Simple Justice
A New York Criminal Defense Blog
Simple Justice

When Everybody Bullies

Emily Bazelon's New York Times op-ed about the ever-changing definition of bullying was reminiscent of a point made in 2009, a warning that a very dangerous word was becoming a trigger in the public's mind even though nobody could really explain what it meant.

After offering the examples of 12-year-old Bailey O’Neill and 15-year old Amanda Todd, Bazelon writes:

Were these ...
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New Blood

It's been a while. Not since some lawyer had his marketeer and SEO specialist create a blog in his name that finely honed to make a place of honor on the first page of Google for "lawyers who take cash," but someone who brought new thought. It's been too long.

Which is why I'm thrilled to welcome new blood to the blawgosphere. The first is a 30-something public defender out of the left coast who posts under the pseudonym  Norm DeGuerre at his blawg, ...
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Drug Warrior Has Special Needs

As regular readers know, I have long had a deep concern for the intersection of police and special needs children, whether with physical or intellectual disability, as they are both enormously vulnerable to abuse and often incapable of processing or comprehending what cops are doing with/to them. While "do it for the children" is the mantra usually employed to subvert reason, these children are different. Easy pickin's, and unable to defend themselves.

So ...
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The Feds Burn 830 To Get Ajemian

The physician at the heart of the LIRR disability scandal, Peter Ajemian, is scheduled to be sentenced today in the Eastern District of New York, and chance to toy with the United States Sentencing Guidelines is too much for the government to ignore. From John Riley at Newsday:

Manhattan federal prosecutors revealed in a court filing this week that they have compiled a list of more than 800 ...
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Waving Good-Bye To The Fifth

Lois Lerner, following her planted question and "leaked" response about the IRS's targeting conservative political groups for special love, was hauled before a congressional committee because the politicians couldn't bear a front page story that didn't include their names.

Lerner, along with her counsel, appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, under chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and gave an opening statement that included these words:

I have not ...

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Teach What To Whom?

When my son was young, he was fascinated by cooking. Alton Brown was still doing his cooking show, and he adored the chemistry element of food, a scientific approach to cuisine. It didn't hurt that he also had a peculiar palate for a kid, preferring the French preparation of snails and organ meets to hot dogs.

Whenever Dr. SJ cooked something interesting, which was fairly regularly, my son would be her sous chef, learning how to cook from someone ...
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The Best Wrong Answers

At Techdirt, Tim Cushing does an excellent job of parsing the FBI's no-recording-of-interrogations policy. Tim always does an excellent job at spreading the word from the legal end of the internet to the geek side of life. But what gives rise to this post isn't Tim's post, but the comments thereto.

In the past, I've explained the proper response to police interrogation. I've ...
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Sgt. Dennis Workley and a Jail Safe Enough

He lied. He made stuff up about Claude Suggs, that he was selling pot out of his home, in order to get a search warrant. He was so careless, so cavalier about it, that he didn't even give the minimum effort to make it look good, cutting and pasting from old warrants, leaving in the "cocaine" language even though this was for marijuana. Baltimore Sgt. Dennis Workley ... << MORE >>

You're The Ginchiest (and other lame linkbait)

Ah, the ego validation that blawgers so crave. The email just arrived, informing me that SJ has been selected as one of the Top 30 Law Blogs of 2013! Woo hoo!!!  I want to thank the Academy...oh, wait. It's not from the Academy. Not the Pulitzers. Not even the ABA Journal.

It's from Best Degree Programs dot org, that deeply meaningful website that sends out the weekly inane infographics ...
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A Lot of Misjudgment of Suspicion

Without a doubt, Judge Shira Scheindlin has a way with understatement. During closing arguments in Floyd v. New York, the stop and frisk trial finishing up in the Southern District, the court said the obvious aloud.

Observing that only about 12 percent of police stops resulted in an arrest or summons, Judge Scheindlin, who is hearing the case without a jury, focused her remarks on Monday on the other 88 ...

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"Taser Joe" Martinez Meets The Line

When the caption of a 5th Circuit opinion by Judge Emilio Garza includes a police officer's nickname, and that nickname happens to be "Taser Joe," you have to find out why. After all, plenty of deputies use Tasers, so it's not easy to stand out.

In Ramirez v. "Taser Joe" Martinez, Jim Wells County Deputy Taser Joe went to Reynaldo Ramirez's landscaping business to arrest Ramirez's sister-in-law on a warrant. It being Ramirez's business and sister-in-law, he ...
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Will Money End Recidivism?

"John Arnold" isn't a household name, even though he's made a ton of money as "a wunderkind natural-gas trader at Enron who later founded his own hedge fund." Enron? Well, even Enron made some real money in its day, and Arnold was their killer trader.With more than he could ever spend, John and Laura Arnold have moved on to doing something worthwhile with their money.

From the Wall Street ...
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The Death of Andrea Rebello: Excuses 2.0

When news first broke of the killing of Hofstra student Andrea Rebello, the first reports had two distinct features: the reports were fundamentally wrong and they began with a lie, that she was shot by the masked gunman, Dalton Smith.A bad smell permeated the news.

When the truth came out, that Rebello was shot in the head by a Nassau County police officer, the explanation was that the first two officers on ...
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My "Styles" Audition for the New York Times

Having already taken charge of the op-ed page of the Times, I needed a new challenge. What better for a cutting edge guy like me than the Style Section?  Do I not know that the Louis Vuitton store is on 57th Street? Come on.

And so, I tackle the hard questions posed to Philip Galanes in today's paper, since he obviously isn't really cut out for this style stuff.
My ...
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Every Day is a Networking Event

For reasons that can best be described as a generosity of spirit combined with some internal pride, Fishtown Lawyer Jordan Rushie posted about the things he did in his extralegal week. He had a busy week.

Monday: Confer with FNA Board to discuss PTSSD grant, which involves a significant amount of money coming into the neighborhood for civic projects
Tuesday: 6:30pm – 9:00pm – Hosted ...
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