The sentence, pretty notorious now, was long enough to shock a lot of people out of complacency. 110 years. Not life. Not four lifetimes. 110 years. That was the sentence imposed upon Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a truck driver who drove far too fast until he came upon traffic stopped in front of him, whereupon his brakes failed. He could have driven off the highway but made the wrong call. It ended in a fiery crash and four entirely innocent people dead.

For this, the defendant was sentenced to 110 years, with even the judge stating that it was not the sentence he would want to impose. But given the charges, given that he went to trial and was convicted, given the mandatory nature of the sentencing law, both in terms of years and that the sentences be consecutive rather than concurrent, there was no other option, Continue reading →

The back story is so goofy as to be the stuff of legend, but that doesn’t mean things can’t get worse. A civ pro prawf at University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School, Jason Kilborn posed this question on his exam.

After she was fired from her job, Plaintiff sued Employer under federal civil rights law, claiming employment discrimination on the basis of her race and gender. [discussion of other evidence omitted]  Employer also revealed that one of Plaintiff’s former managers might have damaging information about the case, but no one at Employer knew where that former manager was, since she had abruptly quit her job at Employer several months ago and had not been heard from since. Continue reading →

The case against Jeffrey Epstein proxy Ghislaine Maxwell is now in the hands of the jury, with the two sides having summed up their positions.

“It is crystal clear that Maxwell knew about and was deeply involved in Epstein’s sexual abuse of children,” Alison Moe, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the jury in a closing argument that sought to tie together the government’s evidence, which was presented over 10 days. “Maxwell was key to the whole operation,” she said.

Ms. Maxwell’s lawyer, Laura Menninger, acknowledged in her summation on Monday that the government had “certainly proved” that Mr. Epstein was a “master manipulator” who abused his wealth and privilege. But, she said, “we are not here to defend Jeffrey Epstein.” Continue reading →

Not that he hasn’t been acting all along, but when he died on a Peloton bike in the latest remake of Sex in the City, actor Chris Noth, “Big” on the show, went viral. That lasted for days, about a week, and then it happened.

Triggered by the recent ‘Sex and the City’ reboot, the women allege two incidents of misconduct they say took place more than a decade apart.

The two accusers alleged that they were raped by Noth, one in 2004 and the other in 2015. They appear, as has become the fashionable framing, to be credible accusations. In response, Noth “categorically denied” any misconduct. Continue reading →

The bill was called “Build Back Better” because giving bills cool names has proven more effective in getting public support than actually “selling” the public on what the bill does. Remember the USA PATRIOT Act?* And who doesn’t want to build back better, because building back worse, or not building back at all, sounds horrible. But as becomes clear in the years after a law is enacted, what exactly was done may neither be what the name suggested nor what works.

The efficacy of omnibus bills, proposed laws that cover and broad swathe of unrelated or quasi-related programs, spending and prohibitions, is obvious. The less we know about what’s in there, the fewer things we find to criticize. And it plays the parts we like against the parts we don’t, the parts that seem like a good idea against how that seemingly good idea will actually happen. As hard as it may be to come up with an agreeable law addressing a specific problem, with the right focus, words, execution and funding, it’s far harder to do so when there are a hundred laws folded into one omnibus law. Continue reading →

Much as we may well believe we know where we are at the moment, with progressive forces doing their very best to convince us that the demise of free speech and thought is social justice, many of us wonder where this came from and how such irrational if over-educated ideologues managed to pull of the greatest coup against enlightenment since the dark ages. The President of FIRE, Greg Lukianoff, offers a bit of history to explain.

The 1994 movie PCU, about a rebellious fraternity resisting its politically correct university, was a milestone. Not because the movie was especially good—it wasn’t. It was a milestone because it showed that political correctness had officially become a joke. Continue reading →

One of my long-running jokes on twitter is “emojis are violence.” To be fair, I’m not a fan of emojis. They’re childish and rarely do they convey a message either of value or coherence. When I ask people what a string of emojis proffered by someone else means, they give some vague answer because they don’t really know. They may get the gist of the message, like someone likes or hates something, but that’s about as close as it gets to actual meaning. I don’t like them.

But emojis aren’t violence. They’re emojis. Silly and pointless, in my view, but just emojis. What sort of blithering idiot would claim emojis are actually violence? Continue reading →

The American Bar Association, ever vigilant that diversity and inclusion be the primary goal of its existence, crafted a mandate that its Continuing Legal Education panels contain the “correct” distribution of race, gender and orientation demographics, or else.

The ABA policy said the association expects all its sponsored or co-sponsored CLE programs to include members of diverse groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

The ABA policy said CLE programs with three or more panelists, including the moderator, must have at least one member from a diverse group. Programs with five to eight panelists must have at least two diverse members, and programs with nine or more panelists must have at least three diverse members.

Continue reading →

One of the first things you learn in the trenches is that you do not tell a judge that something that’s obviously real isn’t real. Not only will you lose your argument, but you lose your credibility. The former is bad for the client. The latter is a disaster for the lawyer. Credibility once lost is likely gone forever.

Yet, denying reality has been at the forefront of many of the battles for reform. Despite a spike in murders and assaults, police and crim law reformers vehemently deny that there is a crime problem. The reason is obvious, that fear of crime pushes the public to back simplistic Draconian fixes and reject the efforts to reform many of the worst aspects of the legal system. The window of opportunity opened by the public’s shift against police and “systemic racism” will slam shut as fear of crime seizes their consciousness. Continue reading →

The parents of Ethan Crumley, James and Jennifer, have been charged with manslaughter for their son’s school shooting and killing of four students. On its surface, many applaud this prosecution, as they seem to be horrible parents who produced and facilitated action from a child that had horrific and tragic consequences. There is little sympathy of the Crumley family to be found.

But the attenuated connection between being bad parents and a child murdering students is a huge legal stretch. That doesn’t mean it won’t work, just as the sophist legal reasoning that turned drunk drivers into murderers worked. Or, if that example doesn’t bother you too much, the legal reasoning that turned in rem civil asset forfeiture to “take the profit out of crime” into a license to steal. It may start with the people we hate, so we shrug off the outrageousness of the law because “screw ’em,” but it never ends there. Continue reading →