Granted, we’re way beyond the point where anyone with half a brain would confuse the advice of Chuck Klosterman, the Ethicist (2,0) in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, with legal advice.  First, he’s not a lawyer. Second, he doesn’t know anyone who is a lawyer well enough to ask a basic question. Third, he doesn’t appear to have any sense of what is or is not lawful. And fourth, he doesn’t let the huge gap in knowledge prevent him from using New York’s pre-eminent newspaper to tell people what to do.

But then Klosterman gets a question like this: Continue reading →

It’s not that a 107-year-old man with a gun can’t do harm. Oh, yes, he can. But then, when the SWAT team instigates his firing by trying to take him out rather than just hanging around for a while, it’s just nuts.

Shortly afterwards, a S.W.A.T. entry team, inside the residence, breached the door to the bedroom and threw a distraction device into the bedroom. Isadore then began to fire on the entry team and the entry team engaged Isadore, killing him. Continue reading →

After asking the question of one of the new (well, newish at this point) lawyers from the law school transparency movement, I learned that the scambloggers are pretty much done, having gotten tired of whining about how the law failed them and taken the assistant manager job at Dairy Queen.

It’s not that they haven’t made some headway. Fewer kids are applying to law school, and classes in some schools are smaller because of it.  Deans are pretending they can produce “practice-ready” lawyers, even though no one wants them because, well, it’s nonsense. Continue reading →

There is a tacit assumption that whoever is running the indigent defense show has at least a little, itty-bitty interest in criminal defense-type stuff, like Gideon, the Constitution, zealousness. What if they didn’t? What if they didn’t care about much of anything at all? Via The Seattle Times:

An unprecedented filing by the Department of Justice in a class-action lawsuit in Mount Vernon and Burlington signals a watershed solution to the country’s crisis in indigent defense: a first-ever federal-court takeover of a local public-defender agency. Continue reading →

Note: This doesn’t have anything to do with criminal law, police misconduct or kittens, so most of you won’t have any interest in this post and should immediately avert your eyes.

The intrepid Frank Pasquale, at Concurring Opinions, raised a bit of a dilemma coming out of the Second Circuit in its curiously empathetic opinion on mandatory arbitration clauses in Duran v. The J. Hass Group.  From the recap by Public Citizen:

In Duran v. The J. Hass Group, a woman who is essentially on the edge of being destitute alleges . . .  that she was the victim of a last-dollar scam, promised services that she didn’t receive. It probably will not surprise anyone who follows consumer law (although it would come as a surprise to nearly any actual consumer) Continue reading →

There wasn’t much of a reason for criminal defense lawyers to know about this, but Bill Otis, who plays adjunct lawprof at Georgetown when he isn’t applying for the position of switch-flipper at the Big House, had a debate over federal mandatory minimum sentences. The debate was hosted by the Federalist Society, and the side of truth and justice was argued by Ohio State’s lawprof, Doug Berman.

There was no defense lawyer in sight, both because the spectrum of ideas embraced by the Federalist Society runs from swift and painless execution to long, drawn-out, painful execution, and few of us have the time to waste with such academic debate. Continue reading →

The day of reckoning is upon the New York City criminal defense bar. From the New York Law Journal:

On Monday, The Legal Aid Society and criminal defense groups in Manhattan,  Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx will begin representing indigent defendants in  cases where the primary defense organization is barred by a conflict, taking the  place of 18-b attorneys in most cases.

The change puts in place a controversial plan proposed by Mayor Michael  Bloomberg in 2008 over the fierce opposition of the county bar groups. The city  maintains that the plan will save money and, on average, provide better outcomes  for indigent defendants. Continue reading →

Like a good neighbor, Donald Blondin was there. When Sgt. Jeff Shelton of the Snohomish, Washington, Police Department was dispatched to deal with an elderly man, Jack Hawes, who was trying to commit suicide, he was told that Jack had guns.

Shelton found Jack in his car trying to asphyxiate himself, and ordered the old man out. He complied, but failed to show his hands upon command.  So they tased Jack, who fell to the ground, then tased him again while cops piled on. Continue reading →

If the question was posed to a first year criminal law class in law school, one would expect every hand in the class to shoot up, with more than a few making those weird noises that suggest the need for a diet rich in probiotics.  Anyone with their head down has no business expecting to make it to 2L.

From the summary of the 9th Circuit in Dow v. Virga, opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt:

During trial, a detective testified that Dow, rather than his attorney, requested that each of the participants in a lineup wear a bandage under his right eye at the location at which petitioner had a small scar under his; the attorney made this request out of concern that the witness might falsely identify petitioner Continue reading →

When an unnamed DeKalb County, Georgia, police officer saw 16-year-old Marquez Redden running, what was he to think?  Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Police were called to a home in the 2600 block of Streamside Court. A woman who had barricaded herself inside said invaders had broken into her home.

Two alleged burglars were found in the attic, police said. The officers believed as many as two more possible suspects got away, police said. Continue reading →