Legal Commentary

How Can It Be [Legally] Wrong When It Feels So Right: Sen. John Ensign Defends Affair as Not ?Legally Wrong?

Posted on August 21, 2009
This week Sen. John Ensign announced that he would remain in the Senate and insisted that he had not “done anything legally wrong.” He also rejected analogies to Bill Clinton, who he voted to convict in his Senate trial. Ensign’s statement is fascinating from a legal standpoint...

Police Officer Fired (and Three Suspended) for Photo of Twin Peaks Waitress Holding Assault Rifle

Posted on August 21, 2009
A Twin Peaks restaurant advertises scantily dressed waitresses and a “fun, friendly and sometimes flirty atmosphere.” It was a bit too much for Round Rock Texas police officers who had a waitress pose on their police cruiser holding an assault rifle...

Two New York Criminal Defense Attorneys Convicted of Witness Tampering

Posted on August 21, 2009
Criminal defense attorney and television commentator Robert Simels, 62, has been convicted in Brooklyn of plotting to kill witnesses. Also convicted was attorney Arienne Irving, 31, who was convicted of witness tampering. The jury only acquitted Simels on one count dealing with false statements after deliberating for seven days...

Police Taser Sets Homeless Man on Fire

Posted on August 21, 2009
We have another case of a man bursting into flames after being tasered. Recently, an Australian man burst into flames after being tasered. In Lancaster, Ohio a homeless man named Daniel Wood, 31, caught fire after being tasered due to chemicals from an aerosol can he was inhaling...

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Bank Mistakingly Forecloses on Home and Kicks Florida Family Out With Only Three Hours Notice

Posted on August 20, 2009
Anna Ramirez has a right to be a bit peeved. Recently, her family (including her husband, daughter and grand children) was thrown on the street with little warning and her house auctioned off at a fraction of what she paid for it. It turns out that foreclosure was a mistake by Chase [...

Record Bender or Gender Bender: South African Runner Faces Gender Testing

Posted on August 20, 2009
South African Caster Semenya, 18, is facing an rare legal challenge in her sports career. The problem is not drug testing but gender testing. Various people have accused Semenya of being a male and sports officials are planning gender testing to result the dispute...

Nutter Threatens to Shutdown Court System and Cut Police Force

Posted on August 20, 2009
As we continue to pour money into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cities are continuing to shutdown for lack of money (here). The latest such story comes from Philadelphia where officials are facing a shutdown of the entire court system due to budget shortfalls...

U.S. News and World Report Releases 2010 Top Rankings of Colleges

Posted on August 20, 2009
U.S. News and World Report has released this year’s ranking of the top colleges and universities in the country. Harvard and Princeton tie for the top spot among national universities. Here are the top twenty choices: Costs 2008 Total enrollment Fall 2008 Acceptance rate Compare RANK 1: Harvard University Cambridge, MA 2009-2010 Tuition [...

One Glad Lawyer: Leading California Lawyer Avoids Criminal Charges In Running Over Girl Scouts

Posted on August 20, 2009
Lawyers often joke to clients that it was not like they ran over a group of girl scouts. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal partner Paul Glad made that common joke a reality when he ran over a group of mother and children selling Girl Scout cookies in Burlingame, California...

Law Professor and Leading Massachusetts Lawyer Accused of Involvement in the Illegal Home Pot Growing Business

Posted on August 20, 2009
Timothy Wilton, a professor at Suffolk University Law School, and Kathy Jo Cook, former president of the Women?s Bar Association of Massachusetts, have been accused by their son (and stepson) of knowledge of his drug dealing and home pot growing operation...

Justice Denied: Seventh Circuit Rejects Challenge to Gun Registration Law

Posted on August 20, 2009
The Seventh Circuit continues to push the envelope on the recently recognized individual right to bear arms. In an interesting opinion by Judge Diana Wood, a three-judge panel ruled that the town of Cicero could still require gun registration without violating the Second Amendment...

Police Officers Arrested After Allegedly Smoking Pot at Police Softball Game and Then Fleeing Pursuing Officers

Posted on August 19, 2009
Two police officers fled a police softball game with thousands of police from around the country after they were found smoking pot in their van. One officer, Souza, reportedly resisted arrest and had to be pepper sprayed. Shayne Souza, 47, and Kevin Fujioka, 37, allegedly parking illegally when other officers smelled the weed...

New Jersey City Finds Solution to Solving Street Crime: Get Rid of the People

Posted on August 19, 2009
The officials in Paterson, New Jersey appear to be closing in on the problem of crime in their city: the citizens. The city is considering the first citywide curfew on adults to curb crime. No people, no crime — that sounds simple enough. The ordinance would prevent people of all ages from [...

State Court Strikes Down Oklahoma Abortion Law Requiring Ultrasound

Posted on August 19, 2009
Oklahoma County District Judge Vicki L. Robertson has struck down that state’s 2008 law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds and offer women detailed information about the tests before performing abortions. The law was challenged as an effort to harass and deter women from obtaining abortions...

Supreme Court Stays Execution and Says Evidence of Innocence Should Be Given Evidentiary Hearing

Posted on August 19, 2009
In a major ruling, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered an evidentiary hearing on innocence claims of Troy Davis, who is on death row in Georgia for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail. Not only did the Supreme Court stop the execution, but it created new law on the right of the [...

Afghanistan Government Calls on Media Not To Report Violence on Election Day

Posted on August 19, 2009
The Afghan government has decided that the next best thing to having a violence free election day is to have a day without any reported violence. The government has told the media not to carry reports of violence on election day — fearing that citizens may be reluctant to vote if they are informed [...

Former Vogue Model Succeeds in Forcing Google to Reveal Identity of Anonymous Critic

Posted on August 19, 2009
Former Vogue cover model, Liskula Cohen, 36, has succeeded in her court case to find the identity of an anonymous critic who wrote bad things about her in a “Skanks in NYC” blog. A Manhattan supreme court Justice Joan Madden ruled that Cohen was entitled to the information and ordered Google to turn over the information...

If He Kissimmee Once, Will He Kissimmee Again? Man Spends Three Months In Jail After Officer Claims Breath Mint was Crack Cocaine

Posted on August 19, 2009
All Donald May wanted was fresh breath. Instead, he got the months in the slammer. When an officer in Kissimmee, Florida pulled May over for expired plates, he saw a white mint in his mouth. The officer said it looked like crack cocaine and had him spit it out...

California Divorce Lawyer Pleads No Contest to Sexual Battery of Clients

Posted on August 18, 2009
Sacramento divorce attorney Gary Appelblatt, 58, has pleaded no contest to four counts of sexual battery and one additional count of attempted sexual contact. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gary E. Ransom will now sentence Appelblatt, who is looking at likely jail time for a bizarre series of assaults on clients...

Study: Ninety Percent of U.S. Bills Have Traces of Cocaine

Posted on August 18, 2009
A study by Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, has made a surprising discovery: ninety percent of U.S. bills tested by this laboratory had traces of cocaine on it. One of the culprits is the cash machine, which tends to spread contamination to other bills...

Arizona Man Accused of Trying to Sell Car in ?Cash for Clunkers? Program After Fatal Hit-and-Run

Posted on August 18, 2009
Timothy Kissida, 23, was not exactly the poster boy for the “cash for clunkers” program. Kissida is accused of killing Chuck Waldrop, 52, in a hit and run accident. He then went that day to a dealer and traded in the damaged car in the “cash for clunkers” program in Phoenix, Arizona...

Tweeting God: Company Sets Up Twitter Site to Insert Tweets in Western Wall

Posted on August 18, 2009
Annoying tweets are not just for the public anymore. We can now tweet the Almighty through a new Twitter site: twitter.com/thekotel. Alon Nir will print out your tweets and insert them in the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Of course, you have to put some trust in both Lord and Nir: he lives in [...

Exploding Apt: EU Concerned Over Alleged Exploding IPhones

Posted on August 18, 2009
As an IPhone user, I am generally happy (with the exception of a tendency for the phone to dial people on its own). It does have some cool apps. The EU, however, is more concerning over whether it is apt to explode. While Apple insists that these are “isolated incidents,” the EU is investigating various [...

Hit, Haul, and Run: Texas Man Accuses of Hitting Bicyclist, Pulling Him into Car, and Driving Home

Posted on August 18, 2009
Vincent Paul Riojas is not your typical accused hit-and-run felon. Where all hit and run felons flee the scene, Riojas stopped and took the body of his victim with him to his home. Police allege that Riojas, 27, hit Kellar on his bike. He then allegedly stopped and pulled Kellar off his trunk, dragged him [...

Head Case: Texas Judge Posted Pictures of Criminals with Obama Shirts

Posted on August 18, 2009
Texas Judge Tom Head is under fire this week after he posted the pictures of nine people wearing Obama shirts. Seven of the nine men were black and the pictures were accompanied by material critical of Obama supports and suggesting that Republican voters are rarely arrested...

Rule Burkini, Burkini Rules the Waves: English Pools Require ?Modest? Dress for Both Muslim and Non-Muslim Swimmers

Posted on August 17, 2009
While the French are banning the burkini (a swimsuit that covers Muslim women like a burka), various English pools are requiring women to don covering from their necks to ankles –men are required to cover up from their navels to their knees. During these hours, men and women are barred if they are not [...

Texas Officials Arrest Parents and Take Away Their Children for Taking Pictures of Their Children in a Bathtub and Breastfeeding

Posted on August 17, 2009
Jacqueline Mercado, a 33-year-old Peruvian immigrant, and her boyfriend Johnny Fernandez simply wanted to keep memories of the childhood of her children when Jacqueline went to Eckerd Drugs to develop photos that she took of her children in a bath. The good people at Exkerd Drugs in Richardson, Texas saw not frolicking kids but [...

Sentencing of New Jersey Man with 12 DWI Convictions and 78 License Suspensions ? Due to Two More DWI Charges in a Different County

Posted on August 17, 2009
We have been following the case of Shaun Campbell, 40, who has been allowed to rack up at least a dozen drunk driving convictions and 78 suspended license violations. Campbell’s day of judgment appeared to have come this week, but was suddenly delayed by ...

It?s Hammer Time! Tom DeLay To Dance With the Stars

Posted on August 17, 2009
This sounds like something from the Capitol Steps, but former Republican House Majority Leader Tom (The Hammer) DeLay will be on this season of Dancing of the Stars. I kid you not. This will hopefully by the only Dancing with the Stars entry on this blog, but the show has described its newest [...

Boise Man Sues Police After Being Tasered in Buttocks and Threatened With Sodomy

Posted on August 17, 2009
A man in Boise, Idaho is suing after the Boise Police Department declared that an officer who tasered him on the buttocks and threatened him with sodomy with a taser did not violate the law. While against policy, the police insist that the officer (who also threatened to shock his genitalia) merely failed to [...

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