Category: Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Torts

Court Declares Armstrong Has Protected Right To Lie To Fans

220px-Lance_Armstrong_Tour_2010_team_presentation_(cropped)Lance Armstrong has succeeded this week in establishing a constitutional right that is tailored perfectly for his legacy: the constitutional right to lie. U.S. District Judge Morrison England dismissed a lawsuit by people who bought his books while he was lying about his use of performance enhancing drugs and attacking his critics. In a clearly correct decision, England ruled that such writing is squarely protected by the First Amendment. The case is Stutzman v. Armstrong, No. 2:13-CV-00116-MCE-KJN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129204, September 9, 2013

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics

Public Interest Lawsuit Forces Disclosure Of Widespread Surveillance Violations By The NSA

President_Barack_ObamaNSA logoWhile it was not long ago that President Obama,  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other officials insisted that there was no illegal surveillance in the massive warrantless programs disclosed by Snowdon and others, new documents show that the National Security Agency not only violated the law for years but actively misled judges on the use of such illegal surveillance.  The programs covered millions of call records and was only acknowledged by the Administration after a lawsuit by civil libertarians — a lawsuit that it has tried to dismiss (like dozens of others tossed out at the demand of the Obama Administration).

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Society

Federal Court Sentences Man To Eight Months In Jail For Advising People On How To Beat Lie Detectors

300px-Limestone_Technologies_Inc._-_Polygraph_TestThere is a troubling conviction in Alexandria, Virginia where Chad Dixon has been sentenced to eight months in jail for training people how to pass top-secret security polygraphs. The Administration prosecuted Dixon, a former Little League coach, obstruction and wire fraud for teaching between 70 and 100 people how to get past lie detector tests. He was paid $1000 a day and the Justice Department labelled him a “master of deceit.” However, if other people are actually giving false information or gaming the system, the question is whether this should be treated as a protected form of speech. It raises many of the same issues as the prosecution of people who encourage or advice others on how to commit suicide. [The picture is a file image of a test and not associated with Dixon or these underlying charges]

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Bizarre, Congress, Constitutional Law, International, Military, Politics

Kerry Suggests Assad Has One Week To Avoid Attack While Promising Obama Only Wants An “Unbelievably Small” Military Campaign

220px-John_Kerry_official_Secretary_of_State_portraitWe previously discussed the curious step of President Obama seeking approval for a new war while insisting that he does not need such authorization to attack Syria. Now, Secretary of State John Kerry has referred to a one week period for Syria to comply with U.S. demands or presumably face an attack. It so happens that the Senate is set to vote this week, but opposition in this country is extremely high to yet another military intervention by the Administration. Moreover, unsuccessful in his earlier pitch for a free war, Kerry is now trying to sell the world on an “unbelievably small” military campaign. The U.S. seems to be saying that President Obama just needs the world to let him attack briefly to show that he cannot be dismissed or mocked in his earlier red line announcement.  However, Kerry suggested a new red line in turning over control of the weapons and Russia has now announced that it will ask Syria to put chemical weapons under international control. That would undermine further the U.S. rationale for war if Russia says that it is moving to comply with Kerry’s demand. However, State Department handlers are trying to again walk back from the Secretary’s public statements.

Continue reading “Kerry Suggests Assad Has One Week To Avoid Attack While Promising Obama Only Wants An “Unbelievably Small” Military Campaign” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering

State Supreme Court Stops Montana Judge From Increasing Rapist’s Sentence After Public Outcry

article-2402937-1b7bd6a3000005dc-73_306x423We previously discussed the shocking sentence handed down by Montana Judge G. Todd Baugh to a teacher who raped a 14-year-old student. Stacey Rambold, 54, (left) was given just 30 days in jail after Baugh found that the victim was “older than her chronological age.” It produced an outcry on this blog and other sites. Baugh then magnified the concerns over his judicial judgment by responding to the outcry by trying to re-sentence Rambold. It left the impression of a judge seeking a longer sentence in direct response to public pressure. The Montana Supreme Court stepped in to order Baugh to cancel the resentencing hearing.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law

Ninth Circuit Reverses Federal Judge Who Ruled That False Statement Of Prosecutor In Closing Argument Was Harmless

118705gavel2The Ninth Circuit ruled last week that La Carl Mertez Dow deserves a new trial in reversing a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton (left) in Oakland, California that it was harmless for a prosecutor to give false information to a jury that Dow was trying to hide a scar in a lineup. The fact that this case had to go to the federal court of appeals to be overturned is a chilling reminder of how our criminal justice system has been warped by the harmless error standard. Courts routinely find constitutional violations in federal cases only to dismiss them as harmless by saying that the defendant would likely have been convicted anyway. The case is Dow v. Virga, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 18468.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Supreme Court, Uncategorized

Nullification-Missouri Style

100px-US-GreatSeal-Obverse_svg

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

The Show Me state, has been making news lately.  Unfortunately, the news it has been making has nothing to do with the St. Louis Arch or the baseball Cardinals, but its legislature’s penchant for attempting to nullify Federal laws that it does not agree with.  The State of Missouri is working hard to nullify Federal gun laws and Obamacare.

“If you ever wondered what a 21st century nullification crisis would look like, look no further than Missouri. One hundred and forty eight years after the end of the Civil War, the New York Times reports, “the Republican-controlled Missouri legislature is expected to enact a statute next month nullifying all federal gun laws in the state and making it a crime for federal agents to enforce them.” Meanwhile, the Show Me State is doing everything it can to effectively block implementation of the Affordable Care Act.” Daily Kos

I guess Missouri wants to Show the rest of the nation that the Constitution and its Supremacy Clause is not worth the parchment it is written on.  In case you are not sure what is meant when a State tries to nullify a Federal law, here is a little primer on the subject. Continue reading “Nullification-Missouri Style” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Guile For The Camera: Seattle Spends Five Million On Surveillance System It Cannot Decide How To Use

Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger

Seal of the City of Seattle

In another shining example of “The White Elephant in the room might go away” the City Council of Seattle approved, in an 11 minute consultation, to proceed with acting to implement a large surveillance system on Seattle waterways before a five million dollar Homeland Security grant would be forfeited due to a “use it or lose it” clause.  And so far, nobody has decided how to use it.

The system originated from the city seeking and being approved for a five million dollar federal grant to purportedly prevent terrorist acts on the popular waterfront areas of Puget Sound.  The system operated 28 cameras connected by a wireless network.  It seems the hunger for free money was to be quickly satisfied before any sort of plan or discussion as to the privacy or constitutional implications was considered.  The council none-the-less snapped at the money unanimously but now is in disarray as to what to do with this new system.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Politics, Science, Society

Chad Dixon Gets 8 Months For “Lie Detector Fraud”

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

department-of-justice-logo1This is an update to a story originally posted here by Charlton Stanley, “Polygraphers trigger fear response in Federal prosecutors.”

Chad Dixon, a 34 year old Marion, Indiana little league coach who ran the “PolygraphExpert.net” website teaching people how to defeat polygraph tests, was sentenced to eight months in jail for threatening national security by teaching government job applicants how to beat lie-detector tests. Teaching such techniques and discussing them is not per se illegal. It is an admitted gray area in 1st Amendment jurisprudence.  However, U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady found the evidence compelling enough that Dixon had crossed the line when he advised some clients, including two undercover officers, to conceal what he taught them while undergoing government polygraphs. This is in addition to the charges of obstruction and wire fraud Dixon plead guilty to last year.

Nina Ginsberg, Dixon’s attorney, accused prosecutors of trying to turn her client into a “poster child for its newly undertaken campaign” to stop people from using the polygraph disruption techniques. the prosecution had sought a two year sentence, but Judge O’Grady thought that eight months was sufficient. O’Grady said, “There’s nothing unlawful about maybe 95 percent of the business he conducted,” although he added that “a sentence of incarceration is absolutely necessary to deter others.”

As Charlton Stanley’s original column indicated, lie detectors are anything but a lie detector.  “[L]ie detector technology has no known statistical properties with regard to detecting deception of any kind. It has not been accepted as science in the scientific community. The only thing scientists seem to agree on is most of these machines measure stress reactions in humans, and to that extent, they can measure stress in people who feel stress—that’s it.”

Deterrent based on legitimate concerns or chilling of free speech in the name of protecting a test of dubious value?

What do you think?

Source: Seattle Times

~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Science, Society, Uncategorized

Encryption and the Spymasters: Is Privacy Dead?

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe) Guest Blogger

ImageImageFirst there was WikiLeaks, then there was Edward Snowden. The drip, drip, drip of information about secretive spy agencies continues. There have been bombshell revelations about the extent to which government agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA and others are invading our most private communications. Of course, spies do what spies do, and that is to spy on whoever or whatever they can get away with. Few people understood the implications of PRISM when news of the program was leaked. Additionally, I suspect that despite revelations of its existence, the full extent of its capability and reach will never be known by the public.

The NSA reportedly paid tech companies millions of dollars to cover the cost of compliance with their “requests” for back-door access to the software package.

Another program to keep in mind is the FBI Stingray operation that sucks up wireless telephone communications. Last May, in the first litigation where the government admitted having Stingray, Arizona Federal District Judge David Campbell dismissed a motion to suppress.  Judge Campbell is a George W. Bush appointee. PDF of his ruling is here.  Last July, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in the Northern District of California, in an effort to learn more about Stingray, and if it is scooping up domestic phone calls.
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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Justice, Media, Politics, Society

Good for Goose and Gander? Or Just Foul Play? – The Bush Doctrine Redux

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Ex-goose. Presumed cooked.
Ex-goose. Missing.
Presumed cooked.

There is an old adage, “What’s good for the goose is [not] sauce for the gander” or as phrased today “What’s good for the goose is [not] good for the gander”. The implication being that what is good for one is good for all or not good for all if stated in the negated form.  A case out of Florida provides a perfect example to give this adage a workout.

The goose is former President George W. Bush. 

The member of the gander in this case is William T. Woodward of Titusville, Florida. Woodward is charged with shooting three of his neighbors, two of them fatally, over the 2012 Labor Day weekend. 

His defense? The sauce.

Woodward’s attorneys are asserting Florida’s “Stand Your Ground’ law and the Bush Doctrine.

Let’s examine this case in the light of the history and consequences of “Stand Your Ground”, the Bush Doctrine and how an equally controversial foreign policy stance might impact a domestic criminal proceeding.

Continue reading “Good for Goose and Gander? Or Just Foul Play? – The Bush Doctrine Redux” →
Constitutional Law, Politics

Scraping The Bottom Of The Analogical Barrel

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Neville ChamberlainArguments by analogy are used to justify a controversial claim by invoking a similar claim in a less controversial instance. While not deductively valid, a good analogy can provide a strong reason to accept the claim. In an effort to drum up support for a military strike on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar Assad “now joins the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein who have used these weapons in time of war.” Other war drum beaters are warning about the “lessons of Munich” and Obama looking like Neville Chamberlain. When the analogy is tenuous, the argument becomes ludicrous.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

Ohio Judge Reversed After Denying Public Defender To Adult Because His Parents Could Pay For Lawyer

grimIn Ohio, Athens County Municipal Judge William A. Grim has been reversed in his denial of the right to appointed counsel to a young man accused of interfering with police. While Kelly Kasler, 22, is an adult and her parents declined to pay for a lawyer, Grim refused counsel to her because she was being supported in college by her parents. It was a clearly wrong decision and the concerns over Grim’s judgment were magnified in a case where a citizen is accused of interfering with police.

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Constitutional Law, International, Politics, Religion

Taliban Murders Sushmita Banerjee, Author and Women’s Rights Advocate

article-2412697-1BA46672000005DC-81_306x423In a culture of the oppression and abuse of women, Sushmita Banerjee stood out. An Indian married to an Afghan businessman, Banerjee wrote of the rule of the Taliban and her effort to flee the medieval Islamic rules placed on women. Her book “A Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife” was an inspiration for women facing religious oppression and was later made into the movie “Escape From The Taliban.” The title proved tragically optimistic. This week, after she returned to her husband in Afghanistan, Banerjee was executed at her home by the Taliban.

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Academia, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Media, Politics, Society

Michigan State University Professor Under Fire After Student Posted Video Of Anti-Republican Rave

Penn_WSThe video below of Michigan State University Professor William Penn on the first day of his creative writing class has triggered an investigation by the university into a diatribe against Republicans. A student filmed the comments (and it was released by a conservative group) where Penn is heard attacking Republicans for “raping” America and refusing to pay taxes. The case will pit values of academic freedom against the need for an open and welcoming environment for students at universities.

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