When federal defenders were “stripped bare by sequestration, its bones have been chiseled away as well,” few thought too hard about its long-term consequences. After all, there was no money to pay for the required defense of the indigent, the constitutional mandate of Gideon notwithstanding, and certainly nobody likes defendants anyway. So, basically, screw ’em, because we need the money for Hamid Karzai things that are dearer to our hearts.

One of the points raised was that the defense function still had to be filled, and with the facile emasculation of federal defenders, the job would fall to private lawyers who took assignment under the Criminal Justice Act. Some good, some not so good, Continue reading →

The tragic story of a misguided bullet to the head of Hofstra student Andrea Rebello was bad enough, but Nassau County police can’t let it be.  As it stood, Officer Nikolas Budimlic was the goat, having rushed into a house with hostages and killed a hostage along with the criminal.  When the whole point of the exercise is to save people from crime and dying, shooting a college coed in the head is hard to justify.  Not that the department and union wouldn’t try their darndest.

As is usually the case, it would all be cleared up by the subsequent investigation, which would certainly explain how poor Andrea Rebello failed to survive this exercise in modern policing. And indeed, an investigation followed. Unfortunately, it appears that the point of the investigation wasn’t to figure out the role the Nassau County police played in this tragedy, Continue reading →

It’s not likely breaking news at this point, but Pamela Jones has chosen to take down one of the stalwarts of the blogosphere, Groklaw.  Her reasoning follows the line of reasoning of Ladar Levinson, founder of Lavabit, the confidential email provider who refuses to become a forced government rat.

Not being a groky kind of lawyer, much of what happened at Groklaw went over my head, especially because of their love of geek language, which I don’t speak.  But its value and substance were well known, and more importantly, well appreciated. And now, PJ has pulled the plug. Continue reading →

Proving the old adage about a blind squirrel, Justin Peters at the Slate Crime Blog stumbles onto an interesting article from Florida Coastal Law Review (I know, but apparently they do have one) testing the rubric of the consensual police encounter.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police officers can briefly detain and search a person if they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that he or she is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime. But cops need no such Continue reading →

Among the many reasons why SDNY Judge Shira Scheindlin’s decision in Floyd v. City of New York, holding the stop & frisk program unconstitutional, was inevitable was this key explanation up front:

I emphasize at the outset, as I have throughout the litigation, that this case is not about the effectiveness of stop and frisk in deterring or combating crime. This Court’s mandate is solely to judge the constitutionality of police behavior, not its effectiveness as a law enforcement tool.

Not long. Not particularly prolix. Continue reading →

If Kent Scheidegger didn’t exist, we would never get such artfully turned sentences as this:

All the preening pseudosophisticates congratulating themselves on how “smart” they are on crime can go home to their safe, leafy neighborhoods, while the consequences fall on people like Rachael Russell.

What made the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation spit out such words? Rachael Russell was raped and murdered by her grandson. Continue reading →

Regardless of what one thinks about Edward Snowden, hero whistleblower or traitor, or Glenn Greenwald, UK Guardian reporter who broke the news of our National Security Agency aggregating all of our digital metadata “just in case,” what followed yesterday to 28-year-old Brazilian David Miranda took it to a very different level.

Miranda is Greenwald’s “partner,” meaning whatever that word means these days when we’re not supposed to care. At least the New York Times was kind enough to expressly explain that Miranda wasn’t a journalist, per se, Continue reading →

My pal, Leo Mulvihill of the Fishtown Lawyers, writes an occasional post at the Puddle about male attire. I enjoy his posts, largely because I like Leo and he’s got a bit of a throwback sensibility about clothing. He gets it, though most new lawyers don’t.

I can’t blame new lawyers for lacking much sensitivity to sartorial splendor, as it came on me via the back door as well. Back in 1981, the time rolled around to put on one’s interview suit and smile for the lawyers so they would think well of you. I signed up for a few interviews, and they went fine in a neutral sort of way, but I failed to get a second interview. Continue reading →

In light of the spotlight on police militarization following publication of Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop, there has been a good deal of discussion generated, even within the ranks of the police.  At Police State USA, a retired Cincinnati police lieutenant offers his perspective.

The post begins:

This past week I was over on Officer.com trying to convince some hot-headed, patriot-hating young cops that the Constitution is actually the law of the land. I failed. One of them refers to open carriers as “attention whores.” Continue reading →

There was no parade down virtual main street to announce the news, which comes as no surprise. After all, a thousand blog posts, marketeers, phony conventions dedicated to the Future of the New Normal of #Reinvent Law, where hungry early adopters filled empty days singing Hosanna whenever an iToy was mentioned, never considered the possibility that it wouldn’t work out. It had to, they thought.

As Carolyn Elefant posts at My Shingle, it didn’t have to.

According to the 2013 ABA Legal Technology Survey, virtual law practices are on the decline, Continue reading →