Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez failed in her latest effort to strip citizens of a basic right to film police in public — and thereby eliminate the single most effective tool against police abuse in this century. The Supreme Court refused her appeal of the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which expressly criticized Alvarez for her “extreme” position on the rights of citizens. As a native Chicagoan, I remain astonished that citizens have allowed Alvarez to remain in office as she has publicly sought to strip them of their rights and block a tool that has been used repeatedly to show police abuse. For a leading and generally liberal jurisdiction, Chicago has the ignominy and dishonor of leading the effort to fight core civil liberties in this area.
Month: November 2012
We previously discussed the untimely and untidy death of Edward Archbold, 32, who collapsed after winning the title as the world champion roach eater. We speculated about the possibility of liability for a “bad roach.”
The autopsy is now in on Archold and the finding is that he choked to death on the roaches.
Continue reading “Autopsy Shows California Man In Roach-Eating Contest Choked To Death”
Angus T. Jones has a curious way of demonstrating his deep Christian faith. Jones is shown in a new video denouncing the show “Two and a Half Men” as “filth” and a danger to Christian children and values. The problem is that Jones plays Jake Harper on the show and receives a reported $350,000 an episode. You may recall that Charlie Sheen was kicked off the show for making disparaging comments about the show and “dangerously self-destructive conduct.” While Sheen was not fired under a “morality clause,” such provisions are common in television contracts. Could denouncing the show as immoral violate the Morality Clause?
Continue reading “Two And A Half Men . . . And A Hypocrite”
The ABA Journal has released its list of the top 100 legal blogs in the world and we are once again in this august group of blogs. Congratulations to all of our regulars contributors and weekend bloggers. We have previously taken the top spot under the opinion category in the past but the ABA has now eliminated that category. Even more ominous was the decision to put the largest blogs in direct competition under an expanded “News/Analysis” category. This includes the long dominant “Above the Law” site. We would have to punch considerably above our weight to beat “Above the Law,” which is ranking regularly in the top two most visited legal sites in the world. Frankly, it is like a dingy going up against a battleship. However, we have never flinched in the face of superior numbers. So it is time to vote! It takes a very quick registration. Just click here and cast your vote today!
Continue reading “TURLEY BLOG MAKES ABA TOP 100 — NOW IT IS TIME TO VOTE FOR THE TOP BLOG!”
We have been discussing the continued effort of prosecutors and police to jail citizens who photograph or videotape police in public. For a prior column, click here. Now, in California, another such arrest has been videotaped in California as Daniel J. Saulmon was charged with resisting, delaying and obstructing an officer when the video shows him standing at a distance and not interfering in any way with the arrest.
Continue reading “California Man Arrested For Filming Police In Public”
Alabama lawyer James Stewart Robinson, 45, just may be the lawyer Michael Vick was looking for. Robinson has been charged with cruelty to a dog after he allegedly slit the throat of his family’s pet pit bull and then texted a photo of the dead dog to his estranged wife. The two are in the midst of a bitter divorce and had been arguing of custody of the dog, named Rufus.
We have previously discussed the war on atheists and agnostics that seems to be accelerating with the rise of people claiming to have no religious affiliation or belief in God in the United States, according to recent polls. There is a steady stream of statements from the national and international campaign by leaders against atheists, who appear to be fair game for hateful, ill-informed rhetoric. While you may have seen this already, Pat Robertson pushed this trend to a new low: telling his many viewers that atheists want to everyone to be miserable because they are miserable. They therefore what “to steal your holiday [Christmas] away from you.”
Continue reading “Robertson: Atheists Want People To Be Miserable And To Steal “Your Holiday””
The City of Detroit has left whole areas without street lighting and even proposed allowing buildings to burn rather than spend the money on fire fighters. However, the city is now facing a $1.1 million default judgment in a civil rights suit after its attorneys failed to respond to the lawsuit.
In torts class, we often discuss the limitations placed on the protection of property under the common law. While many states have passed controversial Castle Doctrines or “Make My Day” laws and others have extended such privilege to use lethal force to cars or workplaces (under Make My Day Better laws), the common law does not allow people to use force calculated to cause serious bodily injury or death in defense of property. Many stores instruct employees not to use physical force with shoplifters for that reason or to try to stop armed robberies (including cases where stores have fired such heroes). It appears that a security officer is out of job after a scuffle with an alleged shoplifter caused the middle-aged suspect to have a heart attack and die outside of a Walmart.
Continue reading “Alleged Shoplifter Dies After Struggle With Security and Staff At Georgia Walmart”
In class, we often discuss the limitations on liability from fire under the common laws. This weekend showed how extensive, and foreseeable, such damage can be with a gas explosion. On Friday night, a strip club exploded in Springfield, Massachusetts — burning ten buildings including The House of Mercy church next door.
Continue reading “Massachusetts Strip Club Explodes and Takes Out Church Next Door In Gas Explosion”
The Gettysburg Address was 272 words and yet stands as one of the most iconic writings in history. We now have a type of Gettysburg Address of our generation. In just 137 words (almost 40 fewer words than Lincoln), this elementary student writes a moving call to arms coupled with a sense of deep sorrow. Like Lincoln, the student expresses profound pain of a nation with simple penetrating prose.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Confetti rained down upon people who had gathered in New York City to watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday. Some onlookers were surprised—and alarmed—when they discovered shredded police documents among the colorful confetti that had fallen from above. The documents contained confidential information that was still legible. The “police confetti” included the “social security numbers and banking information for police employees, some of whom are undercover officers.”
Tufts University freshman Ethan Finkelstein and a friend noticed that a strip of confetti that had landed on his friend’s shoulder had stuck to her coat. Finkelstein was concerned—“so he and his friends picked up more of the confetti that had fallen around them.” Finkelstein said, “There are phone numbers, addresses, more social security numbers, license plate numbers and then we find all these incident reports from police.”
Continue reading “The Case of the Confidential Police Confetti”
Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have seen the Republicans falling all over themselves to claim that the UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, should not be our next Secretary of State following her statements in our Libyan Ambassador’s death at the hands of terrorists. Former GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain were at the forefront of the attacks on Ambassador Rice. “Shortly after Romney conceded his loss earlier this month, McCain set his sites on UN Ambassador Susan Rice, a likely nominee to succeed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Pointing to several television appearances where Rice communicated the intelligence community’s as-yet imperfect understanding of what happened during the Benghazi attacks, McCain promised that “I will do everything in my power to block her from becoming Secretary of State.” ‘ Think Progress
Now it seems that not only has McCain backed off his promises to block Ambassador Rice’s rumored nomination to succeed retiring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but a prominent Republican is actually advocating her as a better Secretary of State candidate than Senator John Kerry because it was alleged that Kerry is against War! “Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on Sunday suggested that Republican senators should confirm United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice if she is nominated as secretary of state because she is more likely to support going to war than Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). ” Raw Story Continue reading “Secretary of State or Secretary of War?”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Bobby Jindral, Governor of Louisiana, has caused quite a stir in Republican circles calling on the party to throw off the mantle of the stupid and prejudiced among us. Pleading for an end to dumbed-down conservatism, the former golden boy of the party (before a disastrous 2009 televised reply to President Obama’s address to Congress) begged the party to turn away from being the champion of the “haves” and, most importantly, jettisoning its appeal to the lowbrow of society.
Continue reading “What “The Party Of Stupid” Might Become (Updated)”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
As a visceral person who loves film, I am easily moved when I watch productions that connect the struggles of human beings with the vicissitudes of life. This week I watched such a creation and its’ genius was that it led me to thoughts larger than the particular subject of the program. Hubris is an ancient Greek word that can be thought of as indicating: “a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris . To the ancient Greeks, hubris played an important part in their philosophy and in their philosophic expression in Greek dramas. In those times sexuality was also deeply intertwined in its examples. However: “In its modern use, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of humility, though not always with the lack of knowledge.” I intend to extrapolate from one desperate time in American history a sense of what fault it exposes in a macro-cosmic human sense.
Along with the “Great Depression” in the United States, an ecological disaster occurred and added to the general economic misery of the country. This was the advent of the “Dust Bowl” in the agricultural “heartland” of our country. The documentary I watched was “Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl” which I’ll link at the end of this guest blog. From 1930 through 1940 immense dust storms, with ever increasing frequency, began to plague this area along with a parching drought, devastating this formerly fertile region. As the farming economy shrank, children died and farm folk were driven into despair, it became apparent that this ecological disaster was brought about by the people who had worked the land into becoming among the most productive farmlands in the world. I watched this documentary, tearing up frequently at the human misery I saw and clenching my jaw in anger at the sheer cupidity that caused it. I was rediscovering a part of our history that I had known little about except for where it happened. By retelling this tale though I want to make a larger point. The Greeks had it right about humanity in general, in that as we have become masters of this planet, so many of us have so often been laid low by the hubris of thinking ourselves completely in control of our world and immune to the effects of nature. Continue reading “Humanity’s Hubris”