRMISHER)	LTI	$80	-
RELIANT SEN (RESEARCHER)	LTI	$90	-
RELIANT MAKO (NEWS VAN)	LTI	$95	-
ROC	LTI	-	$140
ROC Subscribers Exclusive	LTI	$60	-
ROC Subscribers Exclusive	12m	-	$54
ROC-DS	LTI	$75	-
SAN'TOK.YĀI	LTI	$205	$400
SABRE	LTI	$155	-
SABRE COMET	LTI	$170	-
SCORPIUS ANTARES	LTI	$181	-
SCORPIUS	LTI	$191	-
SPARTAN	LTI	$80	$100
STARFARER	LTI	$285	-
STARFARER GEMINI	LTI	$270	-
STORM + Summit Paint	LTI	-	$130
STV + Blue Steel Paint	LTI	-	$55
SRV	LTI	$135	-
TALON	LTI	$115	-
TALON SHRIKE	LTI	$118	-
TERRAPIN	LTI	$205	-
VANGUARD HOPLITE	LTI	$220	-
VANGUARD WARDEN	LTI	$245	-
VANGUARD SENTINEL	LTI	$260	-
VANGUARD HARBINGER	LTI	$275	-
VALKYRIE	LTI	$270	-
VALKYRIE BIS 2950	10 years	-	-
VULCAN	LTI	$185	-
VULTURE	LTI	$135🔥	-
X1 BASELINE EDITION	LTI	-	-
X1 FORCE EDITION	LTI	-	-
X1 VELOCITY EDITION	LTI	-	-
Zeus Mk II ES +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$235
Zeus Mk II CL +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$235
Zeus Mk II MR +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$270

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

⛵CLICK HERE TO PLACE AN ORDER ⛵

 

⚜️ ➤ SHIP PAINTS:

Item	Price
2951 Auspicious Red Paint Pack	$22
2952 Auspicious Red Paint Pack	$24
Nomad - 2951 Auspicious Red Paint	$11
Freelancer - 2951 Auspicious Red Paint	$14
Constellation - 2952 Auspicious Red Paint	$14
Sabre - 2952 Auspicious Red Paint	$12
Lovestruck Paint Pack	$26
HoverQuad - Lovestruck Paint	$8
MPUV - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Cyclone - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Arrow - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Nomad - Lovestruck Paint	$10
RAFT - Lovestruck Paint	$10
SRV - Lovestruck Paint	$11
Scorpius - Lovestruck Paint	$14
Ares - Lovestruck Paint	$14
Mole - Lovestruck Paint	$16
Ghoulish Green 4 Paint Pack	$32
Mule - Ghoulish Green Paint	$6
Herald - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Vulture - Ghoulish Green Paint	$12
Caterpillar - Ghoulish Green Paint	$12
Buccaneer - Ghoulish Green Paint	$9
Cutlass - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Dragonfly - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Avenger - Invictus 2950 Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Aurora - Invictus 2950 Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Constellation - 2950 Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$18
Cyclone - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$8
Galaxy - Protector Paint	$15
Gladius - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$12
Gladius - Solar Winds Paint	$11
Hawk - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Hercules Starlifter - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$20
Hornet - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Reliant - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$8
Retaliator - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$28
Vanguard - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$18
Aphorite Mining Paint Pack	$35
Dolivine Mining Paint Pack	$35
Hadanite Mining Paint Pack	$35
Overdrive Racing Paint Pack	$11
Slipstream Racing Paint Pack	$11
Turbocharged Racing Paint Pack	$11
Aspire Paint Pack	$18
Central Tower Paint Pack	$18
Hosanna Paint Pack	$18
100 Series - Sand Wave Paint	$8
100 Series - Melrose Paint	$8
400i - Meridian Paint	$20
400i - Penumbra Paint	$20
600i - Cold Forge Paint	$14
600i - Sterling Paint	$19
Arrastra - Nocturne Paint	$17🔥
Aurora ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$18
Aurora - Light and Dark Grey Paint	$8
Aurora - Green and Gold Paint	$8
Avenger ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$20
Avenger - Solar Winds Paint	$10
Avenger - Copernicus Paint	$8
Avenger - Kepler Paint	$8
Avenger - De Biasio Paint	$8
Centurion - Beachhead Paint	$8
Constellation ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$27
Constellation - Dark Green Paint	$13
Cutlass Black - Skull & Crossbones Paint	$12
Defender - Platinum Paint	$15
Defender - Harmony Paint	$15
LIBERATOR - VIP exclusive Condor Paint	$33🔥
Mercury Star Runner - 2951 Fortuna Paint	$14
MOLE Aphorite Paint	$12
MOLE Dolivine Paint	$12
MOLE Hadanite Paint	$12
Nox - Harmony Paint	$8
Odyssey - Windrider Paint	$28
PERSEUS - A VIP exclusive, the Thundercloud Paint	$33🔥
Prospector Aphorite Paint	$11
Prospector Dolivine Paint	$11
Prospector Hadanite Paint	$11
Prowler - Ocellus Paint	$20
Prowler - Harmony Paint	$20
Railen - Hyaotan Paint	$20
Retaliator ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$38
Reclaimer Aphorite Paint	$15
Reclaimer Dolivine Paint	$15
Reclaimer Hadanite Paint	$15
ROC Aphorite Paint	$7
ROC Dolivine Paint	$7
ROC Hadanite Paint	$7
Scorpius - Stinger Paint	$30
Scorpius - Tiburon Paint	$12
STV - Blue Steel Paint	$5
Talon - Cobalt Paint	$10
Talon - Crimson Paint	$10
Talon - Ocellus Paint	$10
Talon - Harmony Paint	$10
Talon - Paint Pack	$30
Valkyrie ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$40
Vanguard - Solar Winds Paint	$15
Zeus Mk II - Solstice Paint	$12

 

⚜️ ➤ SUBSCRIBERS EXCLUSIVE SETS:

Set	Includes	Price
Takuetsu Replica Figurines	6 exhibits	$35
Kastak Arms Custodian SMG CitizenCon 2947 Edition	1 item	$30
Atzkav "DEADEYE" Sniper rifle	1 item	$10
Yubarev "DEADEYE" Pistol	1 item	$10
WowBlast "Blue" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Orange" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Red" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Teal" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
Overlord Helmets DOUBLE TROUBLE	2 items	$7
Overlord Helmets FORCES OF NATURE	2 items	$7
Overlord Helmets SILENT STRIKE	2 items	$7
Overlord "Dust Storm" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Predator" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Riptide" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Stinger" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Supernova" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Switchback" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Caudillo Helmets Pack 1	2 items	$8
Caudillo Helmets Pack 2	2 items	$8
Caudillo Helmets Pack 3	2 items	$8
NIGHTFIRE - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
SINGULARITY - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
ICEBORN - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – ORANGE	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – LIME	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – BLUEBERRY	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – GRAPE	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – GUAVA	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Sinister SIX-PACK	6 items	$26
Giocoso Helmet - Azure	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Ivory	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Obsidian	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Triple Pack	1 item	$15
Sawtooth "Sirocco" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Sawtooth "Squall" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Sawtooth "Bloodstone" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Pyro RYT "Ghost" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
Pyro RYT "Mirage" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
Pyro RYT "Bloodline" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
GP-33 Mod "ASHFALL" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
GP-33 Mod "COPPERHEAD" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
GP-33 Mod "THUNDERCLAP" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
Aves Armor & Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Aves Talon Shrike Armor and Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Aves Talon Armor and Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Neoni "Jami" Helmet	1 item	$7
Neoni "Onna" Helmet	1 item	$7
Neoni "Tengubi" Helmet	1 item	$7
Star Kitten Set	4 items	$14
Star Kittyen "SALLY" Set	4 items	$14
Star Kittyen "DAMON" Set	4 items	$14
Pembroke RSI Sunburst Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Pembroke RSI Ivory Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Pembroke RSI Graphite Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Morozov Aftershock Armor	5 items	$15
Morozov Terracotta Armor	5 items	$15
Morozov Thule Armor	5 items	$15
Sakura Fun Green ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Sakura Fun Blue ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Sakura Fun White ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Zeus Exploration Suit	3 items	$15
Zeus Exploration Suit Solar	3 items	$15
Zeus Exploration Suit Starscape	3 items	$15
Xanthule Flight Suit	2 items	$13
Xanthule Sehya Flight Suit	2 items	$13
Xanthule Tahn Flight Suit	2 items	$13
CSP-68L Backpack Night Camo	1 item	$6
CSP-68L Backpack Cayman	1 item	$6
CSP-68L Backpack Forest Camo	1 item	$6
CitizenCon 2951 Digital Goodies	7 items	$10
CitizenCon 2951 Trophy	7 items	$10

 

⚜️➤ SHIP UPGRADES - CROSS-CHASSIS UPGRADES (CCUs, upgrades), some upgrades can be chain in few steps CCU's:

SHIP	TARGET SHIP	<	Upgrade from	Price
400I
	400I	<	CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA	$15
600I EXPLORER
	600I EXPLORER	<	PROWLER	$70
ARGO MOLE
	ARGO MOLE	<	CONSTELLATION AQUILA	$7
	ARGO MOLE	<	MERCURY STAR RUNNER	$59
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD WARDEN	$59
	ARGO MOLE	<	RETALIATOR BOMBER	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD SENTINEL	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	APOLLO MEDIVAC	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	ESPERIA VANDUUL BLADE	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD HARBINGER	$27
	ARGO MOLE	<	REDEEMER	$70
	ARGO MOLE	<	HULL C	$70
	ARGO MOLE	<	APOLLO TRIAGE	$70
ARROW
	ARROW	<	AURORA MR	$50
	ARROW	<	MUSTANG ALPHA	$50
	ARROW	<	C8X PISCES EXPEDITION	$35
	ARROW	<	100i	$30
	ARROW	<	AVENGER TITAN	$25
	ARROW	<	RELIANT KORE	$15
CATERPILLAR BEST IN SHOW EDITION
	CATERPILLAR BISE	<	VANGUARD HARBINGER	$100
CORSAIR
	CORSAIR	<	TAURUS	$60
CRUCIBLE
	CRUCIBLE	<	STARFARER GEMINI	$21
CUTLASS BLACK BEST IN SHOW EDITION
	CUTLASS BLACK BISE	<	GLADIUS	$70
CUTLASS RED Subscriber
	CUTLASS RED Subscriber	<	F7C-S HORNET GHOST	$25
CUTLASS BLUE
	CUTLASS BLUE	<	PROSPECTOR	$30
DEFENDER
	DEFENDER	<	CORSAIR	$15
	DEFENDER	<	HORNET F7C-M HEARTSEEKER	$37
GLADIUS
	GLADIUS	<	AURORA MR	$65
	GLADIUS	<	MUSTANG ALPHA	$65
	GLADIUS	<	C8X PISCES EXPEDITION	$50
	GLADIUS	<	100i	$45
	GLADIUS	<	AVENGER TITAN	$40
	GLADIUS	<	RELIANT KORE	$30
	GLADIUS	<	ARROW	$20
HAMMERHEAD
	HAMMERHEAD	<	CARRACK	$150
	HAMMERHEAD	<	CARRACK EXPEDITION W/C8X	$100
HULL C
	HULL C	<	CATERPILLAR	$175
MERCHANTMAN
	MERCHANTMAN	<	STARFARER GEMINI	$300
	MERCHANTMAN	<	ARGO MOLE	$345
NAUTILUS
	NAUTILUS	<	CARRACK	$175
PERSEUS
	PERSEUS	<	CARRACK Expedition W/C8X	$40
	PERSEUS	<	CARRACK	$90
	PERSEUS	<	ORION	$115
	PERSEUS	<	600I EXPLORER	$220
	PERSEUS	<	MERCHANTMAN	$248
	PERSEUS	<	ARGO MOLE	$380
	PERSEUS	<	ANDROMEDA	$485
POLARIS
	POLARIS	<	PERSEUS	$70
	POLARIS	<	HAMMERHEAD	$70
	POLARIS	<	NAUTILUS	$60
	POLARIS	<	CARRACK	$250
RECLAIMER BIS 2949
	RECLAIMER BIS 2949	<	VALKYRIE	$300
SAN'TOK.YĀI
	SAN'TOK.YĀI	<	HORNET F7C-M HEARTSEEKER	$37

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Hey everyone - first time here so apologies if this isn’t the place for this kind of post. Sorry for the long read but wanted to give context.
TLDR: Agency owner told us office monthly goals were being increased by home office mid year. Not sure if this is normal or if he’s just doing it and blaming home office.
To summarize: i got licensed a year ago and started selling in a small office with just me and the owner. Our arrangement was if we hit his monthly office goal that home office gave him, then I’d get a bonus. The last 4 months we’ve hit that goal and I’ve gotten a nice bonus each month as a result.
We recently hired a new licensed rep and the agency owner came to us and said after a Town Hall meeting home office had, they announced they’d be raising the goals mid-year to “account for our companies prime market positioning to sell”. He told us this was nationwide and the first time home office ever changed the goals mid year. He said it would only be going up marginally (10-15 more items a month) but we wouldn’t know until we got closer to 7/1/24 when the change is set to take place
There are some other factors that made me question this a bit but since I am new to insurance and sales in general i didn’t know if this was normal. Part of me is scared that my agency owner is moving the goalpost on me to avoid paying me my bonus.
Thank you I’m advance to anyone who takes the time to respond!

I’m changing locations, from a place who’s pay was horrible, but provided their own insurance to their drivers, to someplace that is a lot more in line with the market standard, but apparently does not offer insurance, and that is apparently very uncommon for the industry to offer insurance. So, do I need extra insurance for pizza delivery?
From what I can find for my insurance company (USAA, so I would prefer not to have to switch) personal insurance doesn’t cover it, and commercial insurance is for businesses, so where does pizza delivery fall? Getting a commercial car insurance plan is like half of my monthly pay check, so I can’t do that.
If it’s that expensive, and considering that pizza delivery isn’t a very… fancy job, do people just not have insurance, or is there some special coverage I don’t know about? Do people just drive around where an accident, even if they’re not at fault, could ruin their lives from insurance?

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Hi all,
Im looking for some advice on property deeds and who enforces them.
I recently started a new job from which a received a van to complete the works(fully insured & taxed by the company), initially it was just a white panel but has since been upgraded and has the company logo all over it. A few weeks after this, I got called into work to discuss where I park the vehicle at home, as a neighbour had complained they are struggling to get out of their drive as a result of where I park it. Now for reference I park it on the road, no yellow lines, in the flow of traffic in a stack of other neighbours vehicles, so if my van is causing this so are all the other vehicles, not parked on a dropped curb and not infront of anyone's house, it's just next to a path, on a fence line, not affecting the lighting or view of anyone's property. After explaining this to my company they were absolutely fine with it so I don't have any concerns there but having a little dig into my property deeds I found this statement;
"The transferee shall not keep any caravan or commercial vehicle (other than light) to remain on any part of the property nor to park or allow to be parked any such caravan or commercial vehicle on the road way adjacent to the property except whilst delivering to or collecting from the property"
Now I fully understand that based on that I shouldn't be parking there, however, every other house has a caravan parked on their drive.
So based on this my question is, if my neighbour were to take this further who deals with it is it the property developer(as its their signature on the deeds) or the council? And if they were successful with a law suit or whatever would happen, would that mean all caravans and other commercial vehicles on the street would need moving also?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

I'm 56 years old, and have been litigating for 28 years. Small firm, large firm, government, solo, and most recently in-house insurance defense.
Late last fall my position was eliminated as part of a nationwide "right sizing", and I have been looking ever since. It is proving to be a difficult slog. I have highly-developed skills but no book of business, which isn't a particularly strong position for someone my age l.
I'm in a mid-sized market, and have been looking for a way to jump to the in-house counsel role. Opportunities are few and far between, though.
I've looked at other in-house insurance defense positions, jobs I could do from day one with little to no training Out of five such applications, I haven't received so much as a screening phone call. That's a bit surprising and disappointing. I guess age may be an issue, but who knows.
I also interviewed with a couple plaintiff's firms, but no dice. I also have walked away from a couple potential opportunities because they weren't quite right/low pay.
So my question is, who else has been in this situation, and how did you keep from going crazy?

https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that

Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,

It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:

If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:

Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.

[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]

https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that

Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,

It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:

If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:

Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.

[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]

Hi everyone! 😁
I will preface by saying that it took me many years to find my Dentist and there is no way on Earth that I will go to anyone else. My experiences with dentists have been enough to fill up the Reddit servers and make them crash if I even started to touch upon my experiences of blatant lies and essentially, thievery, most notably perpetrated by their hygienists who are quite OBVIOUSLY financially motivated. I have the best dentist on planet Earth and I have no interest in deviating from him.
I apologize in advance that my post is rather long because I'm blowing off some steam as well. Please don't be angry about that. I'm just upset at the dental insurance world and, particularly, my Dentist's idiot office manager. The bottom line is I need some help figuring out dental insurance companies.
I have had a Humana PPO for quite a few years and my annual maximum cap is $6,000. The premium is a bit ridiculous at about $75 a month but they have historically have paid for most everything so I didn't really blink TOO much about it. HOWEVER, my Dentist stopped accepting/being "in network" of it at the beginning of the year. Most likely because his office manager is something of an idiot who even stopped the office from using CareCredit. I assume that he's trying to shave down his paperwork.
In any event, after having some work done recently I got a bill from my Dentist's office along with the handwritten note from that dingbat office manager stating that, "you are completely responsible for the entirety of this bill as Humana won't pay for anything".
I called Humana immediately and they told me that they DID pay for two of the charges and were never billed for the others and that they paid precisely what they would have been paying if he was in network but I am responsible for the rest. I wrote the dingbat office manager and told him exactly what they paid and what dates and to submit the remaining bills to Humana. He got all defensive. Knowing full well that I'm deaf and cannot handle speaking on the phone (we've discussed the issue of my having gone deaf from cancer treatment a number of times) he told me that I need to call him to discuss it. I once again reiterated that I am deaf in one ear and cannot utilize the phone well because of the reverberations. He wouldn't respond there after. THAT is a complaint that I will take up with my dentist when I see him next. My Dentist nor any of the other people around the Dentist like that office manager but the office manager has been there for 18 years so cannot essentially be let go. The point is that he never resolved anything nor submitted the bills to Humana as I requested. I am spitting nails angry about that.
In the interim I decided that I might want to look at other insurance companies that my Dentist DOES participate in. I cannot understand, unless I've actually grown quite old and senile since the last time I tried to read anything, that they mostly say that they pay a maximum of $1,500 to $2,000 per year. That is total, not per occurrence. I know I'm reading something wrong, RIGHT?
Anyway, to avoid being without any insurance at all while I'm busy canceling my Humana plan, I signed up for the BCBS A1 policy. It's capped at $2,000 per year. In February I simply had a cleaning and a couple of teeth refinished/resurfaced as they had minor erosion and the bill was $978. Humana said that they would covering all but $400 some odd dollars of it but only if their office manager actually submits the damn bills to them. It appears that I have to retrieve the bills myself and submit them because it seems that the office manager is quite adamant about excluding my insurance company as well as CareCredit from his list of daily chores. I wish I had some daily chores to do because I have been out of work due to cancer treatment for over 3 years now and I would LOVE to deal with the miniscule burden of what might be a difficult insurance company or the likes of Synchrony Bank's Carecredit for the sake of my employer's devoted patients.
I am trying to figure out if I have made a good decision by going with BCBS's A1 policy. I have read through the various posts here on Reddit and everybody raves about GEHA. Nobody busy raving about GEHA has ever bothered to respond to anybody inquiring about how to get it so I looked it up for myself and found out that you have to be a postal worker or a military retiree so please don't talk about GEHA. While internet searching for insurance, I made the miserable mistake of typing in my personal information with phone number BUT I back spaced out before pressing the "accept" key which allows agents to contact. Even though I never pressed the "accept" button and back spaced out when I realized that I was submitting information for massive lead share, at 8:01 this morning the freaking phone started ringing and by 9:00 I was so pissed off that I could have bitten somebody's head off if they looked at me wrong. One idiot told me that I had to completely revise my entire health care plan because I have an HMO that includes a dental plan even though no dentist within 400 miles of me participate in it and even if they did I am not leaving my dentist. She told me that I had to completely redo my whole plan anyway in order to get coverage with my dentist and that I could not purchase a standalone plan if I kept my health insurance. She was the biggest idiot I encountered all morning telling me that I can be arrested for having a standalone insurance policy for dental. 🙄 Talk about idiots that really shouldn't have jobs 🙄². I researched and found that I absolutely can purchase my own plan but you cannot comingle plans and benefits. Fine by me because there's not a dentist on the planet that accepts HMO that is worth going to. I asked the stupid idiot just why she thinks I've been paying $74 a month for a separate plan to start with FROM the same company that has my Medicare policy to start with and I've not been arrested in all these years nor is there an APB out for me. I finally got pissed off and told her to have a nice day and hung up on her. She had a whiny 1960s sort of commercial voice to start with that was irritating as hell. As you can tell, she put me in a raunchy mood for the whole rest of the day and I apologize to you that it's coming out in my text. Please accept my very sincere apology.
I know that the very second that I would be without insurance that some big horrible thing would happen so I cannot be without.
Please be kind enough to share your experience in researching and procuring standalone dental plans. I've already signed up for BCBS A1 but I have not remitted the first check yet because I haven't gotten the hard policy in the mail. Other contenders would be Aetna and Cigna.
Thank you VERY MUCH! 🌻 I truly appreciate your help! 🌷

I’m looking into starting Wegovy and was wondering how the coupon works for those who have a commercial insurance but it doesn’t cover Wegovy. Anyone have experience with it? Do you have to pay the remainder for the medicine after the coupon is used (it says up to $500, but the price of the medicine rn in my area is $1339 for a months supply)? Would I have to pay 800 a month for this?

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com

⚜️ Freeman Old Star Shipyard of Tortuga ⚜️

🔥 HOT SALE & SPECIAL OFFERS & Warbond CCU 🔥

CCU - FROM	-> TO	Save $	Warbond Bonus	Price
Razor	Retaliator Base	-	-	$7
Prowler	600i BIS 2953	🔥	+paint & poster	$40
Hull D	Orion	$50	120m	$50
Prowler	Hull D	$65	-	$45
Razor	SRV	$15	-	$5

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My old store pages with trade history: vol.1, vol.2, vol.3

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Quantity	Price, $
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🔥Hot discounts🔥

Item	Insurance	Price,$(CCU-ed)
Pulse +Dominion Paint	LTI	$25🔥
Pulse LX +Dominion Paint	LTI	$25🔥
F7C Hornet Mk II +Ironscale Paint	LTI	$160🔥
600I BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$575🔥
Redeemer BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$430🔥
Corsair BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$350🔥
Vulture BIS 2953 +Paint&Poster OC	10y	$275🔥
600i Explorer BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket CCU'd	LTI	$400🔥
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket CCU'd	LTI	$210🔥
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2952 + RED ALERT Paint CCU'd	LTI	$260🔥
CARRACK BIS 2952 + RED ALERT Paint CCU'd	LTI	$600
LTI Upgrade - Reliant Kore to CNOU Nomad	LTI	$80
LTI Upgrade - 315P to CNOU Nomad	LTI	$100
M50 Subscriber Edition	LTI	$98
Cutlass RED Subscriber Edition	LTI	$133
Mantis Subscriber Edition	LTI	$148
Sabre Subscriber Edition	LTI	$168
Add-Ons - Endeavor Telescope Pod	10y	$135
Add-Ons - Endeavor Biodome Pod	10y	$110
Add-Ons - Endeavor Fuel Pod	10y	$40
Add-Ons - AEGIS Idris P After Market Kit	LTI	$260

   

⚜️ ➤ CONCIERGE PACKAGES:

Item	Insurance	Includes	Price
UEE EXPLORATION 2948 PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$800
SCOUNDREL PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$740
ENTREPRENEUR PACK	LTI	SC+SQ42+VFG+20k	$640

   

⚜️ ➤ ORIGINAL CONCEPTS and Cross-Chassis Upgraded ships:

Item	Insurance	CCU-ed	Original concept ♻
100I	LTI	$60	-
125A	LTI	$60	-
135c	LTI	$65	-
300I	LTI	$60	-
315P	LTI	$65	-
325A	LTI	$70	-
350R	LTI	$145	-
400I	LTI	$235	-
600I TOURING	LTI	$390	-
600I EXPLORER	LTI	$400	-
600i Explorer BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket	LTI	$400	-
890 JUMP - IAE	10 years	-	$1250
A1 SPIRIT	LTI	$160	-
A1 SPIRIT + Intrepid Paint	LTI	-	$255
A2 HERCULES	LTI	$735	-
A2 HERCULES - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$750
Ares Inferno	LTI	$235	-
Ares ION	LTI	$235	-
Argo MOLE	LTI	$299	-
AVENGER STALKER	LTI	$60	-
AVENGER WARLOCK	LTI	$85	-
Avenger Titan - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$67
APOLLO TRIAGE	LTI	$235	-
APOLLO MEDIVAC	LTI	$260	-
ARROW	LTI	$75	-
BALLISTA	LTI	$125	-
BUCCANEER	LTI	$115	-
BLADE	LTI	$245	-
C1 SPIRIT	LTI	$110	-
C2 HERCULES	LTI	$385	-
CARRACK	LTI	$585	-
CATERPILLAR	LTI	$255🔥	-
CATERPILLAR BEST IN SHOW EDITION	LTI	$333	-
CENTURION	LTI	$105	-
CONSTELLATION TAURUS 🚚	LTI	$175	-
CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA	LTI	$225	-
CONSTELLATION AQUILA	LTI	$295	-
CORSAIR	LTI	$189🔥	-
CORSAIR + Name Reservation	LTI	-	$777
CRUCIBLE	LTI	$335	-
CUTLASS BLACK	LTI	$99	-
CUTLASS BLACK BEST IN SHOW EDITION	LTI	$110	-
CUTLASS RED 🚑	LTI	$120	-
CUTLASS BLUE	10 years	-	$175
CUTLASS BLUE	LTI	$160	-
CUTTER	LTI	$70	-
CUTTER SCOUT	LTI	$80	-
C8R PISCES	LTI	$65	-
C8X PISCES EXPEDITION - IAE 2949	10 years	-	$62
CYDNUS	LTI	-	In Development
DEFENDER 🛸	LTI	$185	-
DRAKE DRAGONFLY RIDE TOGETHER TWO-PACK	LTI	-	$190
E1 SPIRIT	LTI	$135	-
E1 SPIRIT + Olympia Paint	LTI	-	$235
ECLIPSE	LTI	$265	-
ENDEAVOR BASE	LTI	$335	-
EXPANSE	LTI	$135	-
F7A HORNET	LTI	-	In Development
F7C HORNET	LTI	$112	-
F7C-S HORNET GHOST	LTI	$110	-
F7C-R HORNET TRACKER	LTI	$125	-
F7C HORNET WILDFIRE	LTI	$160	-
F7C-M SUPER HORNET	LTI	$165	-
F7C-M SUPER HORNET HEARTSEEKER	LTI	$180	-
F8C LIGHTNING	LTI	-	In Development
FREELANCER	LTI	$100	-
FREELANCER DUR	LTI	$120	-
FREELANCER MAX 🚚	LTI	$135	-
FREELANCER MIS	LTI	$160	-
Fury +Leatherback Paint	LTI	-	$80
Fury MX +Leatherback Paint	LTI	-	$80
GALAXY + Protector Paint	LTI	-	$450
GALAXY	LTI	$365	-
GENESIS Starliner	LTI	$385	-
GLADIATOR	LTI	$150	-
GLADIUS	LTI	$90	-
GLADIUS VALIANT	LTI	$110	-
GLAIVE 🛸	LTI	$295	-
HAWK	LTI	$102	-
HAMMERHEAD	LTI	$710	-
HERALD	LTI	$85	-
HOVERQUAD	LTI	-	$50
HULL A	LTI	$90	-
HULL B	LTI	$125	-
HULL C	LTI	-	-
HULL D	LTI	-	-
HULL E	10 years	-	$777
HURRICANE	LTI	$180	-
KHARTU-AL 🛸	LTI	$155	-
LIBERATOR	LTI	$560	-
LYNX + Moonrise Paint	LTI	-	$105
M2 HERCULES	LTI	$505	-
M50 INTERCEPTOR	LTI	$102	-
MANTIS	LTI	$135	-
MERCHANTMAN	LTI	$585	-
MERCURY STAR RUNNER	10 years	-	$250
MERCURY STAR RUNNER	LTI	$199🔥	-
MERCURY STAR RUNNER BIS 2951 + Paint & Jacket	LTI	$210	-
MPUV Cargo - ILW	10 years	-	$40
NAUTILUS	LTI	$710	-
NOMAD	LTI	$80	$110
NOVA TANK	LTI	$110	-
ODYSSEY	LTI	$685	-
ORIGIN G12 (Touring)	LTI	-	$78
ORIGIN G12A (Combat)	LTI	-	$88
ORIGIN G12R (Racing)	LTI	-	$78
ORION	LTI	$560	-
P-72 ARCHIMEDES EMERALD	LTI	$150	-
PERSEUS	LTI	$660	-
PERSEUS - ILW	10 years	-	$690
PERSEUS + Thundercloud Paint - VIP Exclusive	LTI	-	$900
PIONEER - IAE	10 years	-	$1150
POLARIS	LTI	$745	-
POLARIS - ILW	10 years	-	$760
PROSPECTOR	LTI	$140	-
PROWLER	LTI	$360	-
RAILEN 🛸🚚	LTI	$190	-
RAFT 🚚	LTI	$115	-
RANGER CV	LTI	-	-
RANGER RC	10 years	-	$50
RANGER TR	10 years	-	$50
RAZOR	LTI	$130	-
RAZOR LX	LTI	$135	-
RAZOR EX	LTI	$140	-
RETALIATOR BASE	LTI	$135	-
RETALIATOR BOMBER	10 years	-	$280
RETALIATOR BOMBER	LTI	$260	-
RECLAIMER	LTI	$385	-
REDEEMER	LTI	$310	-
REDEEMER - ILW	10 years	-	$300
RELIANT KORE	LTI	$65	-
RELIANT TANA (SKIRMISHER)	LTI	$80	-
RELIANT SEN (RESEARCHER)	LTI	$90	-
RELIANT MAKO (NEWS VAN)	LTI	$95	-
ROC	LTI	-	$140
ROC Subscribers Exclusive	LTI	$60	-
ROC Subscribers Exclusive	12m	-	$54
ROC-DS	LTI	$75	-
SAN'TOK.YĀI	LTI	$205	$400
SABRE	LTI	$155	-
SABRE COMET	LTI	$170	-
SCORPIUS ANTARES	LTI	$181	-
SCORPIUS	LTI	$191	-
SPARTAN	LTI	$80	$100
STARFARER	LTI	$285	-
STARFARER GEMINI	LTI	$270	-
STORM + Summit Paint	LTI	-	$130
STV + Blue Steel Paint	LTI	-	$55
SRV	LTI	$135	-
TALON	LTI	$115	-
TALON SHRIKE	LTI	$118	-
TERRAPIN	LTI	$205	-
VANGUARD HOPLITE	LTI	$220	-
VANGUARD WARDEN	LTI	$245	-
VANGUARD SENTINEL	LTI	$260	-
VANGUARD HARBINGER	LTI	$275	-
VALKYRIE	LTI	$270	-
VALKYRIE BIS 2950	10 years	-	-
VULCAN	LTI	$185	-
VULTURE	LTI	$135🔥	-
X1 BASELINE EDITION	LTI	-	-
X1 FORCE EDITION	LTI	-	-
X1 VELOCITY EDITION	LTI	-	-
Zeus Mk II ES +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$235
Zeus Mk II CL +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$235
Zeus Mk II MR +Solstice Paint	LTI	-	$270

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⚜️ ➤ SHIP PAINTS:

Item	Price
2951 Auspicious Red Paint Pack	$22
2952 Auspicious Red Paint Pack	$24
Nomad - 2951 Auspicious Red Paint	$11
Freelancer - 2951 Auspicious Red Paint	$14
Constellation - 2952 Auspicious Red Paint	$14
Sabre - 2952 Auspicious Red Paint	$12
Lovestruck Paint Pack	$26
HoverQuad - Lovestruck Paint	$8
MPUV - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Cyclone - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Arrow - Lovestruck Paint	$8
Nomad - Lovestruck Paint	$10
RAFT - Lovestruck Paint	$10
SRV - Lovestruck Paint	$11
Scorpius - Lovestruck Paint	$14
Ares - Lovestruck Paint	$14
Mole - Lovestruck Paint	$16
Ghoulish Green 4 Paint Pack	$32
Mule - Ghoulish Green Paint	$6
Herald - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Vulture - Ghoulish Green Paint	$12
Caterpillar - Ghoulish Green Paint	$12
Buccaneer - Ghoulish Green Paint	$9
Cutlass - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Dragonfly - Ghoulish Green Paint	$8
Avenger - Invictus 2950 Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Aurora - Invictus 2950 Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Constellation - 2950 Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$18
Cyclone - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$8
Galaxy - Protector Paint	$15
Gladius - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$12
Gladius - Solar Winds Paint	$11
Hawk - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Hercules Starlifter - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$20
Hornet - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$10
Reliant - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$8
Retaliator - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$28
Vanguard - Invictus Blue and Gold Paint	$18
Aphorite Mining Paint Pack	$35
Dolivine Mining Paint Pack	$35
Hadanite Mining Paint Pack	$35
Overdrive Racing Paint Pack	$11
Slipstream Racing Paint Pack	$11
Turbocharged Racing Paint Pack	$11
Aspire Paint Pack	$18
Central Tower Paint Pack	$18
Hosanna Paint Pack	$18
100 Series - Sand Wave Paint	$8
100 Series - Melrose Paint	$8
400i - Meridian Paint	$20
400i - Penumbra Paint	$20
600i - Cold Forge Paint	$14
600i - Sterling Paint	$19
Arrastra - Nocturne Paint	$17🔥
Aurora ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$18
Aurora - Light and Dark Grey Paint	$8
Aurora - Green and Gold Paint	$8
Avenger ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$20
Avenger - Solar Winds Paint	$10
Avenger - Copernicus Paint	$8
Avenger - Kepler Paint	$8
Avenger - De Biasio Paint	$8
Centurion - Beachhead Paint	$8
Constellation ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$27
Constellation - Dark Green Paint	$13
Cutlass Black - Skull & Crossbones Paint	$12
Defender - Platinum Paint	$15
Defender - Harmony Paint	$15
LIBERATOR - VIP exclusive Condor Paint	$33🔥
Mercury Star Runner - 2951 Fortuna Paint	$14
MOLE Aphorite Paint	$12
MOLE Dolivine Paint	$12
MOLE Hadanite Paint	$12
Nox - Harmony Paint	$8
Odyssey - Windrider Paint	$28
PERSEUS - A VIP exclusive, the Thundercloud Paint	$33🔥
Prospector Aphorite Paint	$11
Prospector Dolivine Paint	$11
Prospector Hadanite Paint	$11
Prowler - Ocellus Paint	$20
Prowler - Harmony Paint	$20
Railen - Hyaotan Paint	$20
Retaliator ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$38
Reclaimer Aphorite Paint	$15
Reclaimer Dolivine Paint	$15
Reclaimer Hadanite Paint	$15
ROC Aphorite Paint	$7
ROC Dolivine Paint	$7
ROC Hadanite Paint	$7
Scorpius - Stinger Paint	$30
Scorpius - Tiburon Paint	$12
STV - Blue Steel Paint	$5
Talon - Cobalt Paint	$10
Talon - Crimson Paint	$10
Talon - Ocellus Paint	$10
Talon - Harmony Paint	$10
Talon - Paint Pack	$30
Valkyrie ILW 2950 Paint Pack	$40
Vanguard - Solar Winds Paint	$15
Zeus Mk II - Solstice Paint	$12

 

⚜️ ➤ SUBSCRIBERS EXCLUSIVE SETS:

Set	Includes	Price
Takuetsu Replica Figurines	6 exhibits	$35
Kastak Arms Custodian SMG CitizenCon 2947 Edition	1 item	$30
Atzkav "DEADEYE" Sniper rifle	1 item	$10
Yubarev "DEADEYE" Pistol	1 item	$10
WowBlast "Blue" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Orange" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Red" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
WowBlast "Teal" Desperado Toy Pistol	1 item	$8
Overlord Helmets DOUBLE TROUBLE	2 items	$7
Overlord Helmets FORCES OF NATURE	2 items	$7
Overlord Helmets SILENT STRIKE	2 items	$7
Overlord "Dust Storm" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Predator" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Riptide" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Stinger" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Supernova" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Overlord "Switchback" Armor Set	3 items	$9
Caudillo Helmets Pack 1	2 items	$8
Caudillo Helmets Pack 2	2 items	$8
Caudillo Helmets Pack 3	2 items	$8
NIGHTFIRE - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
SINGULARITY - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
ICEBORN - Paladin Helmet	1 item	$6
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – ORANGE	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – LIME	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – BLUEBERRY	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – GRAPE	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Helmet – GUAVA	1 item	$8
Fieldsbury Dark Bear Sinister SIX-PACK	6 items	$26
Giocoso Helmet - Azure	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Ivory	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Obsidian	1 item	$7
Giocoso Helmet - Triple Pack	1 item	$15
Sawtooth "Sirocco" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Sawtooth "Squall" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Sawtooth "Bloodstone" Combat Knife	1 item	$5
Pyro RYT "Ghost" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
Pyro RYT "Mirage" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
Pyro RYT "Bloodline" Multi-Tool	1 item	$6
GP-33 Mod "ASHFALL" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
GP-33 Mod "COPPERHEAD" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
GP-33 Mod "THUNDERCLAP" Grenade Launcher	1 item	$9
Aves Armor & Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Aves Talon Shrike Armor and Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Aves Talon Armor and Helmet Set	4 items	$16
Neoni "Jami" Helmet	1 item	$7
Neoni "Onna" Helmet	1 item	$7
Neoni "Tengubi" Helmet	1 item	$7
Star Kitten Set	4 items	$14
Star Kittyen "SALLY" Set	4 items	$14
Star Kittyen "DAMON" Set	4 items	$14
Pembroke RSI Sunburst Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Pembroke RSI Ivory Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Pembroke RSI Graphite Exploration Armor	3 items	$15
Morozov Aftershock Armor	5 items	$15
Morozov Terracotta Armor	5 items	$15
Morozov Thule Armor	5 items	$15
Sakura Fun Green ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Sakura Fun Blue ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Sakura Fun White ORC-mkX Armor Bobblehead	1 item	$7
Zeus Exploration Suit	3 items	$15
Zeus Exploration Suit Solar	3 items	$15
Zeus Exploration Suit Starscape	3 items	$15
Xanthule Flight Suit	2 items	$13
Xanthule Sehya Flight Suit	2 items	$13
Xanthule Tahn Flight Suit	2 items	$13
CSP-68L Backpack Night Camo	1 item	$6
CSP-68L Backpack Cayman	1 item	$6
CSP-68L Backpack Forest Camo	1 item	$6
CitizenCon 2951 Digital Goodies	7 items	$10
CitizenCon 2951 Trophy	7 items	$10

 

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SHIP	TARGET SHIP	<	Upgrade from	Price
400I
	400I	<	CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA	$15
600I EXPLORER
	600I EXPLORER	<	PROWLER	$70
ARGO MOLE
	ARGO MOLE	<	CONSTELLATION AQUILA	$7
	ARGO MOLE	<	MERCURY STAR RUNNER	$59
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD WARDEN	$59
	ARGO MOLE	<	RETALIATOR BOMBER	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD SENTINEL	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	APOLLO MEDIVAC	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	ESPERIA VANDUUL BLADE	$43
	ARGO MOLE	<	VANGUARD HARBINGER	$27
	ARGO MOLE	<	REDEEMER	$70
	ARGO MOLE	<	HULL C	$70
	ARGO MOLE	<	APOLLO TRIAGE	$70
ARROW
	ARROW	<	AURORA MR	$50
	ARROW	<	MUSTANG ALPHA	$50
	ARROW	<	C8X PISCES EXPEDITION	$35
	ARROW	<	100i	$30
	ARROW	<	AVENGER TITAN	$25
	ARROW	<	RELIANT KORE	$15
CATERPILLAR BEST IN SHOW EDITION
	CATERPILLAR BISE	<	VANGUARD HARBINGER	$100
CORSAIR
	CORSAIR	<	TAURUS	$60
CRUCIBLE
	CRUCIBLE	<	STARFARER GEMINI	$21
CUTLASS BLACK BEST IN SHOW EDITION
	CUTLASS BLACK BISE	<	GLADIUS	$70
CUTLASS RED Subscriber
	CUTLASS RED Subscriber	<	F7C-S HORNET GHOST	$25
CUTLASS BLUE
	CUTLASS BLUE	<	PROSPECTOR	$30
DEFENDER
	DEFENDER	<	CORSAIR	$15
	DEFENDER	<	HORNET F7C-M HEARTSEEKER	$37
GLADIUS
	GLADIUS	<	AURORA MR	$65
	GLADIUS	<	MUSTANG ALPHA	$65
	GLADIUS	<	C8X PISCES EXPEDITION	$50
	GLADIUS	<	100i	$45
	GLADIUS	<	AVENGER TITAN	$40
	GLADIUS	<	RELIANT KORE	$30
	GLADIUS	<	ARROW	$20
HAMMERHEAD
	HAMMERHEAD	<	CARRACK	$150
	HAMMERHEAD	<	CARRACK EXPEDITION W/C8X	$100
HULL C
	HULL C	<	CATERPILLAR	$175
MERCHANTMAN
	MERCHANTMAN	<	STARFARER GEMINI	$300
	MERCHANTMAN	<	ARGO MOLE	$345
NAUTILUS
	NAUTILUS	<	CARRACK	$175
PERSEUS
	PERSEUS	<	CARRACK Expedition W/C8X	$40
	PERSEUS	<	CARRACK	$90
	PERSEUS	<	ORION	$115
	PERSEUS	<	600I EXPLORER	$220
	PERSEUS	<	MERCHANTMAN	$248
	PERSEUS	<	ARGO MOLE	$380
	PERSEUS	<	ANDROMEDA	$485
POLARIS
	POLARIS	<	PERSEUS	$70
	POLARIS	<	HAMMERHEAD	$70
	POLARIS	<	NAUTILUS	$60
	POLARIS	<	CARRACK	$250
RECLAIMER BIS 2949
	RECLAIMER BIS 2949	<	VALKYRIE	$300
SAN'TOK.YĀI
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⛵CLICK HERE TO PLACE AN ORDER ⛵

This is the second half of my list for Oklahoma's execution roster. As mentioned in the first part, I broke it in half to comply with reddit's character limitations. For the link to part 1, please click here.
The currently executed 124 offenders, cases 63-124:
63. Robert Knighton (~1960s-2003, lethal injection): In 1973, after being released from a 1968 armed robbery conviction, Knighton went on his first major crime spree. He stabbed and strangled several men and women during many robberies and home invasions. The only victim that was killed, 32 year old Coffier Day, was shot dead while Knighton was arguing with him in his home. Coffier's father, 53 year old Claude, was also injured in the shooting. Knighton's first crime spree ended when he kidnapped a married couple and their 6 year old daughter. They escaped when the wife and mother of the family attacked Knighton with a knife to protect her husband and daughter. The family then notified the police of their abduction. Knighton managed to secure a 30 year manslaughter conviction and a 10 year armed robbery conviction with a plea deal, and was released to a halfway house in 1989. There, he began dating a female addict and befriended a teenage boy. The trio embarked on a nationwide robbery spree together. In Missouri, they shot and killed 59 year old Frank Merrifield and his 40 year old stepson Roy Donahue while robbing their home, and stole guns and money from them. In Oklahoma, the trio fatally shot a couple, 64 year old Virginia and 62 year old Richard Denney, while carjacking them. Their rampage ended when a woman in Texas grow suspicious of them circling a neighborhood. Knighton had a long history of theft convictions dating back to his childhood, and joined the Aryan Brotherhood in prison. Behind bars, he frequently attacked black and Native American inmates out of racial hatred for them.
64. Kenneth Charm (1993-2003, lethal injection): Charm and his teenage cousin lured a family friend, 14 year old Brandy Hill, into their car. They raped Hill and tried strangling her with a towel. When that failed, the cousins bludgeoned her to death with a sledgehammer.
65. Lewis Gilbert II (1994-2003, lethal injection): Gilbert and his teenage accomplice committed at least 4 robbery murders in Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma, but he was executed for the killing of 37 year old Roxanne Ruddell. They ambushed and kidnapped Ruddell while she was fishing alone. She was robbed of $3 and her truck, tied to a tree, and shot to death. The pair also fatally shot Ruth Loader, a 79 year old Ohioan woman, while abducting her from her residence, and gunned down a Missouri couple, 86 year old William and 76 year old Flossie Brewer, in their home. Gilbert was also sentenced to death for the Brewer murders by the state of Missouri, but was incarcerated in Oklahoma State Penitentiary’s death row.
66. Robert Duckett (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): After breaking out of prison, Duckett was picked up hitchhiking by John Howard, a 53 year old store owner. Howard agreed to let Duckett stay with him until he could find a job. The pair soon had a failing out, and Duckett was evicted by his host. He retaliated by tying Howard up with wire and then beating him to death with a fireplace poker. Duckett made off with his car after he switched the license plates, and took several bank bags from his store. He had a long violent criminal history, which included several incidents of assault and robbery. One of the incidents involved the beating of an 83 year old man. Allegedly, Duckett was previously gang-raped by other inmates, and suffered from PTSD from the incident. His attorneys claimed that Howard’s sexual advances trigged those memories, and he was killed as a result of Duckett lashing out at them. However, the prosecution shot the argument down, citing that the murder happened after Duckett was evicted from the apartment.
67. Bryan Toles (1993-2003, lethal injection): Toles and his two accomplices forced themselves into the home of the Franceschi family, and shot and killed the family patriarch, 39 year old Juan, in a struggle. Juan's son, 15 year old Lonnie, was also murdered "execution style" out of fear that he could identify Toles and his accomplices. The only survivor of the attack was Norma, Juan's wife and Lonnie's mother, who escaped by hiding in her older daughter's bedroom.
68. Jackie Willingham (1994-2003, lethal injection): Willingham was a door to door salesman selling perfume in an office building. One women, 62 year old Jayne Van Wey, he tried to solicit rejected him despite his repeated offers. Angered by her "rude behavior", Willingham attacked Van Wey when they had a chance encounter near the building's restroom. He dragged Van Wey out of a stall after following her inside, slammed her head against the bathroom wall several times, and kicked her head. Reportedly, Van Wey choked to death on her own blood.
69. Harold McElmurry III (1999-2003, lethal injection): While under the influence of meth, McElmurry and his wife Vicki broke into a home that a WW2 veteran, 80 year old Robert Pendley, shared with his wife, 75 year old Rosa. Robert and Rosa were both quickly subdued and physically restrained by the couple. McElmurry clubbed Robert to death with a pipe in front of Rosa, who was forced to watch by Vicki. Vicki then held Rosa down as McElmurry stabbed her several times with scissors. After killing the Pendleys, the McElmurrys fled with $70 in cash, a pair of guns, and the victims' car. A few days after the murders, they were captured by border agents while trying to cross into Mexico.
70. Tyrone Darks (~1990s-2004, lethal injection): Darks rammed his ex wife, 26 year old Sherry Goodlow, off the road as she was driving with their 2 year old son. After Goodlow crashed, Darks pulled their son out of the wreckage, shot her to death, and then drove away with him. Just before she succumbed to her injuries, Goodlow managed to call and notify the police about her son’s abduction. The police confronted and arrested Darks at his home, and they found the boy unharmed in their search. Darks and Goodlow’s former marriage was marred with violence, and he was arrested on numerous occasions for assaulting her. On death row, Darks was involved in a scheme to defraud a foundation for 9/11 survivors.
71. Norman Cleary (~1980s-2004, lethal injection): While burglarizing an upper class home with an accomplice, Cleary shot and killed a housekeeper, 44 year old Wanda Neafus, and took her purse and a cane that her employers purchased from the Smithsonian Institution. Cleary had a long criminal history and was previously convicted of beating an 87 year old woman in her home.
72. David Brown (~1983-2004, lethal injection): For several years, Brown violently harassed his ex wife and her family. In one incident, Brown abducted his ex wife and 11 of her customers from a beauty saloon she owned, and held them hostage until he surrendered to police. He was able to leave custody on bond and went into hiding. A few years after the hostage crisis incident, Brown broke into his ex wife's family home and gunned down her father, 47 year old Eldon McGuire.
73. Hung Thanh Le (1992-2004, lethal injection): Le crept into the apartment of another Vietnamese refugee, 34 year old Hai Nguyen, and found him watching TV on the couch. He struck Nguyen from behind with a weightlifting bar, and continued stabbing him with a meat cleaver when he screamed his wife for help. Nguyen's wife phoned the police, and Le fled with the couple's safety deposit box that contained $36,000 and their wedding ring.
74. Robert Bryan (1993-2004, lethal injection): Bryan shot and killed his estranged aunt, 69 year old Mildred, dumped her body on his parents' property, and forged a $1,800 check to himself under her name.
75. Windel Workman (~1980s(?)-2004, lethal injection): Workman beat his girlfriend's daughter, 2 year old Amanda Holman, to death while babysitting her in their home. His ex wives reported that he had a history of child abuse and often violently spanked their children during their marriages.
76. Jimmie Slaughter (1991-2005, lethal injection): Fearing that she was going to tell his wife of their affair, Slaughter stabbed and shot his ex girlfriend, 29 year old Melody Wuertz, and their daughter, 1 year old Jessica. According to court documents, Slaughter mutilated both of their bodies, and he carved an "R" on Melody's stomach. He tried pinning the murders on a black man, but the investigators and the courts dismissed his allegations.
77. George Miller Jr. (1994-2005, lethal injection): During the robbery of a hotel, Miller attacked the auditor, 25 year old Kent Dodd, with a hedge shear and paint cans, and took $122 from the register. Dodd was severely beaten, had muriatic acid shoved down his throat, and was left to die. Just before he died of his injuries, Dodd gave a description of his attacker to the police that matched Miller. A massive amount of circumstantial evidence, such as wearing shoes that resembled the bloodstained footprints next to Dodd's body, a microscopic drop of blood found on his shoes that was tentatively linked to Dodd, his wife's testimony of his unaccounted absence from their home during the murder, and what appeared to be Dodd writing Miller's alias that he knew him by in his own blood, convicted him. Miller’s friends also reported that he was broke and begging them for money a day before the murder, and his wife mentioned him giving her the same amount of money that was stolen from the robbery a day after it happened.
78. Michael Pennington (1991-2005, lethal injection): Pennington shot and killed a clerk, 20 year old Bradley Grooms, while trying to rob a 7-eleven grocery store. He left empty handed when the register failed to open.
79. Kenneth Turrentine (1994-2005, lethal injection): Under the belief that they were stealing money from him for drugs, Turrentine shot and killed his sister, 48 year old Avon Stevenson, and his girlfriend, 39 year old Anita Richardson, during confrontations in their homes. He also gunned down Anita's two children, 22 year old Tina Pennington and 13 year old Martise.
80. Richard Thornburg Jr. (1996-2006, lethal injection): A month after he was shot by an unknown assailant, Thornburg and his accomplices sought revenge by abducting 5 men that he thought was responsible from a trailer. Three of the hostages, 51 year old James Poteet, 39 year old Tery Sheppard, and 24 year old Kieth Smith, were gunned down on the spot, and Thornberg forced the fourth to shoot the fifth with the threat of killing him if he didn’t comply. They then burned down the trailer with the wounded fifth victim still trapped inside, but he managed to escape with his life. Despite being forced to put all the blame on himself in exchange for being spared, the fourth hostage still went forward to the police.
81. John Boltz (1984-2006, lethal injection): To spite his estranged wife following an argument, Boltz attacked her son, 23 year old Doug Kirby, with a knife. Kirby was stabbed a total of 11 times, and he received several fatal wounds to his chest, stomach, and neck.
82. Eric Patton (1994-2006, lethal injection): Patton forced his way into the home of 56 year old Charlene Kauer after she refused his pleading for money. After dragging her around the house as he searched for valuables, Patton stabbed Kauer several times with many different blades objects at hand such as scissors, barbecue forks, and kitchen knifes. Although he confessed to the murder, Patton blamed it on alleged demonic possession and his cocaine addiction.
83. James Malicoat (1997-2006, lethal injection): Malicoat slammed Tessa Leadford, his 13 month old daughter, against a dresser. After she died from the beating, he tucked her into bed, and waited until his daughter's mother returned from work to take her to the hospital. The doctors found that Leadford had been dead for several hours at the time of her arrival, and discovered several injuries such as broken ribs, bite marks, abdominal bleeding, and facial bruising on her body. By his own account, he had abused Leadford on a daily basis. For her role in enabling her boyfriend's treatment of their daughter, Leadford's mother was convicted of first degree murder and given a life sentence.
84. Corey Hamilton (1992-2007, lethal injection): During the robbery of a restaurant, Hamilton shot and killed 4 employees, 26 year old Sandy Lara, 24 year old Stephen Williams, 19 year old Ted Kindley, and 17 year old Joseph Gooch, and made off with $2,000.
85. Jimmy Bland (~1975-2007, lethal injection): Bland shot his boss, 62 year old Doyle Rains, in the head over an argument regarding a borrowed car and dumped the body in a creek. He was previously convicted of killing a soldier, Raymond Prentice (age unknown), and abducting the man's wife and son at the age of 19. Bland served a 20 out of 60 year sentence, and murdered Rains a year after he was released.
86. Frank Welch (~1987-2008, lethal injection): In 1987, Welch attacked 28 year old Jo Cooper, who was 4 months pregnant with her second child, in her home. She was tied up with leather straps, raped and violated with plastic toys, and strangled to death. Cooper’s body was found laying near her infant son by her husband. Another woman, 32 year old Debra Stevens, was also bound, raped, and strangled to death in her home in a near identical fashion a few months later. Although both murders went unsolved for several years, Welch abducted and raped a woman in 1994, and he received a 45 year sentence for it. His DNA samples was collected and filed after his abduction conviction, and linked to both Cooper and Stevens’ murders in a 1997 test.
87. Terry Short (1995-2008, lethal injection): In an attempt to kill his ex girlfriend, Short blew up her apartment complex with a firebomb. She and her family managed to escape, but the blast killed Ken Yamamoto, a 22 year old Japanese exchange student. Yamamoto had no connections to the targeted ex girlfriend's family beyond him having the misfortune of residing in the same apartment.
88. Jessie Cummings Jr. (1991-2009, lethal injection): Cummings was a polygamist that had married and lived with two wives. Under his orders, Cummings’ wives shot and killed his estranged half sister, 46 year old Judy Mayo, and kidnapped her daughter, 11 year old Melissa. He bound his niece to his bed with handcuffs to be raped, and stabbed her to death.
89. Darwin Brown (1995-2009, lethal injection): While robbing a grocery store with three accomplices (including Billy Alverson and Michael Wilson), Brown tied up the clerk, 30 year old Richard Yost, with handcuffs, and then bludgeoned him death with a metal baseball bat. The killing was caught by security cameras, and the footage was used by the prosecution to secure the convictions of Brown and his accomplices.
90. Donald Gilson (1995-2009, lethal injection): Gilson routinely physically abused his live in girlfriend's 5 children (who were all between the ages of 8 and 12 years old). The youngest, 8 year old Shane Coffman, was beaten to death with a board for defecating on the living room carpet. He and his girlfriend then hid the body by stuffing it in a freezer. The body was kept inside it for 6 months until it was discovered by a sheriff's deputy investigating the family's abuse allegations. Gilson's girlfriend was spared the death penalty with a plea deal, and given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for her part in her son's abuse and murder.
91. Michael DeLozier (1995-2009, lethal injection): While camping with his friends, DeLozier ambushed another pair of campers, 60 year old Orville Bullard and 54 year old Paul Morgan, and shot them to death. They stole Morgan and Bullard's generator, pick up truck, and other camping gear. To cover up their tracks, DeLozier and his friends set their victims' campsite on fire, and severely burned the bodies.
92. Julius Young (1993-2010, lethal injection): For breaking off their relationship, Young beat his ex girlfriend, 20 year old Joyland Morgan and her 6 year old son Kewan, to death with a baseball bat in their apartment.
93. Donald Wackerly II (1996-2010, lethal injection): Wackerly and his wife ambushed and gunned down Pan Sayakhoummane, a 51 year old Laotian immigrant, while he was fishing in the Arkansas River. After he placed Sayakhoummane's body in the man’s own truck, he pushed into a river, and stole his fishing gear. A few months after the murder, Wackerly’s wife turned him in to the police.
94. John Duty (~1970s-2010, lethal injection): Duty was given a life sentence for abducting, raping, and non fatally shooting a female store clerk during a robbery. While incarcerated, he tricked a fellow inmate, 22 year old Curtis Wise Jr. into allowing himself to be tied up as a part of a hostage ruse, and then strangled him to death with shoelaces. At the time of his murder, Wise was serving a conviction for burglary and contributing to the delinquency of minors. Duty's execution caused some controversy for the use of pentobarbital, a drug more commonly utilized by veterinarians to euthanize pets.
95. Billy Alverson (1995-2011, lethal injection): Alverson assisted the above mentioned Darwin Brown and Micheal Wilson in the beating death of Richard Yost while robbing a convenience store.
96. Jeffrey Matthews (1994-2011, lethal injection): Matthews and his accomplice shot and killed his great uncle, 77 year old Otis Short, while robbing the man's home. In the robbery, they stole Short's truck, his .32 calibre pistol, and $500. The pair also slit the throat of Short's wife, but she survived her injuries.
97. Gary Welch (~1993-2011, lethal injection): During a fight over a drug shipment, Welch and his partner stabbed another dealer, 32 year old Robert Hardcastle, to death with broken glass bottles. He was previously convicted of battery with a deadly weapon, and was off on probation at the time of Hardcastle's murder.
98. Timothy Stemple (1996-2012, lethal injection): Stemple conspired with his girlfriend to murder his wife, 30 year old Trisha, for her life insurance policy. With the help of his girlfriend's 16 year old nephew or cousin [sources vary], Stemple beat Trisha with a baseball bat, and rammed her to death with his truck.
99. Michael Selsor (~1975-2012, lethal injection): Selsor and his accomplice went on a crime spree and robbed several convenience stores. During their robberies, the pair shot and killed two clerks, 55 year old Clayton Chandler and 20 year old Ina Morris, and injured two others in shooting and stabbing attacks.
100. Michael Hooper (~1992-2012, lethal injection): Hooper kidnapped his ex girlfriend, 23 year old Cynthia Jarman, and her children, 5 year old Timothy and 3 year old Tonya, from her boyfriend's residence. He shot all three of them dead, and buried the bodies in a rancher's field. According to court documents, Hooper was hyper-violent towards Cynthia in their year long relationship.
101. Garry Allen (1986-2012, lethal injection): Allen shot and killed his fiancee, 24 year old Lawanna Titsworth, during an argument at a day care she worked at. He fought with the responding officers trying to arrest him in an attempt to provoke a "suicide by cop" outcome. Despite the officers' best efforts to avoid harming him, Allen lost his eye from an accidental discharge. Due to claims of him having schizophrenia, Allen's execution was a source of controversy.
102. George Ochoa (~1993-2012, lethal injection): A Southside Locos gang member, Ochoa and another hoodlum shot and killed a couple, 38 year old Francisco Morales and 35 year old Maria Yanez, while burglarizing their home. The murders were witnessed by the couple's 14 year old and 10 year old children and stepchildren, who then phoned the police after the shooters' departure.
103. Steven Thacker (~1980s-2012, lethal injection): Thacker kidnapped 25 year old Laci Hill during a botched robbery of her home, and took her to a remote cabin to be raped. She was then strangled and stabbed to death. He fled to Missouri, fatally stabbed 24 year old Forrest Boyd while carjacking him, and used his car to hide out in Tennessee. After the stolen car broke down, Thacker called a tow truck to pick him up. When the driver, 52 year old Ray Patterson, found that he was using a stolen credit card, Thacker stabbed him to death as well. As a teenager, Thacker committed several acts of auto thefts and burglaries. He also engaged in inappropriate relationships with underaged girls, and was released from a Florida prison after serving time for a bad check conviction months before his murders.
104. James DeRosa (2000-2013, lethal injection): DeRosa and his accomplice tricked a couple, 73 year old Curtis and 70 year old Gloria Plummer, that he worked for on their ranch, into letting them inside their house. After they stabbed the Plummers and slit their throats, DeRosa and his accomplice stole $73 and drove away with their truck.
105. Brian Davis (2001-2013, lethal injection): Davis went searching for his girlfriend and their daughter when he found them missing from their home, and called his girlfriend's mother, 56 year old Josephine Sanford, about their whereabouts. Sanford dropped by the couple's residence after failing to find her daughter and granddaughter. At her arrival, she was raped, beaten, and stabbed to death by Davis. He then left the body in the house, drove off with Sanford’s van, and injured himself in a car accident. As Davis was high while driving, he was arrested for being under the influence. The detaining officers weren’t aware of the murder until Davis’ girlfriend returned to the home later that night, and called 911 after finding her mother’s corpse.
106. Anthony Banks (~1978-2013, lethal injection): In 1978, while robbing a grocery store, Banks shot and killed a clerk, 22 year old David Fremin. A year later, he abducted Sun Travis, a 24 year old South Korean immigrant, from a parking lot. He then sexually assaulted Travis in his car and shot her in the head. Although he was captured and convicted for Fremin's murder, Travis' killing went unsolved until a 1997 DNA test. Banks was originally sentenced to death for Fremin's murder, but it was lifted in favor of a life sentence. He was condemned for a second time after his conviction for Travis' murder.
107. Ronald Lott (~1980s-2013, lethal injection): A sexual predator of elderly women, Lott broke into the homes of 93 year old Zelma Cutler and 83 year old Anna Fowler after cutting off their power. They were tied up with cloth, anally penetrated, beaten, and suffocated to death with pillowcases. The case attracted controversy when another man was erroneously condemned for the murders, and he spent 11 years on death row until a 1997 DNA test linked the murders to Lott. At the time of the discovery, Lott was serving time for two rape convictions.
108. Johnny Black (~1984-2013, lethal injection): Black, two of his brothers, and two other men went looking for a man they feuded with for a fight. While they were crusing on the road, the group encountered a rancher, 54 year old Bill Pogue, and mistook him for their target due to them driving similar vehicles. They forced Poque off the road, pulled him out of his car, and stabbed him a total of 10 times. Pogue's son in law was also dragged out and attacked, but he managed to escape with his life. Black was previously convicted of manslaughter for shooting 49 year old Cecil Martin dead in an argument.
109. Michael Wilson (1995-2014, lethal injection): Wilson was the third participant in the above mentioned beating death of Richard Yost to be executed.
110. Kenneth Hogan (1988-2014, lethal injection): Hogan stabbed 21 year old Lisa Stanley to death while she was babysitting his children. According to autopsy reports, she was stabbed at least 25 times. Stanley had previously accused him of sexual misconduct, and prosecutors believed that she was killed during an argument over the allegations.
111. Clayton Lockett (~1992-2014, lethal injection): Lockett, his cousin, and another accomplice kidnapped 23 year old Bobby Bornt, 18 year old Summer Hair, and Bornt's 9 month son after burglarizing a home. After tying them up with duct tape, they forced their captives to lure a friend, 19 year old Stephanie Neiman, with a phone call. Neiman was also bound and initially survived getting shot multiple times. Out of frustration, Lockett buried her alive, and she succumbed to a combination of suffocation and her injuries. Lockett and his accomplices also gang-raped Hair and beat Bornt, but spared them on the forced condition of their silence. His execution was controversial, as Lockett convulsed for 45 minutes after being injected, and then died from a heart attack. He also had a long criminal history, and was first arrested for burglary as a teenager.
112. Charles Warner (1997-2015, lethal injection): Warner raped his girlfriend's daughter, 11 month old Adriana Waller, and shook her to death. His execution sparked outcry, as the wrong fatal drug was administered by mistake, and Warner complained of "burning pain" as he was being injected. With the botched executions of Lockett and Warner back to back, the state of Oklahoma delayed further executions until 2021.
113. John Grant (~1970s-2021, lethal injection): While serving a 130 year sentence for armed robbery, Grant stabbed a prison cafeteria worker, 58 year old Gay Carter, to death. He had a long criminal history dating back to the ag e of 11, had several previous convictions of theft and armed robbery, and frequently fought with and assaulted other inmates behind bars. Due to reports of "adverse reactions" to the lethal drugs, Grant's execution was scrutinized by a number of national media outlets.
114. Bigler Stouffer II (1985-2021, lethal injection): Stouffer shot and killed his ex girlfriend, 35 year old Linda Reaves, in her boyfriend's home for breaking up with him. Reaves' boyfriend was also seriously injured in the shooting.
115. Donald Grant (2001-2022, lethal injection): During a robbery of a hotel, Grant fatally shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned two employees, 43 year old Felicia Smith and 29 year old Brenda McElyea, and ran off with $1,500. He spent $200 of the stolen on paying for his girlfriend's bail.
116. Gilbert Postelle (~1998-2022, lethal injection): Postelle’s father was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, and they suspected that 57 year old James Anderson, 56 year old Terry Smith, 49 year old Donnie Swindler, and 26 year old Amy Wright were deliberately involved. Out a desire for vengeance, he recruited Postelle, his other son, and another man to kill them. All four victims were fatally gunned down in what was described as a “blitz attack” on their trailer. He was an addict and had several arrests for drug possession and manufacturing dating back to the age of 12.
117. James Coddington (1997-2022, lethal injection): After robbing a grocery store, Coddington went to the home of a friend and co worker, 73 year old Albert Hale, to ask for money. When Hale turned him down, Coddington retaliated by beating him with a claw hammer. Coddington stole $525 and went on to rob 5 more grocery stores. Hale was left alone with his injures for nearly an entire day until he was discovered by his son, and died in the hospital a day later.
118. Benjamin Cole Sr. (2002-2022, lethal injection): Out of anger that her crying interrupted his Nintendo game, Cole beat his daughter from his second wife, 9 month old Brianna, to death. He was previously convicted of abusing his son from a different marriage in California.
119. Richard Fairchild (1996-2023, lethal injection): Fairchild got into a fight with his girlfriend’s 17 year old daughter after making drunken sexual passes at her, and was enraged that she left with a cab driver. He took his anger out on the girl’s younger brother, 3 year old Adam Broomhall, and scalded him with a wall heater. He then repeatedly hit the boy, threw him against a table, and fatally hemorrhaged his head. Bromhall received over 26 blows during the beating.
120. Scott Eizember (2003-2023, lethal injection): Eizember snuck into his ex girlfriend's house to lie in wait for her. However, her roommates, 76 year old A.J. Cantrell and his 70 year old wife Patsy, arrived home earlier then she did. He shot and beat them both to death and then fled the scene.
121. Jemaine Cannon (1995-2023, lethal injection): Cannon was put in prison for assaulting an unidentified woman. He managed to escape and stabbed his girlfriend, 20 year old Sharonda Clark, to death in her apartment.
122. Anthony Sanchez (1996-2023, lethal injection): Sanchez kidnapped 21 year old Jewell Busken from her apartment complex, and then raped and shot her to death. He amassed a following from the anti death penalty movement for claiming that his father was responsible, but such notions were debunked following a 2023 DNA test that concluded Sanchez’s guilt.
123. Phillip Hancock (~1982-2023, lethal injection): In 1982, Hancock shot a drug dealer, 27 year old Charles Warren, dead in a dispute over stolen jewelry and was given a manslaughter conviction for it. He was released after serving a 2 year term. About 17 years later, he shot and killed 58 year old James Lynch III and 37 year old Robert Jett Jr. in a drug house. Despite an eyewitness account describing Lynch and Jett begging for their lives, the case attracted scrutiny when Hancock's attorneys claimed that the shootings were done in self defense.
124. Michael Smith (~2002-2024, lethal injection): A member of the Oak Grove Posse gang, Smith was responsible for two separate fatal shootings on the same day. In one of his murders, he killed Sharath Pulluru, a 24 year old Indian immigrant that worked as a clerk, while robbing a gas station. The other murder occurred when he tried to confront a gang member that he thought was a police informant in his apartment, and gunned down the target’s mother, 40 year old Janet Miller-Moore, when she refused to give away her son’s location. Smith was also given a life sentence for delivering a gun to a shooter that carried out another gang killing.

This is the list that I wrote for Oklahoma's execution roster since the nationwide reinstatement of capital punishment in the late 1970s. Something that should be mentioned is that given the nature of many death penalty related crimes, many of the descriptions contain very disturbing details. Please read at your own risk.
Florida's list is next, and I'll post my list for Texas once I've completed it. With Texas, I've currently finished 464 entries out of the 587 cases to date. That will probably take 7 or 8 posts for it all to be released, so I'll probably do two posts a day with Texas to avoid spamming the sub. At the end of this year, I'll repost the states that have conducted further executions with the updated information.
As with Missouri and Virginia, Reddit's maximum character count limitations forced me to divide Oklahoma's list into two separate parts. Here is the link to part 2.
The currently 124 executed offenders, cases 1 to 62:
1. Charles Coleman (~1950s-1990, lethal injection): A month after he was released on parole in 1979, Coleman broke into a house. While sacking it for any valuables, the homeowner’s brother and sister in law, 68 year old John and 62 year old Roxie Seward, walked in on him and were both shot dead. Coleman stole Roxie’s purse, several packets of frozen meat, and the homeowner’s watch during the burglary, and was arrested shortly afterwards. However, Coleman managed to escape custody, and went on a rampage that involved several burglaries, auto thefts, slitting the throat of a policeman in a failed murder attempt, the shooting death of 49 year old Russell Lewis Jr. in a carjacking, and the abduction of a deputy. The kidnapped deputy was rescued following an armed standoff with other police officers. Coleman had an extensive history of animal cruelty, armed robberies, assaults, and carrying concealed weapons convictions dating back to when he was 11 years old. He was also heavily suspected in the murder of his teenage girlfriend’s father, but was acquitted by the courts despite the prosecution’s strong belief in his guilt.
2. Robyn Parks (1977-1992, lethal injection): During a gas station robbery, Parks shot and killed Abdullah Ibrahim, a 24 year old Bangladeshi immigrant that worked as the attendant. According to Parks, he murdered Ibrahim for catching him using a stolen credit card.
3. Olan Randle (1980-1992, lethal injection): Randle invaded a home and shot the occupants, 41 year old Robert Swinford, Sinford's fiance 42 year old Averil Bourque, and Bourque's friend 38 year old Julia Lovejoy, dead. He took a pocket knife and several watches from the victims.
4. Thomas Grasso (~1970s(?)-1995, lethal injection): While living in Oklahoma, Grasso strangled 87 year old Hilda Johnson, the best friend of his girlfriend's grandmother, to death with her Christmas lights. He took $8 from her purse, several coins that added up to $4, and a television set that he sold for $125. Grasso then moved to New York, and strangled 81 year old Leslie Holtz for his social security check. The trialing arrangements caused some controversy, as the New York governors at the time were anti death penalty, and tried to prevent Grasso's extradition in favor of giving him a life sentence in their jurisdiction. Grasso had several previous convictions for theft and was fired multiple times for stealing from his jobs.
5. Roger Stafford (~1974(?)-1995, lethal injection): Stafford was condemned for killing at least 9 people in two separate robbery incidents with his brother and ex wife, though his ex wife claimed that he was involved with as many as 34 murders nationwide. The first convicted incident was when he and the ex wife carjacked and fatally shot a couple, 38 year old Melvin and 31 year old Linda Lorenz, and their son, 12 year old Richard. A few weeks after the Lorenz murders, Stafford stormed a restaurant and gunned down 6 employees, 56 year old Isaac Freeman, 43 year old Louis Zacarias, 17 year old Anthony Tew, 17 year old David Lindsey, 16 year old David Salsman, and 15 year old Terri Horst. One of Stafford's additional attributed victims was 20 year old Jimmy Berry, who was killed in the hold up of an Alabaman McDonalds, but he wasn't charged by the state due to his death sentences in Oklahoma.
6. Robert Brecheen (1983-1995, lethal injection): Breechen was involved in a feud over money with 59 year old Mary Stubbs and her husband. In an attempt to take what he perceived was owed to him, Breechen carried out a night time burglary of their home. While rummaging through the house, Breechen stumbled upon old Marie in her living room and shot her to death. The gunshots and screams awoke her husband, and he chased him away with his own gun.
7. Benjamin Brewer (1978-1996, lethal injection): Brewer raped his neighbor, 20 year old Karen Stapleton, in her home and stabbed her to death
8. Steven Hatch (1979-1996, lethal injection): Hatch and another assailant, Glen Ake, forced themselves inside the home that Richard Dougass, a 43 year old reverend, shared with his wife, 36 year old Marilyn, and their two children, 16 year old Brooks and 12 year old Lesile. The pair tied up the family and raped Lesile in front of her parents and brother. All four family members were shot, and Hatch and Ake ran off with $43 and the parents’ wedding rings. Richard and Marilyn were both killed in the shootings, while their children survived the attack. Ake was also initially condemned for the attack, but his sentence was overturned and resentenced to life following mental health concerns, and passed away from undisclosed natural causes in 2011.
9. Scott Carpenter (1994-1997, lethal injection): In a convenience store robbery, Carpenter stabbed the owner, 56 year old A. J. Kelley, in the neck, and hid the body in the minnow room. He filled his truck with $37 worth of gas from the pumps and drove away from the scene. His execution caused some controversy, as it was reported that Carpenter gasped and spasmed for 11 minutes after being injected.
10. Michael Long (1997-1998, lethal injection): Enraged that his coworker, 24 year old Sheryl Graber, refused him sex and started screaming for help, he stabbed her over 31 times. Long also shot and killed her son, 5 year old Andrew, for being a witness.
11. Stephen Wood (1992-1998, lethal injection): While heavily intoxicated, Wood stabbed two other homeless men, 46 year old Charles Stephen and 34 year old Charles Von Johnson, dozens of times each. He was given a life sentence for both of their murders. During his incarceration, Robert Brigden, a 59 year old former minister that was serving a 40 year sentence for molesting several girls between the ages of 4-14 in his congregation, moved into his unit after refusing to go into protective custody. Woods killed Brigden in a stabbing attack, and his sentence was escalated to death by the courts for it.
12. Tuan Anh Nguyen (~1982-1998, lethal injection): By all accounts, Nguyen was jealously possessive over his wife, 21 year old Donna. During one of their arguments over his behavior, he stabbed Donna, her 6 year old nephew Joseph White, and her 3 year old niece Amanda White, in their home and left the bodies to be found by the children’s parents. He fled to Arizona, groomed a 14 year old girl into an illicit “relationship”, and impregnated her. After he convinced her to move in with him, Nguyen physically and sexually abused the girl until she fled and went to the local police for help. Nguyen was then deported back to Oklahoma to face trial for Donna and the White children’s slayings, and was sentenced to death for them.
13. John Duvall (1986-1998, lethal injection): During a fight with his wife, 30 year old Donna, Duvall stabbed and suffocated her to death with a pillow.
14. John Castro Sr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Castro carjacked Beulah Cox, a 31 year old Oklahoma State University student, after she picked him up hitchhiking and shot her to death. A few months later, Castro held up a restaurant with an empty pistol, and attacked the manger, 29 year old Rhonda Pappan, after forcing her to open the register. During their struggle, Pappan was fatally stabbed, and he took off with her purse. During his mid teens, Castro was allegedly molested by his mother. Castro's attorneys made the argument that his glimpses of Cox's buttocks reminded him of his mother's reported abuse, and he was triggered into attacking her for it.
15. Sean Sellers (1985-1999, lethal injection): In 1985, a then 15 year old Sellers tried to buy beer from a convenience store, but the clerk, 32 year old Robert Bower, denied him due to being underaged at the time. Sellers gunned him down in a fit of rage. A year later, Sellers shot and killed his mother, 32 year old Vonda Bellofatto, and stepfather, 43 year old Paul, in their sleep. Due to being 16 at the time of his conviction, Sellers remains the youngest condemned offender to have his sentence carried out in the post Furman era. He also attracted national media attention for claiming that his crimes were the result of demonic possession.
16. Scotty Moore (1983-1999, lethal injection): Moore was fired from a motel for undisclosed reasons. In retaliation, Moore and a cousin (whom he was dating at the time), assaulted the motel, and gunned down the desk clerk, 42 year old Alex Fernandez. According to court documents, the pair took a total of $97 in the robbery.
17. Norman Newsted (1984-1999, lethal injection): Newsted tricked Lawrence Buckley, a 26 year old cab driver, into picking him up. He shot Buckley dead and took his wallet. In an attempt to cover his tracks, Newsted placed the body inside the cab, and drove it into a creek near a local church. Despite his best efforts, Buckley’s cab and remains were discovered a day later by the church’s pastor.
18. Cornel Cooks (1982-1999, lethal injection): Cooks and his accomplice broke into the home of 87 year old Jennie Ridling. She was gagged, raped, and suffocated to death with gauze wrappings. According to autopsy reports, the pair abused her for over 2 hours. They then sacked the house for any valuables and left with her checkbook.
19. Bobby Ross (1983-1999, lethal injection): While robbing an inn, Ross fatally shot a police officer, 30 year old Steve Mahan, that tried to intervene.
20. Malcolm Johnson (~1970s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Johnson invaded the apartment of 76 year old Ura Thompson and sexually assaulted her. Thompson either died from having her chest compounded during the abuse or was suffocated by Johnson’s hands covering her nose. He seized several possessions such as furs, typewriters, purse, watch, rings, and a hand mirror, which were discovered by police in his residence during an unrelated investigation of a firearms possession charge. Johnson had an extensive criminal history, which included several convictions of rape, armed robberies, and burglaries. The case attracted controversy when it was discovered that the lead chemist in the investigation misconducted several of her other cases, and forged some of the evidence used in the trial. Despite the other overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Johnson’s supporters took the opportunity to push a narrative of his innocence.
21. Gary Walker (~1960s-2000, lethal injection): Walker abducted, raped, and murdered at least 5 women, 36 year old Margaret Lydick, 35 year old Jane Hilburn, 32 year old Janet Jewell, 25 year old Valerie Shaw-Hartzell, and 24 year old DeRonda Roy, and non fatally assaulted several other women and teenage girls. The victims were mostly strangled to death with their bras and panties. Some of them were forced to withdraw hundreds of dollars from ATMs before they were killed. He also strangled a man, 63 year old Eddie Cash, with an electrical cord while robbing his home. Walker had dozens of previous convictions for burglary, carjacking, drug possession, and carrying concealed weapons. Some of his earliest arrests occurred when he was a teenager.
22. Michael Roberts (~1988-2000, lethal injection): A career burglar, Roberts was condemned for murder of 80 year old Lula Brooks. She was raped and her throat was slit by an intruder in her home. Roberts' death sentence and execution has been contested, as he was convicted on his later recounted testimony alone. He claimed that the investigators tricked him into confessing with the promise of a plea deal that was allegedly withheld from him.
23. Kelly Rogers (1990-2000, lethal injection): Rogers’ girlfriend lured 21 year old Karen Lauffenburger into her apartment with a fake pizza order. They accosted her when she arrived with the delivery. After the couple forced Lauffenburger to hand to over the $40 she earned from the night's pizza deliveries and withdraw $175 from an ATM, Rogers raped and stabbed her to death. The body was left in Lauffenburger’s apartment and was found by her boyfriend.
24. Ronald Boyd (1986-2000, lethal injection): During a robbery spree of several gas stations and supermarkets, Boyd engaged in a shootout with the responding officers. A Master Patrolman, 32 year old Richard Riggs, was killed in the exchange.
25. Charles Foster (~1980s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Foster suspected a grocery store owner, 74 year old Claude Wiley, of making sexual advances at his wife. He arranged for her to entice Wiley to their home with an order. When he arrived with the delivery, Foster stabbed and bludgeoned him to death with a baseball bat. He a history of convictions involving threats and violence, though my sources didn’t disclose any specific details.
26. James Robedeaux (1978-2000, lethal injection): In 1978, Robedeaux strangled his first wife, 30 year old Linda, and plead guilty to a second degree murder charges. He was released after serving 6 out of a 25 year sentence despite an escape attempt. In the following year, he began a relationship with 37 year old Nancy McKinney while he married a different woman. During an argument, Robedeaux beat McKinney to death, dismembered her body with a saw and machete, and scattered the remains across the state. While being investigated for McKinney's murder, he was arrested for choking and beating his estranged second wife. The cases were incidental and kept separate by the courts.
27. Roger Berget (~1985-2000, lethal injection): Berget carjacked and abducted 33 year old Rick Patterson with an accomplice, and shot him dead. He also admitted to the beating death of a roommate, 40 year old James Meadows, on the behalf of the man's wife. As a trivial side note, Berget's brother Rodney was executed in 2018 by the state of South Dakota for killing a prison guard [for more information, please see Rodney Berget's entry under the South Dakota section of my states with less then 10 executions post].
28. William Bryson (1988-2000, lethal injection): To collect a $300,000 life insurance policy, Marilyn Plantz recruited her boyfriend Byrson and his friend to kill her husband, 33 year old James. Byrson and his friend ambushed Plantz in his house as he was coming home from work and beat him to death with a baseball bat. With the intentions of staging an accident, Marilyn ordered the pair to burn the body in the couple's pickup truck.
29. Gregg Braun (1989-2000, lethal injection): Across several states, Braun shot and killed 4 women, 48 year old Geraldine Valdez, 31 year old Gwendolyn Miller, 28 year old Mary Rains, 27 year old Barbara Kochendorfer, and one man, 54 year old Pete Spurrier, while robbing stores.
30. George Wallace (~1970s-2000, lethal injection): Known as "the Mad Paddler" due to his habit of spanking abducted preteen and teenage boys with a wooden paddle, Wallace kidnapped his victims by posing as a police officer. After duping his targets into thinking that they were being arrested, Wallace restrained them with handcuffs and leg chains. The captives were then sexually abused and shot or stabbed to death. His crimes were exposed when an 18 year old man he abducted escaped from him despite being shot and stabbed numerous times. By his own admission, Wallace murdered 18 year old Thomas Reed, 15 year old William Domer, 14 year old Mark McLaughlin, 14 year old Jeffrey Foster, and 12 year old Alonzo Cade.
31. Eddie Trice (1987-2001, lethal injection): Trice snuck into the home of 84 year old Ernestine Jones and raped her. After he beat Jones to death with numbchucks, he terrorized and extorted her cognitively disabled son of $500 with threats of killing him if he told anyone of the murder. The son was also assaulted with a hammer, and he received injuries to his right eye, right cheekbone, and his right forearm.
32. Wanda Allen (~1981-2001, lethal injection): In 1981, Allen got into a fight with her live in girlfriend, 21 year old Dedra Pettus, and shot her dead. Despite giving a bungled story about her being accidentally killed in a shootout with Pettus’ ex boyfriend to the investigators, Allen managed to secure a 4 year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to a plea deal, and was released after serving two years. While incarcerated, she started dating a fellow inmate, 29 year old Gloria Leathers, and continued their relationship outside of prison. The couple’s relationship was marred with extreme domestic violence on Allen’s end. In one incident, Allen struck Leathers with a rake. In 1989, while they were arguing in front of a shopping center, Allen shot and killed Leathers. Leathers herself also had history of violence, and had a conviction for stabbing a woman to death. Allen and her defense team tried to use Leathers’ previous convictions to make a self defense argument, but that was shot down by the courts.
33. Floyd Medlock (1990-2001, lethal injection): 7 year old Katherine Busch went to visit her family's old apartment, which Medlock was residing in, by herself. Busch knocked on the door and Medlock let her inside after she begged for food. He then choked and sexually assaulted the girl, dunked her head in a toilet bowl, and stabbed her to death. The body was hidden in a nearby dumpster. Busch's grandmothers were staunch pro capital punishment and anti death penalty activists respectively, and their public feud over Medlock's sentence and execution attracted some media attention. Medlock also had an extensive criminal history despite being only 19 at the time of Busch's murder, and was previously arrested several times for indecent exposure, arson, armed robbery, and marijuana possession.
34. Dion Smallwood (1992-2001, lethal injection): Smallwood walked into the home of his ex girlfriend's adoptive stepmother, 68 year old Lois Frederick, without invitation. He had a tumultuous and often violent relationship with her adopted stepdaughter that she strongly opposed, and they broke up under her pressure. After an argument, Smallwood knocked Frederick unconscious with a croquet mallet, locked her in a car, and burned her alive in it.
35. Mark Fowler (1985-2001, lethal injection): To get back at his ex employers for firing him, Fowler and his partner, Billy Fox, stormed a supermarket that he used to work out. The pair rounded up 3 employees, Chumpon Chaowasin, a 44 year old Thai immigrant, 33 year old Rick Cast, and 27 year old John Barrier, at gun point. Their hostages were shot, clubbed, and stabbed to death, and they took over $2,7000 in cash and checks.
36. Billy Fox (1985-2001, lethal injection): Fox assisted the above mentioned Mark Fowler in robbing a supermarket and murdering 3 of its employees
37. Loyd Lafevers (1985-2001, lethal injection): Lafevers and his accomplice, Randall Cannon, kidnapped 84 year old Addie Hawley from her home. She was raped, trapped in the trunk of a car, and burned alive in it. Although she was rescued, Hawley died from her injuries 6 hours later. The pair stole Hawley's wedding ring and Lafevers gifted it to a stripper. As Hawley's nephew was a Colorado state senator, her murder gained some attention from media outlets.
38. Dorsie Jones Jr. (1979-2001, lethal injection): While drinking at a bar, a barmaid chastised Jones for carrying an unconcealed gun. He shot at her in a fit of rage, but missed and injured his female companion instead. Jones then turned his attention to the other patrons and fired on them. 48 year old Stanley Buck Sr. was killed in front of his 19 year old son, who was also wounded in the shooting.
39. Robert Clayton (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Clayton attacked 19 year old Rhonda Timmons while she was sunbathing near her apartment. She was raped, stabbed, kicked in the head, and strangled to death with her swimming suit. Her husband found Timmons' body laying next to their infant daughter, who was left unharmed. Clayton had a previous rape conviction in Tennessee and a robbery conviction in Texas.
40. Ronald Fluke (1997-2001, lethal injection): Out of despair that his gambling addiction drove his family to near poverty, Fluke shot and killed his wife, 44 year old Ginger, and their daughters, 13 year old Kathryn and 11 year old Susanne, while they were sleeping in their bedrooms. He initially attacked Ginger with a hatchet, but turned to shooting when she fought back.
41. Marilyn Plantz (1988-2001, lethal injection): The married girlfriend of William Bryson. As mentioned under Bryson's entry, Plantz arranged for him and his friend to kill her husband James to collect his life insurance policy.
42. Terrance James (1983-2001, lethal injection): While awaiting trial for a theft of government property charge, James and two accomplices strangled a fellow inmate, 25 year old Mark Berry, with wire out of their suspicions of him being a snitch. They then hung the body in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Berry was another party in the theft of government property case, and James and his accomplices believed that it was his testimony that got them arrested.
43. Vincent Johnson (1991-2001, lethal injection): Johnson gunned down 44 year old Shirley Mooneyham in her home. The prosecution believed that Mooneyham's boyfriend arranged the killing to collect a life insurance policy, but he was acquitted at trial.
44. Jerald Harjo (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Harjo snuck into the bedroom of 64 year old Ruth Porter, raped her, and suffocated her with a pillowcase. He then snatched Porter's car keys and drove off with her van. His past criminal history was extensive, and was in prison numerous times for burglary and autotheft.
45. Jack Walker (1988-2001, lethal injection): Disgruntled with the custody dispute over their then 3 month old son, Walker stabbed his ex girlfriend, 17 year old Shelly Ellison, and her uncle, 30 year old Donald, 32 and 11 times with an ice pick during a confrontation at their home.
46. Alvie Hale Jr. (1983-2001, lethal injection): Hale kidnapped 24 year old William Perry to extort a $350,000 ransom from his banking family. When the negotiations failed, Perry was shot dead, and Hale buried the body on his father's property.
47. Lois Smith (1982-2001, lethal injection): Smith, her son, and a female accomplice abducted her son's ex girlfriend, 21 year old Cindy Baillee, from an airport out of fear her testifying of his involvement in the drug trade. Baillee was taken to Smith's ex husband's house, and stabbed in the throat by her ex boyfriend while driving to their destination. Inside the home, she was taunted by Smith with a gun, and was shot 7 times in the chest and 2 times in the back of the head. While her son was reloading the gun, Smith jumped on and crushed Bailee's throat.
48. Sahib Lateef Al-Mosawi (1992-2001, lethal injection): Following a dispute over their newborn son's name, Al-Mosawi's estranged wife, 26 year old Inaam Al-Nashi, fled to the apartment of her uncle, 45 year old Mohammed. Al-Mosaw attacked the pair in the apartment and stabbed them to death. Inaam's sister was also stabbed, but she managed to escape with her life. The couple and their families were refugees from Iraq that were displaced by the First Persian Gulf War, and they fled into the United States.
49. John Romano (1985-2002, lethal injection): Romano and his accomplice David Woodruff robbed and murdered two of their acquaintances. One of the victims, 63 year old Lloyd Thompson, was attacked in his apartment. Thompson was held down by the pair while they stabbed him 22 times and served his spinal cord. The other victim, 52 year old Roger Sarfaty, was tied up, beaten, stabbed 5 times, and strangled to death in a jewelry store he owned. In the robberies, Romano and Woodruff stole several pieces of jewelry from Sarfaty, and took most of Thompson’s quarter collection.
50. David Woodruff (1985-2002, lethal injection): As mentioned under John Romano's entry, Woodruff took part in the robbery murders of Lloyd Thompson and Roger Sarfaty.
51. Randall Cannon (1985-2002, lethal injection): Cannon assisted Loyd Lafevers in abducting, sexually assaulting, and burning Addie Hawley alive in her car. Although he was acquitted of molesting Hawley, Cannon was still condemned for his part in the kidnapping and murder.
52. Earl Frederick Sr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): Frederick beat Bradford Beck, a 41 year old veteran that was crippled during his service in the Vietnam war, to death in his home after befriending him. He ransacked the house and dumped Beck's body in a field. A second murder, the robbery and shooting death of a Texan man, 77 year old Shirley Fox, was also tied to him. However, authorities in Texas withheld from prosecuting Fredrick due to his death penalty trial and conviction in Oklahoma. Both Fox and Beck had physical disabilities, which led prosecutors to the conclusion that Frederick intentionally selected and depredated on disabled men.
53. Jerry McCracken (~1980s(?)-2002, lethal injection): McCracken and his accomplice shot up a bar, killed 3 patrons and the bartender, and made off with $350. The victims that lost their lives were 41 year old Carol McDaniels, 37 year old Timothy Sheets, 34 year old Steven Sheets, and 27 year old Tyrrell Boyd. Months before the mass shooting, McCracken was paroled after serving time for stabbing 3 people in a bar fight.
54. Jay Neill (1984-2002, lethal injection): During a bank robbery, Neill disemboweled and nearly decapitated 3 tellers, 42 year old Kay Bruno, 25 year old Joyce Mullenix, and 19 year old Jerri Bowles. A group of 4 customers, consisting of 33 year old Ralph Zeller, a married couple, and their 14 month old daughter, unwittingly walked in on him, and he herded them into a backroom to be shot. Zeller was killed, the couple were wounded, and Neill left the daughter unharmed due to running out of bullets. Neill's boyfriend was given a life sentence for the robbery and murders, despite not being directly involved.
55. Ernest Carter Jr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): After being fired from an autoshop, Carter robbed it with an accomplice, and fatally shot a security guard, 35 year old Eugene Manowski. The pair stole the shop's tow truck, and later tried to burn it with Carter's girlfriend to destroy any traces of the crime. Carter was also previously accused of burning a friend to death in the previous year, but the charges were dismissed.
56. Daniel Revilla (1987-2003, lethal injection): While babysitting his girlfriend's son, 13 month old Mark Gomez, in their home, Revilla broke the boy’s ribs in a beating and scalded him with boiling water. When he brought the boy to a hospital, Revilla gave a story that he accidentally hit Gomez’s head with a door handle, which was quickly seen through by the staff. According to the accounts of his girlfriend and her family, Revilla was violently abusive to Gomez, and they recounted incidents of him trapping the boy in a kitchen drawer, dunking him in cold water, folding him into a pull up bed, and hanging him by his ankles with duct tape.
57. Bobby Fields (~1990s-2003, lethal injection): Fields shot and killed 77 year old Louise Schem while burglarizing her home. She had tried to shot him with her .25 calibre pistol, but he wrestled the gun away from her, and gunned her down with it. His intentions was to steal Schem's television set to sell for cocaine, but left empty handed after losing his nerves with the struggle and murder. According to court documents, Fields had a previous robbery and assault conviction, and several arrests for drug possession.
58. Walanzo Robinson (1989-2003, lethal injection): A member of the Gangster Bloods street gang, Robinson shot and killed 26 year old Dennis Hill, an affiliate of a rival gang, in a turf war over drug sales.
59. John Hooker (~1971-2003, lethal injection): As a teenager in 1971, Hooker attended a party at a friend's house, and got into an argument. In a fit of anger, he fatally shot 18 year old Alta Lang, and wounded two other partygoers. Due to the witnesses refusing to cooperate with the investigation and being unable to prove any calculated intentions, Hooker was given a manslaughter conviction, and released a few years later. After he was paroled, Hooker started dating Sylvia Stokes, and fathered several children with her. Their troubled relationship lasted for 8 years, and ended when Stokes filed a protection order against him. In retaliation, Hooker lured Stokes and her mother, 53 year old Durcilla Morgan, into his apartment and stabbed them both to death.
60. Scot Hain (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): Hain carjacked and abducted a couple, 27 year old Michael Houghton and 22 year old Laura Sanders. After taking $565 and some bags of clothing, he forced them into the trunk of their car at gunpoint, and burned them alive in it. He had several previous arrests for robbery, and was involved with a number of rapes and attempted kidnappings months before the Houghton and Sanders' murders.
61. Don Hawkins Jr. (1985-2003, lethal injection): Hawkins kidnapped 29 year old Linda Ann Thompson and her two daughters, aged 4 years old and 18 months old, from a mall. Although his original intentions were to ransom off Thompson and her children, Hawkins gang raped the captive woman with his cousin and his girlfriend's teenage nephew, and drowned her in a lake. Thompson's children were spared and simply left with a babysitter. Hawkins and his accomplice then went on a nation wide rampage with his accomplice that involved the abductions and rapes of several grown women and teenage girls, hanging 31 year old David Coupez of Colorado in his home while robbing him, and countless other robberies.
62. Larry Jackson (~1984-2003, lethal injection): In 1984, Jackson shot and killed his girlfriend, 19 year old Freda Washington. He accepted a plea deal that dumbed down the charges to second degree murder, and was given a 30 year sentence for it. During his incarceration, Jackson started a relationship with 29 year old Wendy Cade. Despite her promises of marriage after his release, Cade left him for another man, and they got engaged. When Jackson was assigned to a prison work crew, he snuck out and went to confront Cade. Reportedly, the two had bought alchool, cocaine, and cigerates together and had sex in Cade's apartment. However, they got into an argument, and he slashed Cade's throat and stabbed her 31 times with box cutters. Jackson then left with her jewelry, watch, and the keys to her jeep.