Passionate cause activists get angry with trench lawyers,* because some of us never seem to appreciate the symbols of success as much as they do. After all, didn’t they say they were going to change their evil ways? Didn’t they acknowledge they had been doing it all wrong, and now they’re going to get it right? Why won’t we celebrate with them? Why must we always be so . . .

There is a laundry list of big issues that has been floating around for a while, a generation in some instances. Remember when the National Academies of Science put out its report that junk forensics were, well, junk? That was 2009. We got all excited.

The President’s Counsel of Advisors on Science and Technology said it again a few months ago, as if the 2009 report never happened. Jessica Gabel Cino, associate dean at Georgia Law and former Fault Lines contributor, wrote a lengthy post about “what now?” Much as we adore having our beliefs validated, it’s not quite enough. Thanks for the tummy rub, kids, but now you actually have to do what you said you were going to do.

But that takes focus, effort, thought and time, and by then, the advocates are off to their next cause célèbre . We, the janitors of the legal profession, remain, cleaning up the mess. Continue reading →

The final dictat of the Obama Department of Education has been revealed. It is, to be sure, curious.

The department’s regulation creates a standard approach that states must use in determining if their districts are overenrolling minority students in special education compared to their peers of other races. If the disparities are large enough, districts are required to use 15 percent of their federal allotment under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act on “coordinated, early intervening services” aimed at addressing the issue.

The new rule also requires states to use a standard approach to determine whether minority special education students are in segregated settings more than peers of other races, or if they face more suspensions and expulsions than their peers. Disparities in those areas would also trigger the requirement to use federal money to fix the problem.

See the problem? No? That’s okay. I’m here for you. It’s like the moronic question asked on my law school application, “How many hours per day do you plan to study?”  I answered, “How long must a man’s* legs be?”  See it now? Too obtuse? Jeez, you’re a tough crowd. Continue reading →

There is, perhaps, no “advice” offered more, and more consistently, to anyone confronted by police than to shut up. Sometimes, shut the fuck up. But always with the message, do not talk to the police. As every criminal defense lawyer knows, it just don’t happen. People just can’t not talk. Even when they think they’re not talking, they claim they didn’t talk, they talked.

Lawyer: Did you answer questions, make a statement?

Defendant: No way, man. I didn’t say shit.

Prosecutor: The defendant confessed, in writing, signed and notarized, witnessed by two nuns.

The lawyer then turns to the defendant, who shrugs with that sheepish look on his face, and mumbles:  Continue reading →

There was method to the madness, whether you agree with it or not.

Maybe it’s time for black people to use the same tool white people have been using to defy a system they do not consent to: jury nullification. White juries regularly refuse to convict or indict cops for murder. White juries refuse to convict vigilantes who murder black children. White juries refuse to convict other white people for property crimes. White juries act like the law is just a guideline and their personal morality (or lack thereof) should be controlling.

Maybe it’s time minorities got in the game?

Sure, it’s overly simplistic. Not all white juries convict blacks and acquit whites. Not all white people shrug off harm to blacks or forgive whites for committing murder. But the hung jury in police officer Michael Slager’s killing of Walter Scott was raw. It wasn’t the sort of outcome that lent itself to being generous toward the legal system. Continue reading →

If you view the situation through the eyes of the SWAT Team officers, Ray Rosas firing 15 rounds, striking three officers, was an attempt to kill them, a capital murder. But then, why would Ray Rosas view the situation through their eyes, knowing only afterward that this time it was the police? From the Corpus Christi Times-Caller:

A man who shot three Corpus Christi police officers executing a raid on his home had been the victim of several drive-by shootings and believed he was protecting his house, his lawyers said at the start of trial Wednesday.

Previous attacks on Ray Rosas’ home in the 3000 block of Churchill near Del Mar College are part of Rosas’ defense for the Feb. 19, 2015, shooting.

Rosas was on the wrong side of the good-guy curve, a guy in his home who had suffered previous shooting. The cops outside know they’re cops, but how would he know? Continue reading →

Somebody wrote something and somebody thought it was crap. This isn’t breaking news. When the blawgosphere was in its early days, and cheerleaders were extolling its virtues as the new normal where everybody could show the world their brilliance, I had a cute sound bite: Anybody can blawg. Everybody cannot.

Put something up on the screen and see what happens. Some people are going to find out that nobody wants to read it. Maybe because they’re boring. Maybe because they suck at writing. Maybe because they have nothing to say. The possibilities are endless.

But some people are going to attract some attention, though not the attention they want. Somebody is going to call your baby ugly. Somebody is going to say you’re wrong, your writing is idiotic, you, dear writer, are a moron. Yesterday, I was informed that a lot of people think I’m a “major league twat.”

Here’s the sad news. Not everybody is going to love you. Not everybody will think you’re as brilliant as you think you are. Me either. As regular readers here know, I’m told all the time how wrong I am. BFD. Continue reading →

In a series of twits, Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank, and a former executive of ExxonMobil, did the unthinkable. She explained why the leaked news that Trump would name Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State wasn’t so terrible.

The knives had already come out to slice and dice the choice, with superficial assumptions, the sort of routine quasi-informative arguments that are deeply persuasive to people who prefer not to know too much, think too hard, and appreciate any reason to persist in hating whomever they hate.

Maloney’s twits were dangerous, heresy. They suggested that Trump’s choice may not be a poor one at all, that Tillerson might be a reasonable pick. It wasn’t so much that her twits were a conclusive vindication of the choice, but that they forced one to think beyond seeking excuses to hate everything Trump is doing. If you believe with certainty that Trump is “literally Hitler,” then the last thing you want to hear is that he may not be as terrible, or at least that every decision he makes, everything he does, isn’t absolutely horrifying.

No one can force anyone to think. No one can force anyone to believe what they don’t want to believe. And the same elites who were so certain that Trump could never be elected have chosen not to believe Trump. Continue reading →

Stew 1: 27C is feeling a bit hungry.

Stew 2: Oh my, I will rush over there with a delightful raspberry scone immediately.

Fantasy? Not if British Airways gets its way.

British Airways is looking to automate its service by getting passengers to swallow a pill that will communicate your needs to their crew.

British Airways is investigating getting passengers to swallow ‘digital pills’ that will tell flight staff if they are feeling comfortable.

The ‘ingestible sensors’ will be able to beam wirelessly health information from inside a customer’s body – and be used to help ensure travellers suffer minimal jet-lag.

The information could be used to indicate if a passenger is awake, asleep, hungry, nervous, hot, cold or uncomfortable.

Seriously? Apparently so. Continue reading →

The peculiar belief of college administrators that their special authority exempts their campus from the laws that apply to the unwashed is bad enough. But what of the mere professor who believes that, of all places in the nation, his classroom is sacred?  A University of Illinois-Urbana prof learned otherwise.

Erik McDuffie, professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Illinois.

A hunt for a stolen cellphone at the University of Illinois has triggered a debate about when campus police can enter a classroom.

Triggered? The question of how a college chooses to deploy its campus police may well be a subject of debate, but the question is not whether they “can” enter a classroom. There is no debate: any damn time they please. Whether they should may well be a different question.

But then, why would this be an issue? Continue reading →

The parting gift of the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development to residents of public housing is air. Not exactly clean air, but air free of cigarette smoke. Those who find smoking repugnant will applaud, noting that no one should be forced to smell the acrid odor of another person’s foul and cancerous habit. That smoking is dangerous is beyond question, though the effects of second hand smoke may be over-hyped, even if for good intentions.

But has the regulation of smoking now come to a place too close to home? For residents of public housing, the existence of which is a recognition that even those who can’t afford a brownstone on Sutton Place ought to have a roof over their heads, the nannies who know what’s best for them are now in their home to dictate acceptable conduct within their own home.

The New York Times Room for Debate, in one of the most New York-ish, not to mention Times-ish, debates ever, questions whether banning conduct within a person’s home is “heavy handed.” It was a two-person debate, both of whom began with serious Gertruding. Bronx NYC councilman Ritchie Torres supports the move. Continue reading →