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 ... << MORE >>

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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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 ... << MORE >>

"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 ... << MORE >>

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 ... << MORE >>

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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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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An interesting post from Jonathan Turley:

There is an interesting lawsuit against an academic institution in Colorado. Spanish-speaking custodial workers at the Auraria Higher Education Center in Colorado are suing over the failure of the Center to give them instructions in Spanish — alleging that they have faced unsafe conditions over the use of English rather than Spanish. The case suggests that the use of Spanish can not only be legally ...

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It started at .10%. Then it was .08%. Now, the National Transportation Safety Board wants to reduce it to .05% blood alcohol content to create a per se crime of drunk driving. And it comes with a plethora of ideas, including steering wheels that can tell from perspiration whether the driver has been drinking, or interlock devices that won't allow a car to start until the driver has done ... << MORE >>

The story isn't a particularly complicated one, when an armed intruder broke into an apartment of Hofstra University co-eds in search of money and, not finding enough to satisfy him, sent one to an ATM to get more. Even for someone stupid enough to invade a home, this was idiotic. If you want money, you don't pick an apartment of college women.

Instead ... << MORE >>

Because everybody loves a listicle:

10.Reading a law review article.
9. Twitting.
8. Waiting for your client to be brought down to the visiting room at a correctional center.
7. Asking your mother-in-law "how are you."
6. Driving on the Long Island Expressway.
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One of the things that people, including lawyers, have a hard time with is that laws and rights aren't always in sync, and occasionally create a direct and irreconcilable conflict. Ultimately, a side has to be picked, and some will disagree with the choice. This video of the police responding to a domestic dispute in Cotati, California, via Turley, presents a good view of the problem:
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Jacob Gershman at the WSJ Law Blog opens his post with a question:

When it comes to regulating the legal profession, why is it that only lawyers call the shots?

It's not asked merely as a rhetorical question, but a prelude to the latest bit of academic intrusion into things they don't firmly grasp and serve to distract from the alternative reality where academics clean up their own nasty mess.
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When Tempe criminal defense lawyer Matt Brown decided to go on a walking tour of America for a few months, he probably wasn't sure what would greet him when he came home. He found out.

For one thing, Matt learned that he had now achieved a perfect 10 on Avvo. This comes as no surprise, given the strength of the latest award he deservedly won, though his relationship with Avvo hadn't always gone ... << MORE >>

If anyone else had hogtied, beaten, dropped on the ground, beaten again until dead, a man named David Sal Silva, there would be a swift response, resulting in the release of video evidence to the media, a perp walk and a press conference about how brave the officers were to take down the perpetrators. Anyone but their own deputies responding to an call about an intoxicated man.

The beating was ... << MORE >>