The question on the law school application wasn’t what some would call a good one:

In 2005, David Powers, a CPA and a summa cum laude college graduate with a  master’s degree, filled out an admissions application in which he was asked  whether he had ever been “charged with, pleaded guilty to, or been found guilty  of any crime, offense or violation” apart from minor traffic violations.

The problem is that “charged with, pleaded guilty to, or been found guilty  of any crime,” is phrased in the disjunctive.  Does that mean pick one, any one of which will do? Does that mean go with the one that carries the most substantive weight? One would think a law school could do a better job of asking a question. Continue reading →

While no one would accuse me of being delicate in my criticism of the First Amendment implications of Mary Anne Franks’ jihad against revenge porn, at no time did I suggest that it had anything to do with revenge porn itself being acceptable or any affinity toward those who engage in it or run such websites. While gender politics may be at the core of others, my concern is limited to creating new crimes and criminalizing the exercise of First Amendment rights.

Because of this, a comment to a new post by Thomas Jefferson Law School prof Kaimipono Wenger disturbed me:

Kaimipono D. Wenger – October 23, 2013

Admin note: Professor Franks has become a bit of a lightning rod of late for some bizarre, stalker-ish online attacks — sort of the blogosphere equivalent of McInnis’s frustratedly yelling “you’re a fucking idiot.”  Continue reading →

Jeff Gamso tackles the attack on 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner by Charles Lane in the Washington Post. Judge Posner, who isn’t exactly shy about speaking off the bench, let loose that his decision in a controversial 2007 case involving Indiana’s voter ID law was wrong.

The ever-provocative federal appeals court  Judge Richard A. Posner  has made news again, this time by voicing second thoughts about his 2007 decision to uphold Indiana’s voter ID law.

The ruling was later affirmed by a 6 to 3 vote of the Supreme Court. But Posner says, in a new book, that the Indiana law was of “a type . . . now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.” In recent interviews, the judge chalked up his mistake to the plaintiff’s lawyers’ failure to present “strong indications that requiring additional voter  identification would actually disenfranchise people entitled to vote.”  Continue reading →

Let’s say there is a judge in a court somewhere out there in flyover country. Let’s say it’s the Cleveland Municipal Court. Let’s call our judge Angela Stokes.  And let’s say that for the 18 years she’s been on the bench, everybody, including her court staff, thought she was, well, nuts.

And let’s say that Supreme Court of Ohio’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline has issued an opinion requiring our Judge Stokes to undergo psychiatric evaluation because they conclude in a 49 page report that she may be “suffering from a mental illness that substantially impairs her ability to perform her duties as a judicial officer.”

What do you do with such a judge? Continue reading →

At Techdirt, Mike Masnick brings the sad news that CryptoSeal, another “secure” service has shut its virtual doors.

CryptoSeal Privacy Consumer VPN service terminated with immediate effect

With immediate effect as of this notice, CryptoSeal Privacy, our consumer VPN service, is terminated. All cryptographic keys used in the operation of the service have been zerofilled, and while no logs were produced (by design) during operation of the service, all records created incidental to the operation of the service have been deleted to the best of our ability.

While details remain unclear, Continue reading →

When Adam Liptak’s column appeared in the New York Times, the question wasn’t whether he was right or wrong, unduly harsh or overly superficial.  The question would be how many scholars would scream in agony at another knife in their heart.

 “Would you want The New England Journal of Medicine to be edited by medical students?” asked Richard A. Wise, who teaches psychology at the University of North Dakota.

Of course not. Then why are law reviews, the primary repositories of legal scholarship, edited by law students?

The pain. The pain. Continue reading →

While legal scholars focus on creating new crimes to combat revenge porn, police officers in Puyallup, Washington may be busy making some of their own from women arrested for drunk driving.  Via Gawker:

Almost two dozen women have come forward with complaints about being forced to strip naked in a Washington police station after being arrested for DUI, and then videotaped by police officers.

The women were brought to a holding cell in Puyallup, Washington, where they were told to strip naked before being given jail clothes. Unbeknownst to them, their jailers were watching them strip through a video camera. Continue reading →

A reader sent me a link to a thread at JD Underground, which was both disturbing and refreshing at the same time.  The original poster wrote:

I feel like I just bullshit my way through life and somehow convince people I’m
competent when in reality I am a total shithead.

A harsh self-assessment, and likely untrue. Anyone who can engage in such metacognitive recognition isn’t, by definition, a total shithead.  But such self-awareness doesn’t mean they aren’t feigning competence rather than gaining it. Continue reading →

Make a wrong turn? Like to check out the gals on the street at three in the morning? Simply choose to be wherever the hell you want to be in this land of the free?  Not in Sanford, Florida. From the Orlando Sentinel:

Dear John: If you were hoping to have a quick “date” with the woman standing on the street corner in Sanford, you may want to think again.

Starting this week, the Sanford Police Department will send “Dear John” letters to registered owners of vehicles spotted lingering in areas known for prostitution.

Not engaged in a hand to hand (or other body part) transaction, Continue reading →

When Seattle criminal defense lawyer Stephan Illa saw the headline at Doug Keene’s Jury Room, it was a smack upside the head. Keene posted of a new study that showed that women convicted of “white collar crimes” were sentenced more harshly than men. What?

How much longer? 300% longer if you are a White woman and 450% longer if you are a Black woman. Seriously. Wow. A new report has been released comparing the federal white-collar crime sentences of men and women.

Stephan was astounded. After 30 years in the trenches, it defied every experience he’s ever had. Me too. But then, how many times have we learned that “common wisdom” turns out to be total marlarky and reality is just the opposite? So Stephan read through the report. Continue reading →