This is hard. Very hard. My feelings toward Rudy Giuliani have been decidedly ungood since the 1980s, and they haven’t gotten any better since, which makes him a test case for whether I can not join the schadenfreude chorus singing hallelujah at the New York Appellate Division, First Department’s interim suspension of his license to practice law.

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020. These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client. We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee.

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It’s curious that South Carolina lawyer David Traywick chose not to fight. His lawyers expressly refused to assert a First Amendment defense, and the Court, in deciding the case, expressly chose not to consider it. Instead, they grounded their decision in two rules of professional conduct, Rule 402(h)(3) requiring lawyers to “maintain the dignity of the legal system,” and Rule 7(a)(5), prohibiting conduct tending to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute.

It happened on Facebook, where Traywick wrote some angry and vulgar posts. There are, according to the decision, 12 statements at issue, but only two are recited in the decision. Presumably, they are the most offensive of the bunch. They were sufficiently offensive to cause 46 people to complain about Traywick. It’s unclear from the decision whether these were lawyers, clients, judges or just 46 random people who happened to see his Facebook page. Apparently, the number of people was of sufficient consequence to make the opinion. Continue reading →

Years ago, Carl Malamud took on a valiant cause, to make law free for all. Statutes would be online. Caselaw would be online. No longer would a person need a law library with shelves lined with books, with pocket parts, to know what the law was. No longer would someone have to be a lawyer to read law. Law was for all of us, so why shouldn’t all of us have access to it?

It was a sound argument and a virtuous goal. With access to legal source materials, people would have the ability to know what the law is. Of course, having the ability isn’t the same as using that ability. It occurred to me yesterday, in the aftermath of Derek Chauvin’s sentence, that the problem isn’t the availability of legal information. The problem is that people just don’t care enough to learn and, more importantly, won’t let information get in the way of their beliefs. Continue reading →

The underlying case was horrific, even if it wasn’t really a qualified immunity decision as many misconstrued it. The kicker to QI isn’t the first prong, that there was a constitutional violation, but the second, that the violation was “clearly established.” After all, if there was no constitutional violation in the first place, then the cops did nothing wrong. Even if there was no QI, cops would still prevail. This seems to get lost in the sauce for many.

After the original Fifth Circuit panel dismissed the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), holding that tazing a guy soaked in gasoline such that he burst into flames was not a violation of his constitutional rights because there were others, cops included, placed in danger and the police had, the court found, no other option. The complaint did not plead a plausible cause of action. Continue reading →

Dear Ms. Lindsay:

I read your recent essay in Vulture about your desire to leave the public life and return to the peace of being a private figure. That is, I made a good faith attempt to read your insipid drivel before giving up and moving on.

Your decision to leave celebrity behind is commendable. You were the first woman of color to receive a first impression rose on The Bachelor. And being the first black Bachelorette was definitely an accomplishment. I can’t say I remember much about your season, but I treat this stuff like some folks treat sports–you keep up with the basics for polite conversation. Continue reading →

The Washington Post headline made clear that the evil governor of Florida wasn’t satisfied with his bad Critical Race Theory law, but now signed another evil law to control the minds of Florida’s college students by requiring them to verify their politics.

In push against ‘indoctrination,’ DeSantis mandates surveys of Florida college students’ beliefs

And The Hill twitted much the same. Continue reading →

Trigger Warning: You can’t say trigger warning anymore.

Wesley Yang has thoughtfully noted that Brandeis University, that bastion of liberal thought and expression, has provided a list of words and phrases that must not be uttered. Continue reading →

Brandi Levy’s snapchat teed up an issue that needed to be resolved. It was after school hours. It was outside of school. It was on the internet. But it related to school, and a screen cap of her speech was shown to a coach and she was punished for it.

The case concerned Brandi Levy, a Pennsylvania high school student who had expressed her dismay over not making the varsity cheerleading squad by sending a colorful Snapchat message to about 250 people.

She sent the message on a Saturday from the Cocoa Hut, a convenience store popular with teenagers. It included an image of Ms. Levy and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with a string of words expressing the same sentiment. Using a swear word four times, Ms. Levy objected to “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”

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It’s said that within a courtroom, the judge is king. And indeed, the judge is as far as lawyers and litigants are concerned, and he’s got marshals to back him up. But what happens when those same marshals are the targets of a judge’s concern?

U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann of South Dakota levied criminal contempt charges against three senior federal law enforcement officials on Monday over an ongoing feud over his insistence that he must know whether law enforcement officials guarding his courtroom have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Continue reading →

When the University of Washington Republicans held a “bake sale” in 2019 to make a political point, it didn’t go well.

The Friday bake sale drew an angry crowd and the presence of University of Washington police to try and keep things calm.

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