Last week’s New York Times magazine had an odd article about eBay’s shifting fortunes in the world of e-commerce.   It seems that the days of eBay being the world’s largest, never-ending garage sale are coming to a close, as it’s trying to reinvent itself as another Amazon.

Most people think of eBay as an online auction house, the world’s biggest garage sale, which it has been for most of its life. But since [CEO John] Donahoe took over in 2008, he has slowly moved the company beyond auctions, developing technology partnerships with big retailers like Home Depot, Macy’s, Toys ‘‘R’’ Us and Target and expanding eBay’s online marketplace to include reliable, returnable goods at fixed prices. Continue reading →

While we, who wait quietly to be called for our few moments in the well, attribute vast power to the guy in the robe on the big bench of a federal courtroom, federal judges may not see their authority quite the same.  This point was driven home in spades by a post by Judge Richard Kopf at Hercules and the Umpire.

About to have (a presumptively lengthy) sentence imposed, the defendant disrupted the routine with an apology for not being at his best.

When the defendant spoke, the first thing he said was “I don’t feel so well” or words like that. He was sweating profusely, he seemed shaky, and he appeared to be nauseous.. Continue reading →

Judge William H. Pauley III took his turn at bat in determining whether the government’s collection of telephony metadata might be uncool in any respect, as his brother, Judge Richard Leon, held a mere ten days earlier.  The title of this post is the TL;dr version of the opinion I used on twitter.

In ACLU v. Clapper, the court could not have been more deferential to the government.  I mean exactly that, in the sense that Judge Pauley adopted unsupported representations that the FISC Judge John Bates had concluded were false in a 2011 opinion recently declassified.

Judge Pauley swept past the issues of efficacy of the program with the rhetoric of the obvious, Continue reading →

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 →