There are some names that should never be uttered again, as they only serve to dredge up hard and divisive feelings that produce nothing useful.  So I won’t mention the name, and I ask you not to do so either.  But this guy can’t seem to get off the radar.  His next stupid pet trick was to offer his “art” on eBay (to the extent this link will work for a while to bring you to the original eBay auction, here ya go.)

It strikes me as unlikely that he’s going to see that $100,000 he thinks he made from the auction.  I may be wrong, but it strikes me as a goof (which happens when silly or absurd things are offered for sale), as it seems inconceivable that anybody loves him enough to waste that amount of money on his crappy art.  But then, it was a big enough number to draw otherwise smart people back into the mix of blind rage. Continue reading →

In about a month, the Second Battle of the Lies* will be fought in Albany.  The battle comes in the appeals of Adrian Thomas**, the trial having been a fiasco of experts that disgraced anything remotely resembling reason. The appeal is gearing up to be a battle of amicus as well, with the District Attorney Association of New York fighting for hegemony.

The first battle was fought in 2001, when the New York Court of Appeals rejected its historic jurisprudence of providing greater protection under Article 1, Section 12, of the state Constitution than the Supreme Court under the Fourth Amendment.  In People v. Robinson, New York adopted the holding of Whren v. United States. Continue reading →

Nothing makes a splash for an ambitious prosecutor like announcing a huge initiative to rid the streets of evil people, and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice is nothing if not ambitious.  When she announced that was going to after “johns,” the men who patronize prostitutes,  It was called “Operation Flush the Johns,” a nifty headline-grabbing name that was sure to put her loveliness in the public eye.

And there is was, 104 men arrested, and a huge chart with picture, suitable for framing.

Continue reading →

A handwritten letter from a person whose name was completely unfamiliar arrived at the office from an upstate New York correctional facility. It read:

Dear Mr. Greenfield,

I need a lawyer to handle my appeal. An associate suggested you. Please let me know what type of criminal law you practice, trials or appeals. Also, what is your experience? What is your won-lost record?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Joe Continue reading →

Merry Christmas, all. Have a great day.

-shg Continue reading →

Sure, the sentimentalist will no doubt gripe about how this defiles an age-old tradition, filled with dancing sugar plums and whatever else you adore even though you’ve never eaten one. But what of those who would destroy our society because they hate our freedom and liberty? Huh?  What better way to do it than by taking advantage of our weaknesses?

Regardless of all the privacy griping (which will become immediately silent following the roar of an improvised explosive device on Main Street), the National Security Agency, in cooperation with the other tentacles of government, isn’t taking their eye off the prize.  Via the Duffel Bag, the American Military’s Most Trusted Source: Continue reading →

This is the 6,003rd post at Simple Justice.  I’ve written more, but only published 6,003. When I started this blawg in February, 2007, because I had nothing to do one day, and my wife said to me, “why don’t you start a blog,” I really had no thought about its future. It was just something to kill some free time doing what I enjoyed doing. I like to write.

I’m sure some of the blogs that were around before me have more posts, but it struck me that 6,003 is a lot of posts.  Having switched systems and platforms a couple of times over the years, I’ve lost track of some of the data. I don’t know how many people have visited SJ over the years, Continue reading →

The President of the United States of America has a lot of cool powers. Some are set forth in the Constitution. Others come from the bowels of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, where they decide that torture and drone strikes to kill Americans are legal. In another room at DoJ, one that I picture as windowless and austere, sits the Pardon Attorney.

While the Justice Department lawyers are busy explaining why torture and drone strikes are okay, the pardon attorney is busy playing spider solitaire on his computer. He doesn’t have much to do. The President is a busy guy, and while his attention is focused on drone strikes, he has precious little time for such politically unpalatable things as pardons.

Walter Olson explains: Continue reading →

While I may be a bit on the extreme side in opposition to sleazy lawyer marketing, no one can argue that the proprietor of LexBlog, Kevin O’Keefe, supports the notion that lawyers should be “Thought Leaders” and get their ideas out there to market themselves.  So when Kevin hits the wall on sleaze, you know it’s bad.  And it’s bad.

In the race to who can be the sleaziest lawyers in the country, Ohio personal injury lawyers are now soliciting injury victims via text messages. The lawyers are getting cell phone numbers from police reports.

As reported by Mark Williams of the Columbus Dispatch, the Ohio Supreme Court approved text advertising in an advisory opinion earlier this year.

What are they doing? They’re sending texts to the victims and families of tragedies, Continue reading →

My expectations weren’t particularly high for the post by Nicole Flatow at Think Progress, given that its title was, well, a bit grandiose.

Why Cops Pull The Trigger: Pulling Back The Curtain On Police Shootings

This is more scholarly book territory than the stuff of posts, particularly as the writer is a JD turned legal journalist. The internet is replete with people writing Big Posts about subjects they know nothing about.  Yet, it turned out to be a far more informative post than I ever imagined, and Flatow’s fine writing combined with a trio of sources, former cop turned cop-prof at the John Jay College of Coppery Peter Moskos, former (very) Special Agent turned prof at a California (ahem) university for “working adults” called Brandman, David Long, and Kyle Kaza, a former LA cop who apparently couldn’t get a teaching job, so went on to sell real estate.  Continue reading →