There are ways in which we distinguish one John Doe from another. There are mug shots. Fingerprints. Social security numbers and dates of birth. These distinguishing factors have been around for decades, routinely used to identify one person from another, because in a nation of 330 million, names are occasionally used twice. Often more than twice. Sometimes, there are a whole bunch of John Does, or in this instance, Bethany Farber.

A Southern Caifornia woman has sued the Los Angeles Police Department after she claims a case of mistaken identity left her in jail for nearly two weeks.

Bethany K. Farber was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on April 16, 2021. According to Farber’s representatives, upon arrival at the airport, she was detained by TSA and told that there was a warrant out for her arrest in Texas. Farber allegedly told police that she had no history of trouble with the law, nor had she ever been to Texas.

Continue reading →

What is happening? Why? What should be done about it?

What does it mean for the United States and the world? Continue reading →

Naturally, Joe Patrice, mustering his usual intellectual depth, championed the cause of the traumatized Duke Law students forced by their faculty advisors to include an article in the Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems.

After Jon Adler at Volokh Conspiracy pointed out that Patrice’s ATL post ran the gamut from vacuous to ad hominem, he noted that editorial decisions at this particular journal were made by academics, and the academics did something that neither a group of Duke students nor Patrice could tolerate: They included an article that failed to adhere to the social justice orthodoxy. Continue reading →

Prince Andrew was accused in a civil action for damages. He denied it. He has now settled the case, which happens when a plaintiff and defendant agree on a resolution to the claims made. But what about you?

It’s deflating to see how often wealth can be used to obscure truth.

WaPo columnist Christine Emba is pissed. How dare Prince Andrew use his wealth to settle the suit against him? Continue reading →

When beepers emerged as a new communications tool, a client told me he was going to get me one. I thanked him but refused. “I will not be ‘beeped,'” I told him. If he needed me, he could call my office, and if I wasn’t there or able to take his call, he could leave a message. I would get back to him. Then again, my clients knew I would always get back to them as soon as possible. It never occurred to me to do otherwise. These were my clients.

The ubiquity of being constantly available has changed the rules for many in ways that were easily foreseen. When email and texting became a “thing,” it was a glorious means of communication in the sense that someone could reach out to you at their convenience and you, in turn, could get back at yours. It could have been wonderful. It is for some of us. But for others, it’s too much of a burden to endure. Continue reading →

The story behind the sentence of Memphis Black Lives Matter activist, momentary mayoral candidate, lawful-then-unlawful-then-lawful-then-unlawful voter and person-with-a-lot-of prior-convictions, Pamela Moses, is ugly, convoluted and hard to follow. Was she an honestly confused person who sought only to register to vote as her probation officer certified she could, or a person who arrogantly flouted the chance to walk away and earned the sentence imposed as a result of her long history of engaging in criminal conduct?

Various permutations of the backstory are laid out in the New York Times and Washington Post and elsewhere, The facts of the case were disputed, but what was clear was that she had a long rap sheet of three prior felonies and a bunch of misdemeanors, voted at least six times since 2015, when she was last sentenced, despite being ineligible, and decided in her Shelby County case not to take a plea that would have let her escape another felony and prison, but to go to trial. She had what was arguably  a triable case, but by no means a strong defense. Moses rolled the dice and found guilty by the jury. That’s how trials work. Continue reading →

Three members of the San Francisco school board were recalled. So what?

By large margins, San Francisco voters on Tuesday recalled three members of the city’s school board, including board president Gabriela López (with about 74 percent supporting recall), Alison Collins (78 percent), and Faauuga Moliga (71 percent).

The margins were stunning, as was the politics of the losers. Continue reading →

The old joke asks why Willie Sutton robs banks. The answer is the obvious: Because that’s where the money is. While states are legalizing the sale of marijuana, whether for medicinal or recreational use, there’s a gaping hole between businesses legally growing and selling marijuana and where the money from its sale goes.

The dashboard camera video shows eastbound Interstate 70 traffic whizzing past Dickinson County sheriff’s deputy Kalen Robison’s patrol car, which is parked crosswise in the median about three miles west of Abilene. Continue reading →

The shoot was bad. Worse than bad. Incomprehensibly bad. But when you’re a cop, a bad shoot doesn’t necessarily make it a crime. That this feeds into the narrative that cops can get away with anything, that cops shoot black people because they’re racist, that all cops are bastards, is understandable. After all, this was one truly bad, horrific, and from almost any rational perspective, wrongful shoot.

Continue reading →

As jurors were deliberating in the suit by Sarah Palin against the New York Times, SDNY Judge Jed Rakoff informed the parties of his intention to grant the Times’ Rule 50 motion on the basis that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish “actual malice, as required by Times v. Sullivan and its progeny.

But the judge didn’t grant the motion, as many media outlets incorrectly announced, and stated he would let the jury deliberate and reach a verdict so that the Second Circuit would have both his ruling and the jury verdict, in case the circuit decided he was wrong. Continue reading →