The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of the Susan B. Anthony List, which is quite surprising given its awkward standing issue. It’s also important that it did, as the damage done by an Ohio law criminalizing speech that was false or made in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity is likely to do great harm long before any justiciable “case or controversy” exists.

The Wall Street Journal explains the background:

Ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, an antiabortion group called the Susan B. Anthony List announced plans for a billboard campaign against Rep. Steve Driehaus (D., Ohio) based on his vote for the health care law. They were to read, “Shame on Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted FOR taxpayer-funded abortion.” But they never were posted after Mr. Driehaus threatened legal action against the billboard company. Continue reading →

The 7th Circuit, in upholding a $30 booking fee imposed by the Village of Woodridge on every person arrested by its police, explained its rational basis in simple but brutal terms:

Woodridge’s booking fee clearly passes the rational basis test. In imposing the fee, Woodridge hopes to offset the cost of booking arrestees, or at the very least to collect revenue, either of which is a legitimate goal.

To “collect revenue,” even without a necessary connection to the “fee for service” aspect of the sentence, is close enough.  The collection of revenue is a legitimate goal.  And indeed, it’s not merely legitimate, but overarching.

In his new home at the Washington Post, Radley Balko offers a laundry list of horribles where the collection of revenue is not only legitimate, but sufficiently important to come before public safety. Continue reading →

Entire conferences are built around shiny iToys, and attended by lawyers who inexplicably adore their gadgets more than they do the skills like cross-examination or, heaven forfend, persuasive writing.  Because technology is the future. Because tech is their friend.

Except when it fails. Via Alex Craigie:

But the internet is all abuzz about Michael Bay’s meltdown on Monday during a Samsung press conference at the CES 2014 Conference. If you’ve missed the viral video, it’s not really that earth shattering. But, let’s agree that it’s lucky for Bay that he doesn’t have to count on his public speaking skills to earn a paycheck. If you or I were presenting evidence and our computer or Trial Director program went screwy, apologizing and walking off wouldn’t be a realistic option. Continue reading →

There may be bits of this with which some may take issue, but this is the advice and perspective of a police officer (no, I can’t prove he’s really a cop, but from its content, I’m prepared to go out on a limb) and it’s not only pretty damn good, but quite helpful to see the world through his eyes.

A small taste:

I’ve been seeing a handful of “Know your rights” style infographics pop up lately.

Continue reading →

Ohio’s Jeff Gamso has added his own mustachioed wrinkle in the lawyer confidence game series* that has wended its way from Judge Richard Kopf to Houston’s Mark Bennett to here.

I’ve turned down work, turned away clients and their families because they asked me to do not what was unethical (I’ve turned those folks away, too, but that’s a different issue) but what was impossible. There are things the law does not allow.  There are times when there’s nothing else to do, nothing to be done.  It sucks, but there it is.  And I won’t take your money.  It’s too much like stealing.

Among the many ugly truths of lawyering is that people believe us, which means that if we’re larcenous in heart or mind, the opportunity to steal is there. I’ve quipped many times that if I wasn’t so damned honest, I could be rich. Not only is it easy, but clients wouldn’t have the slightest clue that their lawyer was taking advantage of them. Indeed, they would be more inclined to thank their lawyer for his hard, hard work and imaginative diligence than call out his theft. Continue reading →

In an interview on CBS this morning, Mayor Bill deBlasio’s new police commissioner (as opposed to Rudy Giuliani’s old police commissioner) Bill Bratton made three points abundantly clear:

1. The NYPD Stop and Frisk program will continue, though he says cops need better training (because that reasonable and articulable suspicion part is way too hard to grasp).

2.  The reason the program disproportionately impacts minorities is because that’s where the crime is.

3.  If deBlasio didn’t allow Bratton to bring in authoritarian shill news legend John Miller, Bratton would not have taken the job. Continue reading →

But it’s only $30, two-thirds of the panel of life-tenured Article III judges mumbled to themselves as they bumped into walls and muttered, “‘scuse me, madam.”  In fairness, Judge Joseph Peter Stadtmueller of the Eastern District of Wisconsin was sitting by designation. But then, Judge Diane Sykes not only let him write the opinion, but gave him the majority.

The third judge, David Hamilton, dissented.  I would imagine that the fact he had to write a dissent on a case so utterly idiotic pissed him off. This is not a good use of judicial time, but he was left with no choice. Why? Because the majority opinion may, only eight days into the new year, be the winner for stupidest appellate decision of 2014.  Yes, it’s that bad. Continue reading →

I explained to the defendant’s mother that it was my way to tell the truth, good, bad or otherwise. She responded that she wanted the truth, before launching into all the reasons why she thought her child should beat the charges. In every instance, she was shooting blanks. It’s not that there may not be well-founded arguments and evidence that would give her child a fighting chance, but if so, she wasn’t aware of them.

The truth tends not to be what a person whose loved one is facing decades of prison desires to hear. While she says she wanted the truth, what she told me suggests she wants hope. It’s an awkward situation, where my telling the truth isn’t going to endear me to her.  Did I want to be the bearer of bad news? It’s certainly not the best way to persuade a client to retain a lawyer.

When Judge Kopf linked to an ancient article in response to a post here, Continue reading →

Lawprofs Stephen J. Schulhofer and David Friedman wrote a policy analysis for free-market-loving Cato Institute in 2010, arguing that indigent defense is in “a state of perpetual crisis, routinely described as ‘scandalous.'”  Few would disagree. But their solution was fairly radical:

The uniform refusal of American jurisdictions to allow freedom of choice in indigent defense creates the conditions for a double disaster. In violation of free-market principles that are honored almost everywhere else, the person who has the most at stake is allowed no say in choosing the professional who will provide him one of the most important services he will ever need.

As a corrective, we propose a free market for defense services, one that would, so far as possible, function in the same way that the existing market functions for affluent defendants who are able to retain their own counsel.

Essentially, vouchers. Let the defendant pick his own lawyer, and the state/county/jurisdiction will pay for indigent defense.  Sure, the lawyer would have to agree to accept whatever the jurisdiction was paying, as well as the defendant, but assuming those weren’t in issue, why not let a defendant have freedom of choice? Continue reading →

Josh Blackman, who was just named to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list in law and policy, found it sufficiently odd that old First Amendment warhorse Floyd Abrams, in the bio accompanying his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, was so “modest.”

This is it:

Mr. Abrams is the author of “Friend of the Court: In the Front Lines with the First Amendment” (Yale, 2013) and a senior partner in the firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP.

Certainly both are great accomplishments, but I think he may have a few other credentials that qualify him to opine on free speech.

Well yeah, he does, which is the beauty of Abrams’ bio, and a point that sailed over Josh’s head. Continue reading →