It was huge news, as it should have been. The headline in the Washington Post read, “Juror B29, ‘Maddy,’ says ‘Zimmerman got away with murder’.”  Wow. Except as William Saletan writes in Slate, that’s not quite what she said.

The reports are based on an ABC News interview with Juror B29, the sole nonwhite juror. She has identified herself only by her first name, Maddy. She’s been framed Continue reading →

One of the perils when a flack pitches a story to the blawgosphere is that it may not be as fabulously received as they hope. This happened here when an email from a Washington Post flack arrived extolling an op-ed that addressed The Question. You know The Question:

How can you represent those people?

It’s a question that has been addressed a million times over, whether at a cocktail party, on a blawg, or in the media. It’s always been Continue reading →

The story out of Fort Worth doesn’t demand much by way of commentary, but needs to be known nonetheless. From the Star-Telegram:

Police officers responding to a burglary alarm call went to the wrong house because of poor lighting and fatally shot an armed homeowner, according to a search warrant affidavit released Wednesday.

Officers B.B. Hanlon and R.P. Hoeppner were dispatched to 409 Havenwood Lane at 12:51 a.m. Continue reading →

One of the dirty little secrets of the legal academy is that few of the thousands of scholarly articles they churn out on the backs of law students’ tuition find their way into the law.  Many are never written for that purpose, and serve only to provide fodder for the tenure committee to prove their scholarly worthiness as a brilliant theoretician, destined to be read by a grand total of twelve people before being forgotten forever.

But some academics have a burning desire to leave their fingerprints on something that matters. When a lawprof’s name ends up in a Supreme Court footnote, Continue reading →

No, not a refund for a conviction, which would tantamount to a contingency fee, but a refund upon discharge. John Wesley Hall notes a decision out of North Dakota, Disciplinary Board v. Hoffman, where an attorney was ordered to refund  the “unearned” portion of a fee upon discharge.

A criminal defense lawyer did not violate ethics rules by charging a flat rate $30,000 fee and depositing it in his operating account. However, when the client terminated the relationship (previously firing another lawyer before this one because he was a “flitter”) Continue reading →

The scenario is well known amongst criminal defense lawyers. A defendant arrives to retain legal services, having more than sufficient assets to hire counsel of choice. A deal is struck and a check is written. Counsel gears up, ready to use everything in his power to defend his client, then poof, the check bounces. Not for insufficient funds. Not because the defendant stops payment. Nope.

Because the government has obtained a restraining order freezing the defendant’s assets. It’s not for lack of money, the funds are all there. It’s because the government says Continue reading →

The trick often played in federal court is wrapping up innocuous observations under the “totality of the circumstances” test of Illinois v. Gates.  By breaking up otherwise banal conduct into as many tiny aspects, casting each in as nefarious a tone as possible, ordinary conduct can be made to appear sufficiently stinky to give rise to reasonable suspicion to justify further police intrusion, thus making the right to be left alone a matter of rhetorical skill.

The Oregon Court of Appeals refused to play that game in Oregon v Alvarado, where the defendant was stopped for speeding and a missing front license plate.  After going through the usual traffic ticket stuff, Continue reading →

At HuffPo, Ryan Reilly writes about the devastation sequestration is wreaking on the federal defenders:

The public defender system hasn’t just been stripped bare by sequestration, its bones have been chiseled away as well. There has been a 9 percent reduction in the roughly $1 billion budget for federal public defender’s offices, while federal defenders in more than 20 states are planning to close offices. Careers have been ended and cases have been delayed. All of it has occurred in the name of deficit reduction — and yet, for all the belt-tightening being demanded of the nation’s public defenders, money is not actually being saved.

That it’s not actually saving money Continue reading →

Northern District of Ohio Senior Judge James Carr sat on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, FISC, for 6 years, which means his hand must have gotten pretty darned tired and cramped from stamping approved on all those ex parte government applications.  In an op-ed in the New York Times, Judge Carr offers a salve:

Critics note that the court has approved almost all of the government’s surveillance requests. Some say the court is virtually creating Continue reading →

While I occasionally gripe about the content of blog comments, this one, fished out of my spam folder, was special.

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