Sure, I post about plenty of stuff when it’s in my face, but what comes of it later? 

Lori Drew, the MySpace Suicide Prosecution

When last we checked in on this case, one of the most significant cases confronting online criminal liability, U.S. District Court Judge George Wu raised three very interesting issues to be briefed by the parties relating to how the case founds its way into his courtroom.  In light of the issues raised by defense motions to dismiss and the government’s response, this turn of events was quite significant. 

The latest news brings no substantive change in the case, but rather a new player into the mix.  Orin Kerr, lawprof blawger extraordinaire from the venerable Volokh Conspiracy, has joint H. Dean Steward on the Lori Drew defense team.  Pro bono, no less.

In the last two weeks, I have gone an important step further: I have formally joined Dean Steward, counsel for Lori Drew, as Drew’s co-counsel. My participation is pro bono, based on my strong sense that the government’s theory of the case poses a very real threat to civil liberties online.

While Dean Steward is hardly a slouch, Orin brings a level of scholarly depth to the defense that this case demands.  Given how dangerous a precedent this prosecution sets, and the strong potential that Judge Wu might reject the government’s theory, I hope that the combo of Steward and Kerr will prove to be unstoppable.

Yes, I know that there is a significant group who hates Lori Drew for what she did to Megan Meier, and demands that she be punished, and couldn’t care less about the theory of prosecution.  We all understand this, but this isn’t about loving Lori Drew, but preventing a terrible theory of prosecution that will haunt us long after the Lori Drew case is forgotten.

Troy Davis must be executed because . . . of the poignant story of Officer MacPhail?

As noted, the Supreme Court of the United States has denied cert in the Troy Davis case, where 7 of 9 eyewitnesses recanted their trial testimony.  The stay was lifted and the execution will proceed.

Bad enough?  No, not by a long shot.  Former Utah federal judge Paul Cassell, now lawprof and blawger at VC, isn’t satisfied that Troy Davis will die.  Inexplicably, he now finds it necessary to rub salt in the wound by his snide attack on the notion that the decision on this case, having filtered through the system could possibly be wrong.

There has been much ado in the media lately about another “innocent” person about to be executed. Unfortunately, most of the media coverage about the impending execution of cop-killer Troy Davis has spent precious little time discussing the facts of the case. This link contains a fairly complete rebuttal of the claims made by Davis’ advocates, who seem to have little interest in getting at the truth of the case. Even more poignant is this link, which has information about the victim in this case — Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

The rebuttal is pathetically weak, long on rhetoric and speculation, and substantively vapid.  But falling back on the “poignant” story of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail reflects a disgraceful appeal to irrelevant emotion.  Officer MacPhail was the victim of a killer, but sympathy for Officer MacPhail bears no connection whatsoever to who killed him. 

One wants to, has to, assume that Paul Cassell, a lawprof, a former federal judge, knows this.  Any lawyer would know this.  It’s basic.  Gideon ripped Judge Cassell to shreds for this post.  The comments to the post ripped him to shreds.  All of this begs one question for Eugene Volokh.  Why does Paul Cassell post on VC?  His posts lack the quality and depth one expects from VC.  I realize he is a former federal judge of some note, but now that we see him without his robe, he’s just not up to snuff.

SCOTUS says the “Alpha Dog” prosecutor gets to go “Hollywood”. 

It could not have been easy, born with a name like Jesse James Hollywood.  But if truth is stranger than fiction, then the story of JJH was as strange as they come.  The prosecutor, Ronald Zonen, looking for JJH for the 2000 kidnapping and murder of a 15 year old, decided to turn over his files on the case to Nick Cassavetes, a director and screenwriter, which resulted in the movie “Alpha Dogs,” a box-office mutt.

As a result of Zonen’s involvement in the production, he was recused from prosecuting the case, but later reinstated by the California Supreme Court, which held that Zonen engaged in conduct that was “highly inappropriate and disturbing” but did not rise to the level requiring his recusal for having denied defendant a fair trial.

The defense then petitioned for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, which yesterday denied the petition, putting an end to this mess.

While no one doubted that Zonen’s conduct, turning over the prosecution file to a movie maker, was wrong, I was never clear how one could connect this dubious act to direct prejudice to the defendant on the part of the particular prosecutor.  But I can assume that Ronald Zonen must be an awfully effective prosecutor, since the defense fought so hard to get him tossed and the prosecution fought so hard to keep him on the case. 

Who’s the Alpha Dog now?