Brad Heath, who has firmly established himself as one of the premier criminal law reporters in the nation, offers yet another cruel vision of the abuse of confidential informants in USA Today.  The argument in favor of rats is that they are a “necessary weapon in the fight against crime.”

The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation’s top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.

Continue reading →

How do we solve a problem like lawyers? The American Bar Association Task Force on the Future of Legal Education has put out its working paper, which Paul Caron sums up:

• Law school education is funded through a complex system of tuition, discounting, and loans. Schools announce standard tuition rates, and then chase students with high LSAT scores by offering substantial discounts without much regard to financial need. Continue reading →

The story of 60-year-old Roy Middleton being shot in his driveway, reaching into his mother’s car for a smoke, by a cop who was called for a suspected car theft. has already made the rounds, but the response of Florida Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan on CNN raises some curious problems.

On Thursday, Morgan defended the officers’ actions as standard procedure because Middleton “did not comply.” Asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo how police could justify 15 shots at a 60-year-old man, Morgan said the officers saw a metallic object in Middleton’s hand as he made a “lunging movement” toward them. Continue reading →

When it comes to gender politics, talk is cheap. Feminists can theorize all they want about how things would be if they ruled the world, but it’s mumbo (without much jumbo) until they’re put to the test. The good news is that there has been an ongoing test, where women are given guns and shields, allowed to roam the streets and exercise authority.

How’s that working out? Via LiveLeak, a video of a female cop in Los Angeles at the tail end Continue reading →

Charged with the 2010 murder of a former co-worker, Dr. Vanjinder Toor, who he blames for ending his career, one thing is clear: Dr. Lishan Wang doesn’t care much for the Connecticut Public Defender’s office. And apparently, they don’t like him too much either. At least, not enough to allow any of their funds to be used to pay for experts in his pro se defense.

From the Branford Eagle:

The case’s judge and prosecutor are preparing to ask the Connecticut Supreme Court for advice as they try to move forward a confusing case involving an accused murderer who is representing himself—and running up a lot of bills. Continue reading →

That 25-year-old San Diego student Daniel Chong will be scarred for life by the experience really can’t be questioned. After all, being left for 5 days in a holding cell will do that to a person. From the LA Times:

After being questioned briefly at the DEA facility in San Diego, he was told he would be released. But, for reasons that remain unclear, he was left for five days in a 5-by-10-foot windowless room without food, water or toilet facilities. Continue reading →

Exploring the nether regions of Stewart Baker’s head is fascinating, if a bit too dark and moist for my sensibilities. Still, he offers at Volokh Conspiracy the rationale for the unthinkable, sometimes the laughable, and he does it with a straight face. And in front of Congress! Again.

Baker offered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, those great buncha guys who make sure that federal judges know how to deal with bad dudes like our clients, Continue reading →

Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Law Blog lays out in a post he calls “To Tell the Truth: Which Doctor’s Signature is the Real One?” some evidence that whatever is happening on the defense side of personal injury medical examinations, it smells just as bad as any fraud being perpetrated by a scammer under indictment.

Over the transom this week sails medical reports allegedly signed under oath by one Joseph Tuvia, M.D., who’s been doing medical-legal reviews of radiology films since about 1996. He was reviewing, back then, a thousand films a year, and was doing 95% of it for the defense.

As you might guess from the title of this post, the questions today revolve again around potential perjury, Continue reading →

Imagine some twisted sci-fi show where a team of ninja hitmen came to your home when some shiny iToy you bought that carried a “lifetime warranty” broke. They came to fulfill the warranty. Get it? Preposterous?

Lawprof Mike Dorf, in a post that I like to characterize as “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies,” argues the meaning of a “lifetime warranty.”

But what if the advertisement or product packaging does not specify the life that the warranty references?  Let’s consider a few possibilities: Continue reading →

While people have pretended to be cops long before, the problem of fake cops took flight during the crack days of the 1980’s, when thieves would rob drug dealers by pretending to be police busting them. The “brilliance” of the scheme was that the victims of the robbery couldn’t run to the cops to complain, since the thieves stole their drugs and drug money.

Since then, others have come to realize the beauty of pretending to be cops in order to commit crimes, ranging from theft to rape. They use the submission to authority Continue reading →