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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Judges File Third Lawsuit Challenging Mandatory Retirement Age
A third lawsuit has been filed by judges challenging Pennsylvania's mandatory requirement that they retire in the year in which they turn 70. The lawsuit will pursue two new angles: one, that the mandatory retirement curtails voters of their right to vote for judicial candidates of their choice, and, two, that it is irrational that some judges can serve longer than others depending upon when their birthdays fall on the calendar.
America's First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder after the Panic of 1837
Alasdair Roberts, Suffolk Law's Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy, discusses his upcoming book and how it relates to the United States economy today. Learn more about Professor Roberts at http://bit.ly/zTKaZP.
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Chloe Moretz: Fan Favorite in Paris
Gearing up for another day of runway shows, Chloe Moretz strolled out of the Crillon Hotel in Paris, France this morning (February 28).
The “Hugo” cutie was nice enough to stop and sign autographs and pose for pictures with a few lucky fans that gathered to greet her.
Chloe has been thoroughly enjoying her time at Paris Fashion Week, having taken in the H&M presentation at the Rodin Museum last night (February 27) with Emma Roberts.
Meanwhile, Miss Moretz is well on her way to becoming a licensed driver. She told press, “I’ve literally just applied for my permit so I’m a little behind. But probably by September I’ll have my license. I’m a terrified driver, especially going through the driver’s ed stuff because they give you all these things on fatalities and all this scary stuff and I’m like, ‘Mom, I really don’t know if I want to drive. Maybe I’ll just walk.’”
Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/chloe-moretz/chloe-moretz-fan-favorite-paris-814865
The AM Roundup: Justices Question Voting Rights Act, More
Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.
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Diddy Supports 'Harlem Shake' Despite Hometown Blowback
'Anything that's branding Harlem, my hometown, I'm all for it,' Diddy says, supporting Baauer's viral-video dance craze.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by James Lacsina
Diddy
Photo: MTV News
Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702789/harlem-shake-diddy.jhtml
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Who Is Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift’s Latest (Boy) Friend?
Has Taylor Swift moved from one British heartthrob to another? It hasn't been that long since she and Harry Styles broke up, but 23-year-old Swift has reportedly already spent the night with another man.
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What Sam Ponder Said
You've got African-Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you — a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, This is a drug deal?
Tell the truth. There are plenty of you out there who are thinking to yourselves, "well, yeah. Duh." It's just like that old joke, "what do you call four black men in a Cadillac? Grand theft auto!" Because that's what blacks and hispanics do. They're mostly criminals. And welfare cheats. And lazy. And violent. Not all, of course. Some of your best friends are black and Hispanic, but those are the 'good" ones. They're different.
Some white folks try their best to recognize their inherent prejudice and fight it. They realize that the black and Hispanic experience is very real. They aren't proud of themselves for their inability to think of others with different skin color or ancestry, or gender or sexual preference, without imposing some degree of bias, but they are sufficiently aware to make the effort to not let their prejudice manifest itself in a statement like the quote that starts this post. They try to be better. They hope that the day will come when these ideas no longer exist in the deep recesses of their mind.
But the fellow who uttered these words didn't see the problem. When Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who sits on the Hispanic seat, read these words, she was sufficiently offended that she wrote about it.
It is deeply disappointing to see a representative of the United States resort to this base tactic more than a decade into the 21st century. Such conduct diminishes the dignity of our criminal justice system and undermines respect for the rule of law. We expect the Government to seek justice, not to fan the flames of fear and prejudice.
She was not so offended that she voted for the court to hear the case, however. Nor was she sufficiently offended as to include the name of the offending government official. As Jeff Gamso notes, so much for there being any consequences for doing wrong. Well, at least if you're a government official. Otherwise, there are consequences aplenty.
Rather than merely bemoan the grievous wrong of such an inflammatory and prejudices statement, Ken at Popehat did what no one in the media or on the Supreme Court (or any lower court, for that matter) was willing to do. He typed the letters that spelled out a name and identifying information of the person who uttered those offensive words.
Assistant United States Attorney Sam L. Ponder of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio
While Sam Ponder isn't the only man in America who lacks the metacognitive skills to recognize his prejudice, or the interest to overcome it, the fact that he's a federal prosecutor and exercises the power of his office in furtherance of his prejudice is a matter of great public concern. It should be important enough that the media identify the prosecutor who said it, that the courts identify the person who said, that the Supreme Court Justice who was so offended identify the person who said it.
Yet, no one did except Ken.
At the juncture of guts and media, former fuzzy-slipper wearing blogger turned Huffington Post media celebrity, Radley Balko, was moved by Ken's boldness.
Ken at Popehat is right -- those of us who cover these issues need to do a better job of identifying prosecutors who cross the line. But this is also information that should be readily and publicly available. These are public officials. They work for us. And they have incredible power -- the power to ruin lives. There's really no good reason why their misconduct should be obscured.
To that end, I'm going to start a recurring feature at this blog that will -- as Popehat puts it -- "name and shame" misbehaving prosecutors.
Radley points out, correctly, that questions and statements uttered in the course of a prosecution that play upon the incipient prejudice that remains at the core of whites is just one aspect of the wrongdoing that gives rise to Gamso's "no consequences."
Distasteful as Ponder's question was, prosecutors frequently get away with far more damaging misconduct -- withholding or even manufacturing evidence, for example -- and thanks to this habit of not naming them in appellate opinions, they not only escape professional sanction, but public accountability.
The problem goes even further than this, extending to the remedies provided by courts in those rare instance where misconduct is found. Forget naming the evil-doer. Forget the evil-doer suffering real-world consequences, whether getting fired or suffering financial liability for his conduct. The typical remedy is a do-over, where the government gets a second chance to do it the way it should have been done in the first place. The message is if you do wrong and get caught, a big "if" to begin with, the worst that will happen is that you will have to do it again the right way.
Those of us who type out words while wearing a bathrobe may not be considered serious by those who get paid to type out words on subjects about which they know little, but we have one thing going for us that more important voices lack. We have an appreciation of the fact that the courts protect those who do wrong while receiving a government paycheck. They may speak ill of their conduct, like a parent chastising a child for the 397th time to not put his elbows on the table, but never imposing any more of a punishment than making them get their darn elbows off the table.
Ken did what a Supreme Court justice lacked the fortitude to do. Gamso made the point that a Supreme Court justice failed to do when, despite her offense, she completed a unanimous denial of certiorari. Radley did what journalists who write for widely read "legitimate" media are loathe to do, compromising their access to power by taking a stand that will anger important government officials.
Putting Sam Ponder's name into the title of this post isn't sufficient. He should no longer be in the government's employ, but he is. The best the blawgosphere can do is impose our own brand of incentive to prevent prosecutors who do wrong from never suffering any consequences, not even the most minor of public exposure.
But at least we're trying and doing something. Otherwise, you would never know the name of Sam Ponder, the guy who thinks that blacks and Hispanics plus a bag of money equals drug dealing. And Sam's name deserves to be known, at the very least.
© 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/02/26/what-sam-ponder-said.aspx?ref=rss
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Domestic Drones and Privacy Law
On February 14, 2012, President Obama signed the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act into law. This Act requires the FAA to allow others to fly drones, including law enforcement agencies, private companies and even individual hobbyists, over American neighborhoods. Lawyer2Lawyer co-hosts and attorneys, Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi, talk to the experts, Ryan Calo, Director for Privacy and Robotics, for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about drones, transparency, public safety and the potential impact on privacy law.
Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/lawyer-2-lawyer/2012/05/domestic-drones-and-privacy-law/
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Scott Weiland Responds To Stone Temple Pilots Firing
'Not sure how I can be 'terminated' from a band that I founded,' Weiland says in a statement.
By James Montgomery
Scott Weiland
Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/ Getty Images
Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702732/scott-weiland-responds-stone-temple-pilots-terminated.jhtml
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First Look: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2′ Shows Off Its Mary Jane Watson While Spider-Man Hangs Around
So, there’s quite a bit of news going around regarding the filming of the sequel film The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in NYC this week. We learned yesterday that star Andrew Garfield was spotted in costume on set, then earlier today we got our first look at the first teaser poster for the film. Right now, [...]
A Bust Too Far
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 split decision, figured out something that the Second Circuit couldn't: no rubber band can stretch a mile. In Bailey v. United States, the Court held that Chunon Bailey's seizure about a mile away from an apartment where a search warrant was being executed wasn't close enough.
Before anyone says "duh," bear in mind that this wasn't the outcome below, and failed to capture the votes of three justices. The problem wasn't that these jurists were distance impaired, but that their vision was fuzzy by one critical fact: they guy was guilty. That's when the pull out the balancing test.
As the New York Times editorial explains:
The rationale below was that the police waited until it was "reasonable" to stop and seize him, despite the fact that he left the apartment before the warrant was executed (meaning that he didn't flee), was neither physically present within the apartment nor in its immediate vicinity, and drove away because he, for whatever reason, felt like driving away.
Mind you, they had no warrant to arrest Bailey. They had a warrant to search an apartment. Until they conducted that search, they had no reason to arrest Bailey. But then, he was guilty.
The majority opinion, by Justice Kennedy, put in some effort to dispel the dissent's contention that this was a mere limited detention, reasonable if one is inclined to allow cops sufficient latitude to do anything they please. After all, when the police seized Bailey and returned him to the apartment, it was only "detention," particularly in light of the absence of any evidence of a pistol whipping or multiple kicks to the head which are indicative of an arrest.
In contrast, Justice Scalia's concurring opinion (spare me, you Scalia haters) spells it out straight.
© 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Before anyone says "duh," bear in mind that this wasn't the outcome below, and failed to capture the votes of three justices. The problem wasn't that these jurists were distance impaired, but that their vision was fuzzy by one critical fact: they guy was guilty. That's when the pull out the balancing test.
As the New York Times editorial explains:
[O]fficers in a small New York town got a warrant to search for a handgun in an apartment allegedly used by a drug dealer. Detectives conducting surveillance observed two men, both matching a description of the dealer, get in a car near the apartment. The detectives followed the car for about a mile before making the stop. One of the men was Chunon Bailey. The officers handcuffed both men and drove them back to the apartment. The search team found a gun and cocaine. One of Mr. Bailey’s keys fit the apartment door. Mr. Bailey was convicted of drug trafficking and gun possession, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The rationale below was that the police waited until it was "reasonable" to stop and seize him, despite the fact that he left the apartment before the warrant was executed (meaning that he didn't flee), was neither physically present within the apartment nor in its immediate vicinity, and drove away because he, for whatever reason, felt like driving away.
Mind you, they had no warrant to arrest Bailey. They had a warrant to search an apartment. Until they conducted that search, they had no reason to arrest Bailey. But then, he was guilty.
The majority opinion, by Justice Kennedy, put in some effort to dispel the dissent's contention that this was a mere limited detention, reasonable if one is inclined to allow cops sufficient latitude to do anything they please. After all, when the police seized Bailey and returned him to the apartment, it was only "detention," particularly in light of the absence of any evidence of a pistol whipping or multiple kicks to the head which are indicative of an arrest.
In contrast, Justice Scalia's concurring opinion (spare me, you Scalia haters) spells it out straight.
The Court of Appeals’ mistake, echoed by the dissent, was to replace that straightforward, binary inquiry with open-ended balancing. Weighing the equities—Bailey "posed a risk of harm to the officers," his detention "was not unreasonably prolonged," and so forth—the Court of Appeals proclaimed the officers’ conduct, "in the circumstances presented, reasonable and prudent."The Court of Appeals read Summers’ spatial constraint somewhat more promiscuously: In its view, it sufficed that police observed Bailey "in the process of leaving the premises" and detained him "as soon as practicable." 652 F. 3d, at 206 (emphasis deleted); see also post, at 6–7. That has pragmatic appeal; police, the argument runs, should not be precluded from seizing the departing occupant at a distance from the premises if that would be safer than stopping him on the front steps. But it rests on the fallacy that each search warrant entitles the Government to a seizure incident to the execution of a warrant "is not the Government’s right; it is an exception—justified by necessity—to a rule that would otherwise render the [seizure] unlawful."
Who doesn't hate a promiscuous reading of spatial constraints? Throwing its editorial heft behind the decision, the Times stated:
But the Supreme Court rejected that ruling, noting that distance from the scene matters. Detentions made away from the place being searched “resemble a full-fledged arrest,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
Resemble? As in "she has her mother's eyes" resemble? That the majority even goes there is disturbing, even though it ultimately reaches the right result.
The flavors of seizure of a person have come to rival Baskin-Robbins. When police seize a person, who is then not free to exercise his constitutional right to walk away, he is arrested. When the slap on cuffs and unceremoniously put him in the back seat of their cruiser. he's arrested. Even if they don't smack him around in the process, he's arrested. How did we reach the point where police can do as they please with a human being's body and it's something shy of an arrest?
The answer is unfortunately simple: when you humpty-dumpty the characterization enough, concepts that demand to be clear, such as arrest, fall into the beloved rhetorical black hole of "reasonableness." Mangle the details a bit and throw in a few pointed adjectives, especially from the perspective of the police, and pretty soon everything sounds fairly reasonable. And obvious reasonable is better than unreasonable, right?
Well, not according to Scalia, who cuts through the malarkey to get at the only real point raised by the case, and yet somehow not factored into the ruling except by his co-concurrers, Justices Ginsburg and Kagan. The test isn't wiggly line, subject to balancing and the rhetoric of reasonableness. It's a search warrant. It's the authorization to search a premises, not to seize people wherever they may be. That they get to nab people inside the premises, or in the immediate vicinity is a gift, not an entitlement.
Just because Summers gave the cops one free ride doesn't mean they get to ride forever. Even the Times doesn't seem to grasp that each step on the slippery slope doesn't give create a new government entitlement, only to be extended at every opportunity.
Bailey would have seemed to be one of the most straightforward suppression cases possible, his being arrested a mile away from the search, and yet it took a split Supreme Court to figure out that it was a bust too far. Even so, six justices fail to appreciate that sometimes the government just can't do anything it pleases even if they use the word "reasonable" enough. Sometimes, a line has to be drawn.
While it's not exactly clear where that line is drawn, at least we now know that a mile is beyond it. Duh.
© 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/02/24/a-bust-too-far.aspx?ref=rss
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Oscars 2013 Best Dressed: Jennifer Lawrence And More!
Pale colors, strapless silhouettes and a pair of crutches stand out on Hollywood's most glamorous night.
By Gaby Wilson
Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Oscars
Photo: Christopher Polk/ Getty Images
Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702521/oscars-2013-best-dressed.jhtml
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The Healthy Workplace Bill
Professor Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk Law, describes the Healthy Workplace Bill, anti-bullying legislation he has written that is the template for bills across the country. Read his blog at newworkplace.wordpress.com.
Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/suffolk-law/2012/02/the-healthy-workplace-bill/
Zoe Saldana's Mid-Week Errand Run
Checking some items off her to-do list, Zoe Saldana ran errands on Wednesday (February 27) in Hollywood.
Looking casually chic in jeans and a grey cardigan, the “Columbiana” cutie accessorized her look with a black cap and a plaid scarf as she left her car at a parking garage.
The 34-year-old actress recently wrapped up filming the crime thriller “Blood Ties” with Mila Kunis and Marion Cotillard.
Set in 1970’s Brooklyn, the movie follows two brothers on opposite sides of the law who face off over organized crime.
Directed by Guillaume Canet, “Blood Ties” is slated to hit theaters later this year.
Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/zoe-saldana/zoe-saldanas-mid-week-errand-run-814649
First Circuit upholds relicensing of nuclear plant in face of state challenge
A federal appeals court has affirmed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's relicensing of a Massachusetts nuclear power plant over the state's claim that the agency failed to consider lessons from the Fukushima, Japan, radiological accident.
Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202590161356&rss=rss_nlj
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tina Fey: 'No Way' Will I Host The Oscars
Before we could even work up a worthy argument of why Tina Fey and partner-in-crime Amy Poehler should absolutely, positively, without fail host the Academy Awards in 2014, the 30 Rock star has dashed our hopes. Fey, 42, has stated firmly that she has no desire to host the awards show, despite the fact she and Poehler did a fantastic job at the Golden Globes.
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In-Vitro Fertilization, Custody Rights and Family Law
A Massachusetts court orders a man to pay child support for twin girls, born through In-vitro fertilization and with donor sperm and eggs, even though he was estranged from his wife at the time of conception. Is this fair? With the rise in IVF treatments, there are more and more cases across the country with complicated custody matters. Lawyer2Lawyer co-hosts and attorneys, Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams join Attorney Maureen McBrien from the firm, Todd & Weld LLP and Certified Family Law Specialist and trial attorney Violet P. Woodhouse, to explore the legal issues surrounding in-vitro fertilization, custody rights and family law.
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Lindsay Lohan Will Guest Star Alongside Charlie Sheen In ‘Anger Management’
In October of 2011, we learned that Charlie Sheen (who had been fired from his hugely successful CBS TV series Two and a Half Men) scored himself a new TV series on FX titled Anger Management (based on the film of the same name). For the past year or so, Sheen has enjoyed marginal success [...]
Taking Control of Your Mobile Apps
There’s an app for everything. As we all discover how effectively we can use apps to connect with social media, as our work task managers, to find user-friendly news, and much more, they begin to accumulate on our smartphones and devices. Our hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell share tips on how to organize those apps to be the most efficient, aesthetically pleasing, and space conserving - making room for more apps. We will also learn how to sync all of their devices so that we always have access to our apps. The second portion of the show will discuss the pros and cons of having an iPad, an iPad Mini, or how to utilize both. And stay tuned until the end to hear each host’s tech tip, one will surely save you some time on your computer.
Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/kennedy-mighell-report/2013/02/control-your-mobile-apps/
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