There are a few points that are beyond dispute. After spending 24 years in prison, Darryl Howard was exonerated of the double murder after Durham Detective Darryl Dowdy fabricated evidence against him. After trial on Howard’s § 1983 suit, the jury awarded him $6 million. And finally, the City of Durham is under no duty to pay the judgment.

Yet now the city of Durham is refusing to pay him. Instead, the city is arguing that Dowdy acted in “bad faith” during his investigation. Therefore, the city argues, Dowdy wasn’t acting within the scope of his employment, and the city is refusing to indemnify him from the jury award.

Continue reading →

When news broke that Twitter’s board of directors approved its sale to Elon Musk, a weird thing happened. People expressed their passionate beliefs that this mattered to them. From the usual suspects spewing their usual inanities to a priest with an ill-advised wealth commentary to the ACLU and Amnesty International fearful of the dangers of free speech.

Musk says that he’s going to promote free speech on Twitter.

🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

Continue reading →

Just as the right wing efforts to silence speech about what they call critical race theory for lack of any meaningful description, fail to provide a sufficient precise and limited definition to pass constitutional muster, so too do efforts by the state, here by the University of Central Florida, in crafting a speech code to prohibit “discriminatory harassment.”

As Judge Kevin Newsom writes for a unanimous panel, the breadth of the UCF policy is “staggeringly broad.” How broad? Continue reading →

Bad calls happen, although one was hard to take. My son was fencing in the finals of a major A4 competition in New Jersey, the score was 14-14 and he pushed his opponent off the end of the piste. In fencing, that’s a touch and would have ended the bout. But it happened a few seconds before the end of the period, so the ref had his eyes on the clock rather than the piste and didn’t see it. The fencers did, and both stopped fencing because they knew what had happened. The audience saw it. The ref did not, so he didn’t call “halt.”

The period ended a second or two later, and he looked back at the strip and saw everyone, fencers and audience, looking at him. He had no clue why. I then screamed at him that a fencer went off the strip and he missed it because he wasn’t looking. I screamed at him that it was absurd that he would be reffing the final bout and blew the call. I screamed at him. It was the only time I ever screamed at a ref during my son’s time fencing. It did no good. He replied that he didn’t see it so no touch. Continue reading →

With my sincere apologies, this came across my screen and seemed worth sharing. The University of British Columbia created an Anti-Racism and Inclusion Excellence Task Force, which issued its report. It begins with the usual Canadian land acknowledgement, which is obligatory even if they’re not giving the land back.

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the xwməθkwəyˇəm (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), səlˇilwəta? (Tsleil-Waututh) and the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

Continue reading →

Every criminal defense lawyer has enjoyed the experience of gently and empathetically explaining to a client that no, the case won’t be dismissed because the cop failed to give him the Miranda warnings. Rather, the only remedy for a custodial interrogation absent the warnings is exclusion of the defendant’s statements at trial. No statements, no remedy.

But humans being what they are, the issue arose in another circumstance raising the curious question, what are the Miranda warnings? Continue reading →

Let’s start this with an admission. I’m a Batman kind of guy. Out of all the superhero types, be they Marvel, DC, or some other comic label, Gotham City’s Caped Crusader’s been the one I flocked to the most.

So when I heard a Batman cinematic reboot was in the works, I rolled my eyes a little. After all, the Dark Knight’s gotten treatments from Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, and Joel Schumacher (for all the good THOSE movies did). What else could a new director bring to the table? Continue reading →

There is a long list of reasons why Florida might not want to continue give Disney the treatment it’s received for the past 55 years. DisneyWorld is not just a complex of theme parks, but a municipality unto itself. And Florida was good with this for a long time, both because of the revenue, tax and tourist, Disney brought into the state and the money it spread around to state politicians re-election campaigns, regardless of party affiliation.

It was a very symbiotic relationship until Disney took the side against the governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Continue reading →

Before anyone builds a shrine, Mubarak Soulemane is no one’s hero. Yet, the New York Times headline is the sort of deliberately inflammatory racial pandering that lights the fuse on mostly peaceful protests.

White Connecticut Trooper Charged in Killing of Black Man During Stolen Car Chase

It’s not that it’s inaccurate, but that there is nothing involved to suggest that race had anything to do with it, not that you would know that from the way the article was structured, the third paragraph, before providing any factual information about what happened, leads with this sentence. Continue reading →

Brett Hernandez, a San Francisco cop, was suspended for having unlawfully searched a guy who parked illegally.

On January 24, 2019, around 11 a.m., Ibrahim Nimer Shiheiber pulled up to the curb in front of a sandwich shop in the Inner Sunset to grab a Philly cheesesteak for lunch. He parked in a red zone with his tail end blocking a fire hydrant. Shiheiber put his hazards on and headed toward the shop. Continue reading →