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Monthly Archives: October 2006
A Legitimate Reason to Write: Slut Monkey
The Washington Post reported last week that a former employee for hip-hop magazine The Source successfully sued the editors of the publication for $14.5 million. Kimberly Ossario, the former editor in chief who got shitcanned last year, filed a retaliation lawsuit against the magazine, claiming that she was terminated for complaining about sexual shenanigans at the office. Included in the suit were allegations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, hostile work environment, and defamation.
Osorio claimed that one founder, David Scott Mays, repeatedly begged her for sex and that another editor threatened to “knock her upside her fucking head.” The sexual harassment and discrimination suits were thrown out, but the jury upheld the retaliation claim. The jury agreed that Osorio was fired for complaining about a workplace where executives watched porn, smoked doobies, and called females “bitches.” Another of the magazine’s founders, Raymond Scott, also called a journalist an “ugly bitch” and a “slut monkey.”
The attorney for The Source argued that the hostility in the workplace had nothing to do with gender, asserting “They used the ‘fuck’ word, the ‘shit’ word, the ‘damn’ word. It was not a gender-specific conduct whatsoever.”
“I feel like I’ve been vindicated,” said Kimberly Osorio. “Whether it’s hip hop, rock ‘n’ roll or the post office, there’s still laws a company needs to abide by.”
Personally, I just wish that my colleague here at QuizLaw understood the laws on hostile work environment. Following his team’s fantasy football win against my heralded “Cock Reavers” in September, he could be heard around the office claiming to be my “Daddy.” Even more offensive, however, is that when he tokes up, he never shares, declaring that the good stuff is only for “winners” and that I’m his “little bitch.”
Where’s my $14.5 million, huh? Slut monkey.
The Daily Memo - 10/31/06
A Halloween advisory - if you own a costume shop and your kids hang around out front in Halloween costumes you, too, can get cited for using signs without a permit. (May It Please the Court)
Over at Concurring Opinions, my previously blogged about high school compatriot is planning a rather in-depth look at Xoxohth (a “law school admissions discussion board”) that sounds rather promising. (Concurring Opinions)
I hate Bill Parcells, but I love any legal blog that mentions football, even if it is the Tuna. (Legal Profession Blog)
And speaking of football, the Philadelphia Eagles are making me utterly miserable right now, and while I’m not sure where the legal connection is (unless this is going to help me get a case together to sue the franchise for the heartburn and soul-crushing it’s causing me), again, gotta’ throw some link love to any legal blog that cites football. (Is that Legal?)
MySpace is working to crack down on its users improperly posting copyrighted music. (The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.
The ABA’s November “Tips from the Trenches” gives lawyers some advice on telling a judge that he F’ed up. (American Bar Association
Finally, it will be legal to get tattoos in Oklahoma! (FindLaw)
ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Getting Sued
Harold Reynolds spent a little more than a decade as a second baseman in the majors, most of that time with the Seattle Mariners. After retiring, he moved over to ESPN as a baseball analyst and commentator. Apparently, he didn’t leave second base behind, because he was fired last July for alleged sexual harassment (see what I did there with the “second base” pun? It’s a good thing I’m the editor, or I could be fired for this kinda’ crap). Specifically, Reynolds allegedly gave an “inappropriate hug” to another ESPN employee during an outing at Outback Steakhouse (“come for the onion bloom, stay for the fondling!”). Reynolds, for his part, of course claims that it was a simple misunderstanding and apparently tried to get his ESPN job back.
Since that didn’t work out so well, he is now, of course, planning to sue the Worldwide Leader. In a public statement he says that he “tried everything possible to handle this situation quietly behind closed doors” but that “ESPN had no intention of solving this problem amicably.” ESPN of course stands by its decision to shitcan Reynolds and says that “[t]he suit is without merit.”
Reynolds was actually one of the few mouths on ESPN that I actually didn’t mind listening too, but I’m nevertheless rooting for ESPN here, strictly for entertainment value. If it turns out that Reynolds did, in fact, get a little grabby and inappropriate, it’s quite possible that this wasn’t the first time. Which means other incidents may come out during the lead-up to a trial (inevitably leaked “anonymously” by ESPN as a tactic to force settlement) and in these kind of cases, those past incidents can often be wildly entertaining (I’m remembering one sexual harassment case I worked on where there was a lot of hub-bub over little naked chocolate ladies - good times!). And I’m all about being entertained by lawsuits.
I can’t wait until “Behind the Lines: The Reynolds Incidents” airs. Or an over/under PTI segment on the number of incidents in Reynold’s past, wherein Wilbon will invariably take zero and be lambasted by Kornheiser, who will take some ridiculous number like forty-seven. Although what I’d really love to see is Gary Cole and Jason Bateman giving us a play-by-play of the depositions and trial on ESPN 8 “The Ocho.”
I don’t think a Fair Witness would be so vulgar (although Heinlein would certainly be amused)
So the WSJ Law Blog appears to be a little in love with a book called “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law.” One example why comes from the author’s explanation of how he trains witnesses to give very patient and narrow answers at depositions by using the example of Heinlein’s Fair Witness (from Stranger in a Strangeland). Fair Witnesses give very specific and narrow answers, without any personal opinion or speculation, and that’s exactly what a deposition witness should do.
I gotta’ give a thumbs up to any book which cites to Heinlein for practical legal techniques. Although, personally, when I was preparing witnesses for depositions I found the easiest way to get them to understand was to tell them to answer like a five-year old. You know how you’ll ask a little kid a question and they’ll often give you a nice simple answer which is often utterly infuriating because it’s a simple and direct answer to the question but not an answer to what you were really asking? Well that’s how a depo witness should answer - truthful, but simple. And invariably, the worst witnesses (and the ones who get themselves and the case in the most trouble) are the ones who try to be all clever and/or fuck with the questioning attorney. Never works.
Although it can be entertaining to watch (and yes, we’ve posted this before, but it’s just too damn funny):
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude of 33 thousand feet. 33 THOUSAND FEET? Oh shit, man! We fuckin’ higher than Redman at the Source Awards!
For those of you whose sole source of news comes from QuizLaw and “The Daily Show,” which only airs Monday through Thursday, you might have missed Friday’s arrest of Snoop Dogg, also known as the far less back-doory, Calvin Broadus. Snoop was stopped in a California airport and arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana and a handgun and later released on a $35,000 bond. This is Snoop’s second altercation with police in a little over a month, after he was arrested in September for allegedly trying to sneak a 21-inch collapsible baton onto a plane last year. Reportedly, the TSA wasn’t as concerned with the fact he was trying to board a plane with contraband as much as they were miffed that he’d tried to do so without sticking it in a clear plastic baggie first.
After Snoop’s most recent arrest, his lawyer released a statement saying, “There was no basis for this arrest. We believe that once this is cleared up, all charges will be dismissed.”
The D-O Double G, who is starring in this weekend’s Snoop Dog’s House of Horrors, was unavailable for comment after his arrest, purportedly because he’d tried to smoke his entire stash, plus the pistol, before police stopped him. He’s currently knee-deep in Doritos. Anonymous sources, however, reveal that his two most recent airport arrests, in addition to a scuffle he had last year in a London airport, dates back to a long-standing beef that Dogg has had with airport official since the 2004 release of Soul Plane.
The Daily Memo - 10/30/06
A Michigan judge is finding her federal nomination being held up because she attended a lesbian commitment ceremony. (Law.com
Volokh has put up a great post in response to the North County Gazette’s attempt to unilaterally avoid fair use. (The Volokh Conspiracy via Overlawyered)
Howard Bashman, of How Appealing, has a great dissection of the preparation involved in good appellate oral argument. (Law.com)
Note to self - if I’ve ever got several outstanding warrants, meaning the cops will probably come looking for me, do not keep 100 pounds of pot in my garage. (AZ Central)
Brad Pitt and E! may end up in a legal hubub because of some alleged reporter trespassing. (TV Squad)
Former Supreme, O’Conner, thinks folks are coming down too hard on judges. (CNN)
Ok class, please be seated…
Welcome to your first day of Torts. Today we’ll be talking about the case of Klein v. Amtrak. The fact pattern is very simple. Two bored seventeen-year old kids, Jeffrey Klein and Bret Birdwell, decided to kill some time one night in 2002 by trespassing onto an Amtrak lot. With no plan in place, they then decided to climb up one of the rail cars, because they figured there would be a kick-ass view from up top.
Unbeknownst to our teenage friends, there were some dangerous electrical wires up there - you know, the kind that feed power to trains. While atop the rail car, Klein was shocked by one of these wires, allegedly without even touching it, and Birdwell was zapped as well when he tried to help Klein. As a result, they both ended up burnt real toasty-like - Klein had second- and third-degree burns over 75% of his body, and Bidwell had burns over 18% of his body.
Since there were no signs warning about the danger of the wires, Klein and Bidwell sued. So I ask you, class, should they win?
Well, the defense lawyers argued that these kids, seventeen-years old, were old enough to really know better. Their lawyer made the counter-argument that just because the kids were trespassing doesn’t mean that there’s “blanket immunity” protecting a landowner from any possible dangers on their property. The Philadelphia jury apparently bought this argument, to the tune of almost $25 million (split about evenly between compensatory damages and punitive damages).
Now what should we take away from this case, class?
That’s right - this is a new America, and stupidity can pay.
The best damn day of the year!
Tomorrow is the best damn day of the year. Why for, you ask? Quite simply, thanks 15 U.S.C. § 260a, we get an extra hour of sleep. That’s the law that says that at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October we flip back from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. You know, spring forward, fall back. Which means, extra sleep!
“Extra sleep.” Two of the best words in the English language.
So remember to turn your clocks back tonight kiddies. Well, except for the poor suckers in Arizona, Hawaii and some Indiana counties, since y’all choose to ignore the whole Daylight Saving Time thing. No extra sleep for you.
And just as a heads up, starting next year, our extra-sleep-day will come a bit later, as The Energy Policy Act of 2005 takes effect, pushing the “fall back” day a week ahead, to the first Sunday in November.
Mmmmmm….ratty!
The passing game coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys is a bit pissed at McDonald’s because his wife and the family au pair were eating a Micky-D’s salad and they found themselves a little dead rat in a salad (some might say it serves them right for getting a salad from McDonald’s, for fuck’s sake). So McDonald’s is getting itself sued for $1.7 million. A spokesman for the family says that they found the rat when they got the salad home and that a manager drove to their house to see the rat. He promised to “make things right,” but since nothing’s been made right, the family was left with no choice but to sue.
I was originally going to try to come up with some clever joke here, but the good folks over at Kissing Suzy Kolber have pretty much covered that already, with a solid post title (Dallas assistant coach sues McDonald’s after finding metaphor for Cowboys’ season in salad) and a fantastic reference to “The Simpsons:”
As we learned from the Simpsons years ago, you don’t win friends with salad. Now it appears that McDonald’s may have made an enemy with their salad— in the form of Dallas assistant coach Todd Haley.
Oh yeah, and the Cowboys suck!
The Daily Memo - 10/27/06
NJ gets a second set of props from QuizLaw in one week, this time because its Governor and Health Commissioner are refusing to go along with the feds’ abstinence-only sex education program. (Save Roe!)
An appellate California decision about the right of publicity has been published after pressure from both sides’ lawyers. (The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.
While many have been saying that Google’s purchase of YouTube is the equivalent of the search engine company opening Pandora’s Box o’ Copyright Infringement, they’re ignoring the possible application of the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. (Slate
In the opinion of West Virginia judges, legal reporters get stuff wrong at least half of the time. (May it Please the Court)
Whereas we love trudging in the celebrity legal gossip, the folks at Above the Law strive to be better than US Weekly. (Above the Law)
A recent Zogby poll finds that 57% of folks between the ages of 18 and 29 support the idea of a federal cigarette ban. (KXAN)
On-field drubbing leads to…uhm..off-field drubbing
Last Sunday, the Seahawks had their collective asses handed to them by the Minnesota Vikings. So one can understand how a Seattle fan present at the home game might want to try to find something to take his mind off of the whupping. Well after being alerted by stadium employees, some off-duty deputies working as stadium security found one Seahawks fan doing just that. The 39-year-old man, who they say had obviously been drinking (at a football game? Get out!), was found in a woman’s bathroom stall, working his way down field with a 31-year-old lady, all while a long line of women waited outside.
Turns out our lecherous football fan is a deputy prosecutor who’s worked in the prosecutor’s office for just shy of 15 years. While the lady was let go, he was detained, arrested and tossed out of the stadium, and is now under investigation for obstruction and trespassing. His boss (i.e., the county prosecutor) says the man will be disciplined, but he’s going to wait to see if charges are filed first. “This could be serious,” said the prosecutor, “but it sounds more childish than anything.”
To be fair, I’ve been to football games in Philadelphia (especially at the old Vet) where the Eagles were simply getting creamed, and I think security would’ve been ecstatic if the worst thing going on was some illicit bathroom nooky. And look at it another way - this deputy prosecutor was really acting in the best interest of the county. Would you rather have a level headed prosecutor in court, or some guy with pent up sexual frustration who’s pissed off because his team just lost their starting quarterback in an eighteen point loss?
I Like Football and Girls!
There has been some inexplicable controversy surrounding Democratic Rep. Harold Ford’s run for Senate in Tennessee. First of all, the race against Republican Bob Corker for Bill Frist’s open seat is turning into a much closer contest than anyone expected. Ford is young (having entered Congress in 1996, right after graduating from law school) and he’s black, and no black person has been elected to the Senate in the South since reconstruction.
Nevertheless, the latest polls show a tight race. So, the Republicans got it into their head that the best way to smear Ford was to accuse him of attending a Playboy party, in order to call into question his faith (apparently, the GOP thinks that naked breasts and God are mutually exclusive). The Republican National Committee even ran a pretty nasty ad against Ford, basically suggesting all sorts of things about his character and his politics, ending the ad with a white woman demurely asking him to call her — implying that the single Ford only dates white women (in an effort, I can only guess, to alienate the black vote in Tennessee). Ford, being the naive, inexperienced politician that he is, initially denied having ever attended a Playboy Super Bowl party on last week’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
But earlier this week, Harold Ford finally recognized the value of having attended a Playboy Super Bowl party, and retracted his statement, saying: “I was there. I like football and I like girls. And I make no apologies for that.” And I say to Mr. Ford: Hoo-rah! That statement alone may win Harold the Senate seat in Tennessee. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the state myself, but I did grow up in the South, and as far as I can recollect, Southern men appreciate nothing more than football and women. That’s a sentiment basically every single male demographic can relate to, from farmers to car salesmen to corporate drones. Even Republicans (save for Mark Foley) like women and football! Hell, you throw a beer (and maybe twins) into that equation, Harold, and you’ve got yourself a freakin’ landslide.
That’s politics, baby! Suck it, Corker.
The Daily Memo - 10/26/06
A federal judge ruled that a kid’s constitutional rights were violated when he was suspended without a proper-like hearing first, even though the kid was suspended after admitting that he was part of a drive-by shooting. (Rapid City Journal)
Fox is being sued for copyright infringement for allegedly ripping off the idea for “Prison Break” from real life brothers who busted out of jail in the 60’s and who allegedly submitted a script about their story to Fox in 2001. (TV Squad)
Jane Pauley is suing the New York Times because it allegedly duped her into being used in an advertisement. (CNN)
“The New Jersey gay marriage decision ain’t activism.” (Slate)
The ban on internet gambling could hurt the World Series of Poker because there could be significantly less potential players. (FindLaw)
The plaintiffs’ lawyer group, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, is changing its name to the American Association of Justice. (WSJ Law Blog)
The Center for Citizen Media is putting together an “Election Day Bloggers’ Legal Guide.” (Center for Citizen Media)
Why I’m moving, and where I’m going
So I may have to move out of Boston, after only just arriving here last month. Why for, you ask? Because the bloody city has run out of beer and wine licenses for restaurants. That’s just unacceptable to a borderline drunkard like me (yeah, yeah, I know it’s really not “borderline,” but a kid’s gotta’ put on at least a semblance of sobriety, you know?).
The problem is that there’s a 100-year-old state law which caps the number of licenses, and while some other areas in Massachusetts have their cap grow automatically as their population expands, Boston’s cap can only be increased by the state legislature. “People around here work hard, and after a long day they want to go out to eat and unwind with a glass of wine,” says a restaurant owner still waiting on a license. Amen to that, brother! Meanwhile, Mayor Menino has apparently requested a batch of 60 new licenses from the state legislature, but that request is being held up, possibly because of an unrelated dispute over docking fees. Docking fees? This city can’t even get booze into its new restaurants and they wonder why things didn’t work out so well with the Big Dig?
But I’ll tell you this much - if I leave Boston, I’m moving to Hammond, Indiana. City employees there know how to do things right. In Boston, our tax-dollars-at-work can’t even get the city a sufficient supply of beer and wine. In Hammond, the local cops perform illegal strip searches, surreptitiously record said searches, and then hand out copies of the recording! Now that’s what I’m talking about. Hell, I don’t even need a drink with my dinner if I’ve got free porn - I’ll probably just skip dinner altogether.
It’s a Shame that Vito Spatafore Didn’t Live Long Enough to See this Day
For those who missed the headlines earlier today, the New Jersey Supreme Court made that state the third in the nation to allow same-sex unions in some form. Though it stopped short of sanctioning same-sex marriage per se, the court knocked it over to the state legislature to decide, within six months, whether to call it outright same-sex marriage or simply establish civil unions, such as those established in Vermont. Regardless of terminology, however, the state supreme court made clear that it wanted some form of legislation enacted that gave same-sex couples equal rights under the marriage laws.
The ruling, however, wasn’t viewed as an outright victory by gay and lesbian groups, who argued that same-sex marriage should be a fundamental right under the state constitution. The court, however, disagreed, noting: “Despite the rich diversity of this state, the tolerance and goodness of its people, and the many recent advances made by gays and lesbians toward achieving social acceptance and equality under the law, the Court cannot find that the right to same-sex marriage is a fundamental right under our constitution.” Nevertheless, the court iterated that same-sex couples were entitled to “the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.”
Personally, I’m hoping for the outright legalization of same-sex marriage. Why? Because there’s no other state in the union where rat tails and mullets are so universal, regardless of sexual orientation. And the thought of two women wearing veils over their mullets just gives me a warm feeling all over. Props (kind of) to the NJ Supreme Court. I only wish that Vito Spatofore could’ve lived long enough to see this day.
Snip Snip
A couple of months ago, we reported about a case in which the parents of a nine-year-old boy were arguing in court over whether their son had to undergo a circumcision procedure. As we wrote at the time:
In the latest twist to prolonged, agonizing custody battles, the parents of a 8-year-old boy — hanging on ever so tenuously to his delicate foreskin — have taken it to a new level, arguing in court over whether little Timmy’s penis should get the full-on scalp treatment … The boy’s mother is battling to give her son’s pee-pee a buzz-cut, which she argues is necessary to save the kid from balonitis — a frequent inflammation of the hang-low.
Well, we have an update, which should make all of you anti-circumcisionists giddier than a Jehovah’s Witness with a brand-new packet of six short-sleeve white dress shirts. The judge in the case has sided with the father, who argued against the dreaded snip. The father believed that such a procedure would cause the boy psychological harm, while the mother argued that circumcision was necessary to prevent inflammation. The judge ultimately ruled that, because of the extraordinary nature of the procedure, the boy could decide for himself when he turns 18.
The Daily Memo - 10/25/06
Finally! An excuse to put out a link about Borat - could he be sued? (Slate)
Nah…gon…do-it. (Is That Legal)
Ok people, seriously - don’t try to sell your children. And really don’t try it if you’ve already been busted for it someplace else. (WCCO)
When lawyers attack. (CBS4 Denver)
“Update on proposed New York anti-law-blog bill.” (Likelihood of Confusion)
It seems that Shaq was present and on duty, in his role as a reserve sheriff’s deputy, during a botched kiddy porn raid in Virginia last month. (SI)
A Pittsburgh hot dog restaurant is changing its name from Hot Dogma to Franktuary in order to settle a a trademark dispute over the restaurant’s use of the word “dogma” with Miami Beach’s Dogma Grill. (Post-Gazette)
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!
In an attempt to stave off such mass hysteria, a North Carolina judge just gave a serious legal bitchslap to one of the attorneys appearing before him. Local attorney Raymond Marshall has a client who’s facing an assault charge. The case had already gone to trial twice, but mistrials were declared in both instances because of hung juries. So last month, proceedings began for a third trial, before Superior Court Judge Michael Helms. Right from the start, things were apparently not so great between Helms and Marshall and on September 29, Marshall filed a motion seeking to have Helms disqualified as the sitting judge, alleging that Helms was being intimidating.
That motion didn’t put one in the win column for Marshall, because when the trial started on October 4 Helms was still the sitting judge. On that opening day, Marshall was questioning a witness when Helms stopped him. In response to this:
Marshall said “Lord,” reared back in his chair with outstretched arms, cast his eyes upward and turned to the audience, Helms said.
So Helms smacked Marshall with a contempt of court charge. That charge was heard last Thursday, and Marshall got bitchslapped but good: two days in the clink, thirty day suspension of license, court-ordered submission to a psychologist’s exam and seventy hours of community service (if Marshall completes this in less than 30 days, he may get his license back ahead of schedule). Helms said that he put such a hefty price on Marshall’s behavior to emphasize the fact that lawyers have to show respect. If they fail to do so, then their clients won’t bother respecting the court “and then we have anarchy.”
Marshall, meanwhile, can’t seem to get his story straight. As reported in one article, he claimed that he was simply beginning to say a prayer (he’s a minister) because “there are times when you feel you need strength and my strength comes from God.” However, in another article, Marshall is reported as having said he was stressed because this was the third trial of this matter and it was probably the stress that led to the remark.
In a related story, the North Carolina legislature voted down, by a narrow margin, a bill that would have legalized dog/cat cohabitation. Anarchy and mass hysteria are staved off for yet another day!
Michael J. Fox is an Asshole
You know who sucks? Michael J. Fox. Can you believe that guy? That palsied freak has the audacity to come out, in public, and exploit his Parkinson’s for partisan gain. Despicable! What’s worse is that this amoral son of a bitch clearly goes off his medication before appearing on camera, so as to exaggerate the effects of his disease. Can you believe how low some people will stoop?
At least, that’s what Rush Limbaugh is saying, clearly taking the moral high ground here by accusing Michael J. Fox of tossing his meds before appearing in this commercial to support Democrat Claire McCaskill in her run for Senate. On his radio show, despite any evidence to support his claim, Limbaugh claims that Fox admitted he goes off his medication before appearing in public to illustrate the ravages of the disease. “I stated when I saw this ad,” Limbaugh said, “that he’s either off his medication or acting. He is an actor.” He continues by saying, “I think that this is exploitative in a way that’s unbecoming either Claire McCaskill or Michael J. Fox.”
You know what’s unbecoming, Rush? Some douchebag who clearly doesn’t have a problem staying on his meds — so long as it’s Oxycontin — coming out and suggesting that anyone would play up a ravaging disease simply to ouster a Republican. Actually, perhaps Rush Limbaugh is playing up his own disgustingly narcissistic windbaggery in order to persuade a few million middle-Americans unintelligent enough to think for themselves. Clearly, if his listeners were capable of independent thought, they wouldn’t deign to listen to this shitheel’s ignorant, contemptible ramblings. A puss-filled pox on your anus, Mr. Limbaugh.
The Daily Memo - 10/24/06
Blawg Review #80 is bringing the Socratic method to the masses. (Blawg Review)
Well this is a civil rights lawsuit waiting to happen - a Michigan judge dismissed a small-claims court case because the Muslim woman who filed the suit wouldn’t take off her veil while testifying. (FindLaw)
Scalia doesn’t think social issues like abortion and suicide have any relation to the Constitution and, he reasons, they therefore shouldn’t be put to the courts - but if they are going to be resolved by judges, he thinks there should be less judicial independence. (MSNBC)
The Libertarian candidate for Alabama governor has made her boobs the focus of her campaign. (Guardian Unlimited)
The federal trial in Philadelphia to decide the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act is underway. (Slashdot)
The copyright infringement case over The Island is getting prepped for a February trial after cross-summary judgment motions were denied. (The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.)
We’re number one! We’re number one! We’re number…fifty-three?
The organization Reporters without Borders has released its 2006 rankings of its Worldwide Press Freedom Index, which attempts to measure the state of press freedom throughout the world (in tasty list form!). The first such index was put out in 2002, and the U.S. then came in at the seventeen spot. Last year, we were down to 44, and now we’ve dropped another nine to a four-way tie for fifty-third with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga. So, uhm, huzzah for us.
As the report accompanying the Index notes, “the steady erosion of press freedom in the United States, France and Japan is extremely alarming.” Well, at least we’re not the only ones - thanks for keeping us company France and Japan!
Should I go to law school?
So recently an old friend said that he was thinking about going to law school, and he was wondering what my take on the decision was, particularly in light of the fact that I’ve done the firm thing and the non-firm thing. And so I says to myself, I says, “self - why opine to one when you can opine to the masses?” So here’s some rambling on the subject.
I loved the hell out of my time at law school. But I think I’m the exception to the rule. I found a really great group of friends, and we partied the whole time and, as much as possible, tried to treat it as Undergrad, Part II. Coming right out of college and unsure of what one wants to do (as was my situation, since I had just decided to bail on my science career path and was therefore scared of entering the real world), law school is a perfectly fine option. But what about when you’re 30 (or older), with a family and a stable job?
Well obviously it’s a very different matter. To my mind, the question here is simply this - what do you want to get out of it? What do you want to ultimately want to be doing, and will a law degree help you do it? While I don’t personally think law school is as hard as many make it sound, it’s still no cake walk. For example, if you’re talking about doing it while still holding down a job (i.e., going to one of the few schools that offer night classes), you’ve got to be willing to come home from a long day of work only to turn right around and listen to lectures and read a generally immense amount of legal hoo-ha. All at the expense of spending time with your family of course. And if you’re going to drop out of working and do law school full-time, obviously you have more time, but you’re also taking more courses. During your first year, you’re still probably going to see yourself losing a fair amount of family time.
All of which is to say you best talk with the significant other about all of this and make sure this time commitment is understood, and that they’re supporting. I can’t tell you the number of long-term relationships (including marriages) which died during the first year of law school. Inordinately high.
Now, my friend also asked about whether one has to go the Big Firm route following law school. This again turns back to the question of what you ultimately want out of all this. There’s certainly no requirement that one go to a Big Firm out of school. In fact, more and more, it seems like folks in our generation (and the younger peeps as well), don’t want to be career firm lawyers (which is a change from our parents’ generation, where it was all about getting into a firm and making partner, and schtupping your secretary, etc.). Instead, many go to firms after school simply because most schools are wicked expensive, and those massive law firm salaries can help one get their debt under control (that’s certainly what drove me to a Big Firm after school). But does one need to work at a Big Firm to have credibility in the field?
Not really. If you wanted to be a professor, for example, law firm practice matters very little - instead, it’s all about how great the school is that you went to and what esteemed judge(s) you clerked for following school. It may not hurt you to have a law firm on your resume, but it won’t necessarily help you. Similarly, if you wanted to go the government route (and if you can afford it, which is often a big “if”), you don’t necessarily need to go the Big Firm route first. However, depending on what government work you actually want, you may find that you need some experience first. And often the easiest, though grueling, way to get this experience is through a Big Firm. You can also do any number of things on your own, obviously, without taking on the Big Firm first. For instance, I know folks who started practicing on their own right out of school. Personally, I would’ve been scared shitless doing this without some experience, but they’ve all managed very well.
In fact, one of the only places where you really need a firm job is if you want to become in-house counsel for a company. In-house attorneys are pretty much all hired from firms or relevant government jobs. But again, it’s not about credibility, but experience. Most places won’t even think about hiring someone to come into their in-house office without at least 4 or 5 years of minimum experience (although, as always, this depends on individualized factors like what the experience is actually in and what sort of needs the company has).
The last comment, which many folks thinking about law school may not know is that, at least within the legal field, folks don’t generally care about the quality of any given field of study at a school. In other words, with college, you go somewhere because they have a great program in what you want to study. With law, you go to the best law school you can, period. It’s all about rankings. Of course, if you just want the “esq.,” a fourth-tiered law school will work just as well as a first-tier (and probably be at least a little bit cheaper). So yet again, what one actually wants to do with their law degree comes into play, as it could help you decide what school you go to.
So what’s the answer to the question of “should I go to law school?” I dunno. I loved it, and I have no regrets about going. But there are plenty of people who were miserable throughout law school and who are still miserable. So again, if you’re thinking about law school, I think you just need to really think about why you’re thinking about it and what you want/hope to get out of it.
And if you have more questions, just go to any bar near a law firm or law school and you’ll find plenty of attorneys or budding attorneys who can fill in the blanks.
Scattered, Smothered, and Spat Upon
Today, we have two stories that will turn your stomach and one in which someone’s stomach is revealed (along with some other naughty bits).
First, a Tennessee police officer is suing Waffle House and one of its cooks — the hilariously named Homer Disher — for $82,000. Why? Because the cook, after having received a warning from the officer during a traffic stop several weeks earlier, decided it’d be a good idea to spit in the officer’s hash browns. Note to the cop: I’ve spent many a late night in Waffle Houses and, if anything, a little saliva improves the quality and taste of their offerings.
In our second story, a Washington state man, Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, paid $20,000 in bail to get his release after being arrested on bestiality charges. McPhail’s wife, it seems, walked out onto her porch one night and caught her husband having sex with their four-year-old pit bull terrier. The wife quickly took photos with her cell phone and called the police. The dog in question was “squealing and crying” during the ordeal. McPhail was charged under a brand-spanking new law making it an offense to have sex with animals, enacted after a Seattle man died while having sex with a horse. The pit bull in question was taken by animal control and, presumably, offered a cigarette.
Finally, a California judge has dismissed charges against a woman for exposing herself to a neighbor kid. The woman in question, 40-year-old Alexis Luz Garcia, got fed up with a 14-year-old boy who wouldn’t stop playing basketball loudly next door. Garcia warned the kid to keep it down, and when he refused, she gave him a full frontal and warned that she would keep doing it as long he continued to bother her with that incessant basketball dribbling. The boy — clearly not impressed with Garcia’s figure — ran inside and told his mom, who reported the incident to the authorities, who promptly arrested her. The judge, however, dismissed the charge — which came with a possible year in prison and a requirement that she register as a sex offender for the rest of her life — because the statute in question only applied to someone who “exposes his person.” Because Garcia wasn’t a “him,” the charge was thrown out, despite protestations from the prosecution, who claimed that “his” was a typo. Clearly, the judge was more impressed with her figure than the boy was.
Supreme Court Decision Update - Purcell v. Gonzalez
Well the new Supreme term is upon us, and the first full opinion is out. The lucky first one outta’ the gun is Purcell v. Gonzalez (PDF of the opinion), a case about voting rights. Well, actually, it’s more about standards of review, when voter rights are involved and there’s an impending election.
QuizLaw Analysis: The Supremes love smacking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and they’ve done it again. The Court of Appeals basically reversed a District Court without any stated reason why, and the Supremes say that this is not good, particularly in light of the impending election (the Ninth Circuit’s ruling could complicate things for the election). Basically, the Supremes are telling the Ninth Circuit to respect their authoritah!
What’s this case about? Well, it all stems from some new voting procedures in Arizona. See, back in 2004, a ballot proposition was approved to help fight voter fraud. The state implemented new procedures to comply with this proposition and, among other things, the new procedures require voters to show proper identification at the polls. If a voter doesn’t have such ID, they can still cast a ballot, but it’s considered conditional - they then have five business days to come back with proper ID. If they do so, the ballot counts, and if they don’t, it get tossed. The Arizona procedures also say that if someone knows they won’t have valid ID by the election date, they can vote early during the state’s early voting period, since this will give the election officials enough time to establish that the voter was legit.
In May, some folks got together and sued the state to try to put a stop to these procedures. They’re worried voters will be disenfranchised, and that legitimate and qualified voters will get turned away. In September, the District Court denied their request for a preliminary injunction stopping the new procedures form being implemented. However, the Court didn’t issue any findings of fact or conclusions of law, so there wasn’t much to work with during the inevitable appeal. Nevertheless, a panel for the Ninth Circuit issued a four-sentence order reversing the District Court and enjoining Arizona from implementing the new procedures (it was a special Ninth Circuit panel because of the hurry-up necessity of this case, in light of the impending election). Following this order, the District Court actually issued its findings of facts and conclusions of law, noting that it felt that there was a possibility of success, but not a strong likelihood of success (and plaintiffs who want a preliminary injunction need to show such a likelihood of success).
What’s “per curiam” again? This opinion is a per curiam opinion, meaning it’s an opinion not actually signed by or attributed to any particular Justice.
Gotcha. Well what does this unattributed opinion say? Well the Court begins by noting that it’s important for states to preserve the integrity of their election process, but that it’s also important to make sure that qualified voters get to exercise their “‘fundamental political right’ to vote.”
Turning to the details of this case, the Supremes note that the Ninth Circuit should show deference to the District Court’s discretion in this case. Of course here, there were no findings of fact or conclusions of law from the District Court at the time the Court of Appeals made its decision. And that’s what the Ninth Circuit owes deference too. The Supremes don’t say it directly, but they sort of hint that, had the Court of Appeals explained its order a little, they might have been on board. But since the Court merely issued a four-sentence order with no explanation, the Supremes say they must evaluate this order in light of the post-released findings of fact and conclusions of law from the District Court. And since there’s nothing in the Ninth Circuit’s four sentence order to suggest that any of these findings or conclusions are wrong, and particularly in light of the fact that there’s an election around the corner and the state needs some concrete guidance, the Supremes say that the Court of Appeals is wrong, wrong, wrong. They vacate the injunction and remand this mess of a case, noting that this ruling does not touch on the final merits or disposition of the underlying case, and is just meant to ensure that the election goes off as relatively smooth as possible.
What’s Old Man Stevens have to say for himself? Justice Stevens issued a one paragraph concurrence just to note that this result will actually help the court in resolving the underlying case. The elections will now go through under the state’s new procedure, so there will be a record to show whether there really is disenfranchisement, and to show how much alleged fraudulent practice is cut down thanks to the new procedures. In other words, it’ll give the courts some concrete evidence to work with “rather than speculation.”
The Daily Memo - 10/23/06
This story really has nothing to do with the law, but if it’s on Law.com that’s good enough for us, especially when it lets us reference Borat. (Law.com)
A California judge has ruled that the state’s indecent exposure law only applies to men, meaning California women are free to, uhm, unleash their beasts. (ABC News)
While not likely to ever be put to the test, it’s still interesting to think about whether it would be constitutional for Bill Clinton to run for vice-president. (Washington Post)
Motorola, Plantronics and Jabra are all being sued because they fail to warn folks that bluetooth headsets can cause permanent hearing loss. (St. Petersburg Times)
In Los Angeles, Boy Scout members can now get activity patches for respecting copyrights. (Engadget)
A Pennsylvania lawyer is suing a game company over their confiscation of his virtual property in their online game. (Philly.com)
This is some heavy lifting – I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet
I’m feeling rather depressed this Monday morning, after watching my beloved Eagles suffer a crushing loss yesterday. So I’m going to bring you all down deep into the Monday morning funk with me. And I think self-inflicted abortion should do the job.
There’s this woman in Virginia, 22-year-old Tammy Skinner, who already has two kids and not much money to her name. When she found herself pregnant again, she decided she wanted an abortion, but her boyfriend wouldn’t pay. So Skinner ended up carrying the pregnancy to term only to, on the day she was due, shoot herself in the stomach to kill the fetus.
Since Virginia law makes it illegal for someone to administer or cause an illegal abortion, Skinner was arrested (the abortion is considered illegal since it was during her third trimester). Now, the law in question bans “any person” from administering or causing such an illegal abortion, but Skinner’s lawyers argued that this doesn’t actually apply to Skinner herself because there is an “expectant mother immunity.” While the argument may seem like a stretch, the court sided with the defense, ruling that the law differentiates between a mother self-aborting and someone else doing it (so in the court’s reasoning there’s a concrete difference between Skinner pulling the trigger herself and someone else pulling the trigger).
Needless to say, anti-abortion activists are furious over the ruling. I’m going to leave the whole abortion aspect of this for another day, as that’s more mess than I’d like on my plate this miserable Monday morning. But the legal issues are rather sticky too. Apparently, this Virginia judge isn’t the first to ever rule this way, as there is similar case law in Florida and Georgia. That doesn’t make the decision any less confusing to me. The prosecution argued that “any” should be understood to be an indefinite word meaning “all,” unless the legislation includes some restriction, and that seems right to me. Unless there’s a clear intent from the state legislature that they intended “any person” to exclude the actual mother, it seems like she falls within the statute.
Of course, that Skinner felt this was her only way out makes this a tragic story, and that tragedy would be magnified were she to be convicted. And there’s also some messy societal concerns, as raised by Skinner’s attorney - if you apply this law to the mother, how far do you go? Does this mean you have to delve into the details of every late-term miscarriage, trying to figure out what the mother’s intent was (i.e., did she take steps to cause the miscarriage because she didn’t want to carry to term)? Of course, that brings us right back to the abortion issue, and I suspect many anti-abortionists would respond “absolutely.” This argument makes it hard for me to say whether the court is wrong, form a purely “right vesus wrong” standpoint. But it doesn’t change my opinion that the court is wrong from a legal standpoint. It really seems like the court is reading something into the law that just isn’t there right now. While that may produce the “right” outcome (again, I’m not sure where I personally would come down on the matter, since it takes more than 5 minutes of early Monday morning pre-coffee thought), it just seems a little too “activist judgey” for my liking (and I can’t even believe I just typed that, as I’ve never been one to cry “activist judge, activist judge” since I think those cries are usually misguided and not actually being directed to courts that are actually overstepping their bounds).
Barring something like an unconstitutional provision, it’s the legislature’s role to decide what limitations it wants to place on its statutes. This structure of government allows for an open debate on the “right versus wrong,” and that debate is lost when a court takes up the issue instead. Again, I don’t know what the “right” answer is, but I hope that the Virginia legislature, and other state legislatures with similar laws, give some actual consideration and debate to this matter and make it clear which way their laws are intended to go. Needless to say, anti-abortion activists are furious over the ruling. I’m going to leave the whole abortion aspect of this for another day, as that’s more mess than I’d like on my plate this miserable Monday morning. But the legal issues are rather sticky too. Apparently, this Virginia judge isn’t the first to ever rule this way, as there is similar case law in Florida and Georgia. That doesn’t make the decision any less confusing to me. The prosecution argued that “any” should be understood to be an indefinite word meaning “all,” unless the legislation includes some restriction, and that seems right to me. Unless there’s a clear intent from the state legislature that they intended “any person” to exclude the actual mother, it seems like she falls within the statute.
Of course, that Skinner felt this was her only way out makes this a tragic story, and that tragedy would be magnified were she to be convicted. And there’s also some messy societal concerns, as raised by Skinner’s attorney - if you apply this law to the mother, how far do you go? Does this mean you have to delve into the details of every late-term miscarriage, trying to figure out what the mother’s intent was (i.e., did she take steps to cause the miscarriage because she didn’t want to carry to term)? Of course, that brings us right back to the abortion issue, and I suspect many anti-abortionists would respond “absolutely.” This argument makes it hard for me to say whether the court is wrong, form a purely “right vesus wrong” standpoint. But it doesn’t change my opinion that the court is wrong from a legal standpoint. It really seems like the court is reading something into the law that just isn’t there right now. That may produce the “right” outcome, but, and I can’t believe I’m even about to type these words, that may just be a little too activist for my liking.
Barring something like an unconstitutional provision, it’s the legislature’s role to decide what limitations it wants to place on its criminal statutes. This structure of government allows for an open debate on the “right versus wrong,” and that debate is lost when a court takes up the issue instead. Again, I don’t know what the “right” answer is, but I hope that the Virginia legislature, and other state legislatures with similar laws, give some actual consideration and debate to this matter and make it clear which way their laws are intended to go. In doing so, this opens the debate up to the public, and that’s not usually a bad thing (though some in the federal government might argue otherwise…ahem…I’m looking at you Bushy!).
The Daily Memo - 10/20/06
Two female basketball coaches are suing a Montana school district for sexual discrimination, saying they were unfairly suspended when they allowed their team to T.P. male coaches’ homes, while male coaches have allegedly done far worse with much less severe punishments. (Billings Gazette)
Gnarls Barkley is suing an Atlanta songwriter/musician who did some background music for their “St. Elsewhere” album because he’s claiming to have co-written a couple of their songs, including last summer’s hit “Crazy,” and that he therefore has authorship rights. (The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.)
The woman who broke up the Beatles is suing Capitol Records to get Lennon’s royalties. (Reuters UK)
A Minnesota law student from Africa is being charged with impersonating a local Congerssman in order to help his family immigrate to the States. (FindLaw)
Thanks to the double jeopardy laws, O.J. is free and clear to write his “hypothetical” account of what he thinks may have “hypothetically” and precisely happened during the Brown/Goldman murders - but I’m not sure how he thinks he gets to keep the book money in light of the civil judgment. (MSNBC)
Escondido, California has decided to ban landlords from renting units to illegal immigrants. (Reuters)
The Daily Memo - 10/20/06 (Government Edition)
Several Democratic candidates are emphasizing Congress’ continued focus on giving itself raises while ignoring the minimum wage (something we’ve mentioned before). (USA Today)
A federal judge has ordered the Secret Service to open its records of visitor logs to Cheney’s office and home, at the behest of the Washington Post. (ABC News)
Considering the current state of affairs in our nation’s political world, it’s unsurprising to see that the Judicial branch is the “Secretariat-like” leader of of a poll about which governmental branch is the most respected. (WSJ Law Blog)
“Which of this year’s Supreme Court cases will be most significant?” (Concurring Opinions)
A Philly Two-For
So a local Philadelphia man is having a bit of a quarrel with City Council. Seems that the man, Mouhammed Shaukat, runs a little newstand by the Liberty Bell. The City Council is fine with that. But as for Mouhammed’s selling of pornography near the national monument? Well, yeah, not so much. When Mouhammed was previously warned by the council that he couldn’t sell his porno, he responded by putting a sign up on his stand notifying those that object to his porn that (a) they could fuck off and (b) he would rape them!
Needless to say, City Council ain’t exactly thrilled by this. On Wednesday, a Council committee approved a bill to close his newstand, and now the full City Council will vote on it. One imagines it will pass and that Shaukat’s stand will be closed. Which is a shame really - the porn, and especially the rape-threatening sign, really give the tourists a nice taste of the Philly color.
Meanwhile, the saddest kind of war is a cheesesteak war. So it breaks my heart to hear that the owner of my beloved Pat’s King of Steaks is involved in a nasty little lawsuit with his cousin, owner of Rick’s Steaks. Pat’s owner is alleging trademark infringement, claiming that ads for Rick’s Steaks are illegally using Pat’s “name, its crown logo and trademarked phrases, including ‘Pat’s King of Steaks Originators of the Steak Sandwich.’”
I really wish they’d think about the poor cheesesteaks caught in the middle of this messy fight. Please, won’t you think of the cheesesteaks?!
Two days in a row? Well now it’s just getting silly.
Yesterday I talked about running into a photo of an old high school friend on a law blog. Well last night I ran into another photo of someone I know. This time, it was a dude I used to work with in my “big law firm” days. Turns out that said dude, David Derrico, is the focus of a nice little Law.com article.
Just as I left the Firm to make my mark on the internet with this here site, so too did Derrico decide to spread his wings online. Seems he’s got himself a rather interesting idea, a website (www.headhuntercalls.com) where attorneys can explicitly opt-in or opt-out of receiving headhunter calls. I’ll tell you what - those calls are annoying as all-can-do, no doubt about it. That being said, I did learn about some interesting opportunities once or twice that I wouldn’t have learned about if I had been on an opt-out list. Well, that’s assuming that the headhunters in question had actually abided by the opt-out list in the first place, since it’s really their choice whether to, uhm, opt-in to it in the first place.
Point being - as the article points out, there are definitely some reasonable concerns about the site’s viability. But it’s still an idea with some solid potential and I’m definitely pulling for Derrico. Hell, even if I thought it was a terrible idea, I’d still root for him simply because success means he doesn’t have to return to the Firm. And I’ll always root for someone being able to keep themselves out of the Firm’s grasp. Pointy, slimy, tentacly grasp.
When I talked about Dave Hoffman yesterday, I was able to share a fun little story about him calling someone a bitch during a high school debate. I don’t have any such stories about Derrico (and any stories I might, theoretically, have about the boy are probably not stories for public consumption). But I will say that he’s as good a drinking buddy as one can ask for (he was a Firm lawyer after all, so of course he can drink), and that’s really the highest compliment I can personally pay someone.
Interweaving Plotlines
Dean Faiello pled guilty yesterday to assault in the death of Maria Cruz, and received a 20 year sentence. Two years ago, Faiella, a cocaine addict, posed as a doctor and offered to perform a medical procedure on Cruz, a financial analyst, to remove hair from her tongue with a laser (what the hell is tongue hair?). Unfortunately, when he gave Cruz her anesthetic, she had a bout of seizures and later died. Afraid of being arrested if he called 911, Faiello instead hid her body under a concrete slab, where it was found 10 months later. Faiello was then extradited from Costa Rica, where he had been working as a go-go dancer.
Talliyah Taylor, meanwhile, decided that a go-go dancer’s get up is too restricting. So when she decided to go drunk driving last night, she did so in the buff (the ideal state for drunk driving). She wound up running into a pedestrian so hard that the poor guy’s body flew up into some electrical wires and got diced up. Taylor’s car then hit a light pole, flew over a chain link fence, and landed upside down in a Lowe’s parking lot. Taylor had to be cut out of the car afterwards; I understand she then made a mad dash into Lowe’s to find the appropriate adhesive to put the pedestrian’s body back together.
Had the pedestrian’s body landed in one of several New York morgues, however, certain morticians would’ve had the hard part of their job taken care of. Indeed, seven funeral directors entered pleas yesterday in a broad-based investigation into the plundering of corpses for spare body parts, which were unloaded onto the black market. The purported ringleader, Michael Mastromarino, desecrated as many as 1,000 bodies, including that of Alistair Cooke, the host of television’s “Masterpiece Theater,” who died in 2004.
Finally, a certain teacher who wanted to make his students understand what the aforementioned Talliyah Taylor was seeing when she ran into that pedestrian has been held liable for negligence. The teacher in question had his students wear “drunk goggles,” which simulated what life would look like if they were legally drunk. He then had them perform certain exercises, such as standing on one leg or shooting a basketball. Lisa Voss, however, tripped and fell while wearing the “fatal vision goggles” and knocked out her teeth. The school district was ordered to pay $28,000 in damages. No word on whether the broken teeth were sold in the black market to make up for the expense.
I understand that sometime last night, frogs also fell from the sky.
The Daily Memo - 10/19/06
An ex-CIA agent is suing the agency for violations of his First Amendment rights after they redacted 70 pages from his 400 page manuscript, most of which is information already made publicly available (or at least cleared by he CIA for public publication). (SF Gate)
Since there’s nothing else going on up here, Boston City Council is considering a ban on satellite dishes from the front of local buildings because they’re an “eyesore” - and, surprise of surprises, Comcast is helping to sponsor the proposed ban. (Bostonist)
We love when judges try to have some fun with their opinions, such as this Florida Judge who took a stab at some Seuss-like rhymes. (Sui Generis)
A federal judge in New York says that the city can be sued by emergency workers with claims stemming from WTC dust. (News Watch 50)
An Indiana woman is suing the local public school for its alleged unconstitutional practice of allowing some students to attend Bible classes on the school’s grounds. (Indiana Daily Student)
Small world, and all that stuff
So last night, while watching the increasingly boring “The Nine,” I was perusing all my little law blog RSS feeds for the day, as I’m often wont to do. And I came across something that caught my eye - a photo of somebody I actually know. Aside from the personal blogs of a few close friends, I never see folks I actually know on blogs. Especially on legal blogs. And my first thought, of course, was “uh-oh - this can’t be good.” Particularly since this was on Above the Law, a site that loves the stupid side of law-related things as much as we do.
So this photo was of David Hoffman. Dave and I went to school together, through high school. In fact (nerd alert!), we were teammates and co-captains of our high school’s debate team. Anyway, I knew that Dave was now a law prof at my own undergrad alma matter, Temple University. So what, pray tell, did Professor Hoffman do to get himself in trouble?
Nothing, it turns out. ATL was simply reporting on a recent lunch Hoffman had with another blogger (Howard Bashman from How Appealing). ATL’s “spy” reports that Dave ate “something greasy.”
The most interesting thing about this little discovery for me, however, was learning that Dave is himself a legal blogger, as he contributes to Concurring Opinions. One recent post, for example, asks the interesting question of whether we actually need state appellate courtrooms. I don’t know if Dave takes requests, but if so: Dave, I’d love to read a post on oral advocacy. Particularly if it includes a detailed reenactment of that time in debate when you got into a rather messy verbal spat with an opponent and even, if I recall correctly, went so far as to call her a bitch.
…in Dave’s defense, of course, she was totally a bitch.
Incontrovertible Evidence that Growing Up Today Sucks More than Ever
What the hell is wrong with this country? It’s not enough that adults have to bring a lawsuit every time they spill a cup of coffee, that fat people have to blame Burger King when their blood turns to Velveeta, or that our Congressman are diddling the kiddies. Now we have to freakin’ micro-legislate the extra-curricular activities of elementary school kids?
Well, at least they do in Attleboro (addled borough), MA, where school officials have banned playground tag and other unsupervised chasing games. Those bitches. Sort of takes all the goddamn fun out of kiss-tag, doesn’t it? You take the chase out of it, and all you have left are nine-year-olds making out. What kind of fun is that?
According to the Boston Globe, this is just part of a growing trend in elementary schools, where “many principals are making up new rules in an atmosphere reflecting society’s increasingly cautious and litigious nature.” Indeed, many schools have already gotten rid of dodgeball because it’s too dangerous and exclusionary. Well, of course it is. How the hell are children supposed to learn humility unless they’re picked last and knocked out first time and time again? Humiliation begets character, goddamnit.
When I was a kid, we shot bottle rockets and BBs at each other. And if we got a BB caught in our spine, our parents made us keep it and walk around for the rest of our lives gimped. And when we had the occasional seizure, well, that was just a healthy reminder not to shoot BB guns at each other. I mean, what’s next? Banning Duck, Duck, Goose because it discriminates against Geese?
The Daily Memo - 10/18/2006
A California Assemblywoman told a high school economics class that she wouldn’t kick the Governator out of her bed, and some folks are a little pissed about the comment. (CBS5)
Well it’s official - Bush has signed the awful Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law. (Washington Post)
Trey Parker and Matt Stone treat their attorney right, by congratulating him on his firm’s 10th anniversary with an ad in Variety, complete with photo of coke, pot and guns. (Defamer)
Ken Lay is laughing from his chair down in Hell as a federal judge vacated Lay’s fraud and conspiracy conviction. (FindLaw)
The RIAA hasn’t learned anything and is continuing its losing war against file downloaders, with 8,000 more lawsuits being filed across the world. (Yahoo)
A Maryland man has written his Senator to request help in becoming an illegal alien so he can get a fat income tax return, and some free health care. (Strange Politics)
Next month, Nevada voters will decide on, and likely vote against, a ballot proposal to legalize possession of small amounts of pot. (The State)
Hey Perez Hilton - see you next Tuesday!
QuizLaw: Douchebagsayswhat.
Perez Hilton: What?
QL: Douchebagsayswhat.
PH: What?!
QL: …exactly.
I think the underlying message of this little morality play is fairly obvious - we here at QuizLaw think that Perez Hilton is a douchebag. Who is Perez Hilton, you ask? Well, you’re better for not knowing. He’s this gossip blogger who changed his name from Mario Lavandeira to the oh-so-fabulous “Perez Hilton.” He loves being a bitch, but often ends up just being a douchebag. Now he’s pointed his douchebaggery towards a legal issue, making him fair game for QuizLaw. Here’s the skinny.
There’s this website, X17 Online, which is a new blog for the X17 Agency, a celebrity photo agency (a.k.a., a paparazzi shop). As detailed here, X17 has decided to crack down on other blogs and websites that use its photos without a license or permission. They’ve let the matter slide for years, and have basically allowed free use of their images. But now that they’re blogging on their own, they’d like to be able to have their images be exclusive to them. Plus, it’s just harder in general to make money on these photos when they’re floating all over the internets. Whatever you think about the paparazzi industry, there’s an obvious thirst in our country for the photos, so X17’s new position makes sense. And it’s their legal right - they own the copyright in their photos and can do what they want with them.
Anyway, they sent out a note to various celebrity/gossip blogs, basically asking them to stop using their photos without permission. As detailed by Jossip, the note was relatively friendly:
Hi there — sorry, but I think the free ride’s ending. We’re asking that everyone cease and desist using X17’s images, watermarked or not, effective immediately. We’ve gotta get some traffic out of our Britney story and when other sites run all our pix, even with a link to us, what good does it do for us? Sorry guys, but from now on we will offer images for license only. We may be able to work out some deals with particular websites for the use of one or two images/story in certain circumstances, but you need to email first for permission. If you have pitches you’d like to make about why you should be able to use our images, how you’d like to work with us, etc., we’re always open to suggestions. This is not an angry email, we just have to start protecting our images and not giving them away — we’re losing money, guys!
This means no Britney pix unless you email first and we’ll decide on a case-by-case basis.
Thank,
Kelly
All told, that’s a pretty reasonable letter. X17 could’ve come right out the gate with a strongly worded “cease and desist” letter - I’ve written some of those in my law firm days, and you can make them real nasty sounding. But they took the relative high road.
But douchebag-extroidanaire Perez Hilton decided to bypass that high road with an amazingly ignorant and vulgar response:
Don’t threaten me bitch. I’m not scared! I would have gladly put up a link to your site but you had to get all nasty.
Instead of wanting to have me as a friend or an ally you choose to be a cunt! CUNT! And I don’t wanna work with cunts. And liars. And unethical people. And that’s what you are!
You’ve tried to fuck me over. And you’ve only fucked yourself over.
So the folks at X17 are cunts and liars and unethical people because they don’t want other people committing copyright infringement by illegally using their photos?
Sigh…
Dear Mr. Lavandiera douchebag Hilton - copyright law has been around for 200+ years now. There are plenty of places you can read up on it. Hell, you can learn about it right here on this very site! And yes, there is a little principle called fair use which sometimes allows folks to use copyrighted material without permission or a license. But your commercial use of a fully protected photograph, in a way that probably decreases the original photo’s market value, is not likely to be found fair use. So you’re probably the unethical cunt. But thanks for playing.
“Errr…uhm…because I was looking for clients?”
Good ol’ Florida brings us another bizarre little story. There’s this South Beach hotel called the Shore Club. It’s the place where Suge Knight got himself shot last year. Well, they’re in the news again because of a little fire-rescue that had to take place there yesterday.
In the wee hours of the morning, hotel employees called the Miami Beach fire department when they found a man trapped in the hotel’s air-conditioning duct. It seems that one Lloyd Winter, a 40-year old local man, climbed up onto the hotel roof in nothing more than a bathing suit. He then started climbing through the hotel vents and, whoops, fell down a duct. He stopped falling when he got caught on some screws, and started calling for help, which led to the eventual rescue effort. After an hour and a half of digging through drywall, the stuck Winter was set free. Winter claims that he was stuck floating in the duct for three days, although local police find this claim dubious.
Why are we talking about this on QuizLaw? Well, Winters got himself some criminal charges as a result of the debacle - turns out he wasn’t an employee or guest, so he got smacked with a trespassing charge. He also got hit with a charge of giving the police a false name. But the real reason this is QuizLaw worthy is more direct than the fact that he’s a stupid criminal - according to the police report, Mr. Winter is also a lawyer.
So QuizLaw would like to say that if you have a problem, if no one else can help, if you are in need of a Miami Beach lawyer, and if you can find what ventilation duct he’s hiding in, maybe you can hire…Lloyd Winter, attorney at law!
The Firecrotch and Other Burning Legal Items
Celebrity legal news runs amok today, as we have three Hollywood bits to run, not including the lawsuit Vince Vaughn filed as what can only cynically be thought of as a conspiratorial strategy to use the legal system to hide his French-kiss philandering.
First up, celebrity Firecrotch and the blogging world’s favorite gored-out punching bag was served papers in an unusual hiding spot on Friday — the red carpet. Indeed, while attending the Annual American Cinematheque Award honoring George Clooney, Lohan was approached by what she thought was an autograph seeker, only to be met with a subpoena. The lawsuit in question was brought by a couple of men who were purportedly promised managing rights to Lohan’s music career, only to have those rights given away to Tommy Mottola. The suit seeks several thousand dollars for fraud, theft, and violation of contract. No one has yet filed the inevitable lawsuit seeking damages for the noise pollution wrought by Lindsay’s two albums, however.
Cameron Diaz was also in the news, after a photographer lost his appeal following his conviction for forgery and theft. John Rutter took nude photos of Diaz when she was only 19, and later sought to extort $3.5 million from the untalented actress. Clearly, Rutter would’ve had a better shot seeking damages for emotional distress and loss of consortium after having to see Diaz in the buff.
Finally, Wesley Snipes who, by my recollection, hasn’t made a decent flick since 1991’s New Jack City, was indicted today on eight counts of fraud, after he was accused of cheating the government out of $12 million is false refunds. What’s more, the Blade star didn’t file a tax return between 1999 and 2004. However, Snipes did file an amended return for one year, in which he listed zero income and asked for a $7.4 million refund. He faces up to 16 years in prison. It is not, however, Snipes’ first run in with the law. In the past, he has been accused of beating Halle Berry; he has tried to skip out on a paternity lawsuit that was eventually dismissed; and he tried to get into South Africa with fake passport documents. If convicted, Snipes will not be missed.
The Daily Memo - 10/17/06
Blawg Review #79 is up over at the Tech Law Advisor. (Tech Law Advisor)
A restaurant is being sued, and may end up going out of business, because three covers were played by a band without the requisite copyright royalties being paid. (The Oregonian)
Looks like Vince Vaughn is gonna’ sue some gossip rags because the photo of him they ran, making out with another woman, allegedly misleads people into thinking he was in a passionate embrace. (The Superficial)
An Atlanta woman has filed a federal lawsuit after being ticketed for an anti-Bush bumper sticker she had on her car (the ticket was ruled unconstitutional back in in 1990). (CNN)
But this doesn’t answer the question as to whether the courts actually have jurisdiction over Satan. (Sui Generis)
Nine members of the same family were all admited to practice before the Supreme Court, amid laughter at Chief Justice Roberts’ sole question - “nobody wanted to be a doctor?” (WSJ Law Blog)
Prisoners can’t have any fun, as an Indiana prison has now ruled that all visiting women must wear bras and must not wear revealing tops. (ABC News)
Bah Humbug!
This story is already great just for the fact that it’s main character is named Wendell Jerome Herman Rogers II. That’s just a solid name!
Anyways, last year, Rogers the Second was at a Christmas party on Christmas Eve, as many are wont to do at that time of the year. The next morning, Rogers the Second got into a scuffle with his wife in front of their two youngins. What exactly happened is unclear, but it sounds like Rogers the Second is a bit of a scumbum considering he was “charged with family violence, battery and obstructing and hindering a person making an emergency telephone call.”
Finally facing these charges, Rogers the Second received an interesting sentence from Judge Sidney Nation (another fun name). There’s the usual kind of things - he has to pay a $1,000 fine, and he has a 12 month jail sentence which is suspended so long as he completes an anger management course. But Judge Nation threw in one additional component - to make up for the fact that he ruined his family’s Christmas last year, this year Rogers the Second must take his family to a fancy-schmancy Christmas dinner at one of the city’s best restaurants.
Pretty amusing, at first glance. But if you look at it another way, it kinda’ sounds like a court-sanctioned “sorry I beat you honey - I’ll make it up to you by taking you out for steak tomorrow night,” don’t it?
The Secret to the GOP’s 2006 Election Strategy
Damn. Here we go again: NBC is reporting that federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into allegations that an Arizona Congressman, Jim Kolbe, took a camping trip ten years ago with a couple of teenagers. The teenagers were congressional pages, and — it probably doesn’t need to be said — Kolbe is a Republican. Oh, and the congressional pages were also boys (Kolbe is openly gay, but wasn’t at the time of the camping trip).
Kolbe doesn’t deny that the trip took place, but his people are saying that everything was on the up and up. NBC, however, has conducted several interviews with the folks who were on the trip — which included Kolbe’s sister, five current staff members, some National Park employees, and the two teenage pages — and one of the guys in attendance stated that he was “creeped out” by the attention Kolbe was heaping upon the pages, in addition to the “petting, fawning, and touching” of the teenagers’ arms and backs.
For the record, Kolbe is not actually up for reelection this fall. And, besides, I personally doubt Kolbe did anything inappropriate. In fact, I suspect the entire investigation was trumped up by the Republican Party. Having lost most of the Christian right because of the Foley scandal, I think the GOP has decided to embrace their new identity by creating a new scandal to solicit the pedophilia demographic. Pedophiles comprise about 4 percent of the population, and at the rate things are going, that’s the only 4 percent the Republicans are going to win this fall. Well, pedophiles and Baptists.
The Daily Memo - 10/16/06
Over 800 New York lawyers have 30 days to pay up their state bar registration fees or they’ll find themselves suspended. (Daily Intelligencer)
Jon Lovitz will be hosting an NBC show by the name of “Bad Judge,” a mockery of the plethora of courtroom shows (see “Judge Judy”) currently on the air. (TV Squad)
Prison guards are most likely to blame for the steady rise of smuggled cell phones in prisons. (NPR)
Copyright law is keeping some TV show DVDs MIA. (Overlawyered)
Many are betting against the ban on internet gambling. (MSNBC)
Do class-action lawsuits fail to hold bad companies accountable for their bad actions? (SFGate)
A parking lot tiff between parents outside of an elementary school has led to “a series of ethics charges and legal actions that have cost [local] taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (NJ.com)
An Atlanta man went on a year-long spree, marrying 10 women from Africa. (ajc.com)
Monday Morning Distractions
So back in 2002, Florida passed a law banning public nudity - i.e., women can’t hang out in public with their business hanging out in public. A woman from Ormond Beach (which is up by Daytona Beach) isn’t such a fan of this law, so while at the beach in March 2004, she decided to take up a protest. Elizabeth Book made her protest by pulling her top off and letting her breasts fly free. She was promptly arrested for violating this law, of course, and smacked with a $253 fine. Ever the vigilant warrior, Book took this to the courts, and god bless the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed with a lower court ruling - Book is allowed to go topless in protest of the law because it’s a legitimate political protest. See, just when there are so many stories of stupidity flowing out of Florida that you begin to think about carving it away from the rest of the country, you get something like this that reminds us why it’s worth still having in the Union.
Ok people, seriously - please, for the love of god, do not go to court with your meth pipe in your bag, especially if you’re going to court, in the first place, for drug charges. It’s just not smart.
The Law School Dean Hotties contest is running in full swing over at Above the Law, and on