The reaction to news of the death of Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a helicopter crash* was a terrible shock the millions. To Washington Post national politics reporter, Felicia Sonmez, it was a mandate.

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Last week, after more than 48 years, I resigned my membership in the American Bar Association, after very carefully reading the exposure draft of Advisory Opinion No. 117 of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States. I encourage you to read it carefully.

Essentially, the Codes of Conduct Committee suggests that judges should no longer remain members of the American Constitution Society or the Federalist Society. However, the proposed opinion suggests that judges may continue to be members of the American Bar Association. I strongly agree with the opinion insofar as the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society are concerned. With regret and respect, I strongly disagree with the exception for the American Bar Association. Continue reading →

With some regularity, someone will say that something I wrote is great, but with the preface, “I don’t agree with everything he says.” It’s curious that anyone would say this. Agreeing or liking one thing doesn’t logically implicate agreeing or liking everything. But logic plays no role when disapproval is grounded in the expression of any wrongful thought.

My best understanding is that this Gertruding isn’t a signal to me, but a signal to others: it’s assumed by those looking for a fight that approval of one implies approval of all. This is the way for people to disavow assumed culpability for liking someone whom someone else does not. It strikes me as bizarre that anyone would agree with me about everything. Continue reading →

Sauntore Thomas probably felt pretty good about the fact that he, with the representation of his lawyer, employment law attorney Deborah Gordon, settled his employment discrimination suit against Enterprise Leasing Company. No, he didn’t hit the lottery, but he had three checks in hand when he walked into TCF Bank.

Thomas presented three checks written from Enterprise that day: One for $59,000. One for $27,000. And one for $13,000.

He wanted to deposit the first two and cash the third.* Continue reading →

One of the great curiosities is how the same folks who are outraged by junk science in the courtroom when applied to certain cases, certain crimes, “bite mark” analysis for example, or “bullet lead” analysis, aren’t perturbed at all about the testimony of someone like “forensic psychologist” Barbara Ziv.

Ziv, a professor at Temple University, may be remembered from her testimony against Bill Cosby. Her putative “expertise” is in dispelling “rape myths.” To put it differently, she’s an expert in promoting the #MeToo narrative, the litany of excuses for why anything a self-identified victim does proves their truth. Remember everything? Guilty. Remember nothing? Guilty. Remember some but not all? Guilty. Ziv gives the excuse for why, no matter what the case, it proves guilt. And she’s quite good at it. Continue reading →

The Grassy Knoll Pub is one of two watering holes in Mud Lick. With decor best described as “delightfully tacky conspiracy theorist,” it attracts residents and out-of-towners who enjoy the proprietor’s rants, free with every pint. Plus, the walls nearest the restrooms are usually redecorated each week with a brand new collage of photos, newspaper clippings, thumbtacks and yarn strands.

One night, the proprietor, a man named Jesse Custer, noticed a new customer in his mid sixties with graying hair and an authoritative demeanor. Even more noticeable were the men in matching black suits and earpieces who accompanied this new customer into the Knoll.

Custer, a lapsed Southern Baptist minister turned barkeep, was far less detached from the world than most of Mud Lick’s citizenry. As the graying, tired man asked for a glass of Bowmore 18, Custer politely asked him to wait a moment, then turned to the Knoll’s doorman. Continue reading →

For a while, there was a hard push to eliminate cash as a medium for transactions. There are a host of reasons why people and businesses would prefer to transact business with plastic or digitally, but that was a business choice above the use of cash. The argument wasn’t just about the virtues of a cashless society, but that cash was the currency of criminals.

The key point is that deals done in cash weren’t on the government’s radar and couldn’t be proven by records. In contrast, deals done by plastic or digitally had records. They could be traced. They showed where you were and when. They showed how much money you paid, and thus how much you had, and whether you were hiding it from the government or paying out more than you should be able to, unless you were engaged in criminal conduct. Continue reading →

Omar Ameen is awaiting decision on whether he lives or dies. Iraq claims he’s a killer and wants him returned. The United States seems all too happy to comply, even though the Iraqi claim is almost certainly false and, should Ameen be sent back to Iraq, he will almost certainly be executed.

His contention is that he was living in Turkey at the time the killing was supposed to have happened, so he couldn’t be the killer.

The key point in the story is that committing the crime would have been physically impossible for Mr. Ameen, who was residing in Turkey and in the middle of his refugee application process at the time. The victims’ parents have also stated that Ameen is innocent of the crime. Ameen is the victim of a false accusation that seems to have been spread by someone with a vendetta against his family, and that false accusation was then accepted at face value and reproduced by American and Iraqi officials. By all other accounts, Ameen has been a law-abiding refugee who fled Iraq because he was in fear for his life, and now he is about to be sent back because of outrageous lies.

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The defense had 20 peremptory challenges, and they were gone before juror 11 was seated in the box. There was no red flag at first. On her jury questionnaire, she wrote that one of her hobbies was “writing novels.” Big deal. Except she studiously omitted a detail that was clearly salient.

Lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi responded by saying juror No. 11’s questionnaire included the fact that she enjoyed “novel writing.”

The juror indicated she enjoyed “novel writing” under the “hobbies and interests” section of the questionnaire, Weinstein attorney Donna Rotunno told CNN.

“Not, ‘I am writing a book on this topic,'” she said. “Big difference.”

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As a guy who earns his living off advising colleges how to run their campus sex tribunals to assure the guy loses while creating plausible deniability to avoid liability, and as president of ATIXA, the Association of Title IX Administrators, an association dedicated to the cause of believing the woman no matter what, Brett Sokolow has long been a primary cheerleader for his tribe, defending the inane and dishonest with rigor.

After all, without the cottage industry of campus sex policing for the sake of saving women’s feelings at the expense of facts and innocence, Title IX administrators would be constrained to get productive jobs. Because of this, Sokolow’s views haven’t been well-appreciated by anyone beyond those who benefit from the grift. Yet, in an LA Times op-ed, it turns out that Sokolow has some observations worthy of note. Continue reading →