Category: Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Media, Politics, Society

Seventh Circuit Overturns Five Counts From Blagojevich Conviction

Rod_Blagojevich_mug_shotI have been a critic of aspects of the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich, 58, was convicted of 18 counts of corruption and given a 14-year sentence. The most problematic charge in my view concerned Blagojevich’s wheeling and dealing for the appointment of a successor to fill the 2008 vacant U.S. Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama. Now a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has overturned five of the counts specifically dealing with that vacancy controversy.

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

Rainbows Make You Gay: Saudi Religious Police Arrest School Administrator For Having Rainbow Image On Building

Rainbow-House-x400Saudi Arabia has given the world another bizarre example of life under the strict Islamic code and values of the Kingdom. The Talaee Al-Noor International School in Riyadh painted an inviting and playful rainbow image on its building. The Kingdom’s religious police quickly swooped in an arrested the administrator, fined the school $25,000, and ordered the facade painted over. The reason? Rainbows are seen as “emblems Of homosexuality.” It is not clear what the religious police will do with naturally occurring rainbows.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Media, Military, Politics, Society

Wesley Clark Calls For New American Internment Camps

220px-General_Wesley_Clark_official_photograph,_editedRetired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark has caused a stir with an interview with MSNBC in which he appeared to call for the establishment of World War II-style internment camps to be revived for “disloyal Americans.” Clark used the infamous American internment camps for Japanese, German, and Italian Americans as a model: “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.”

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Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

“This Flag Never Goes Down”: Amazon Reportedly Takes Down Historical Book On Confederate Flag Due To Confederate Flag On Cover

3178086_480The extensive move to remove the Confederate Flag from public and some commercial settings has raised serious concerns over both free speech and academic freedom. While the flag has been used as a racist symbol, it is also a historical symbol. According to one author, that distinction appears to have been lost by Amazon, which reportedly took done the book by Michael Dreese, a civil war author with six books on the conflict. Two of those books concern both the Union and Confederate battle flags and their roles in the Civil War. However, “This Flag Never Goes Down” (a book on the Confederate flag) was taken down by Amazon from its listed works.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law

Law Enforcement Investigators Need To Carefully Review Tenth Circuit Ruling On Admissibility Of Confessions After Promising Defendant Immunity During Initial Investigations

250px-US-CourtOfAppeals-10thCircuit-SealBy Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

In Sharp v. Roling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted a habeas corpus petition by a Kansas woman convicted in state court of kidnapping and felony murder. The evidence in question was what the Court determined to be an involuntary confession elicited by detectives on the promise that the defendant would not be jailed in exchange for her statements.

The significance of this ruling should establish a new practice that any offer by law enforcement that can be considered an offer of immunity from prosecution, regardless of whether formal or informal, will generate a high probability of suppression of any confession by a potential defendant.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Science, Society

Federal Court Orders DNA Testing In Rape Case Over Objections From Obama Administration

200px-US-CourtOfAppeals-9thCircuit-Seal.svgdepartment-of-justice-logo1The Justice Department has lost a major case where it sought to bar efforts to determine if a convicted rapist is in fact innocent. The Obama Administration argued in United States v. Watson that Bill Watson should not be able to use a new DNA test that was not available when he was convicted of a rape in 2006. Despite dozens of cases where convicted individuals were proven innocent, the Obama Administration fought to prevent the use of this test even though the Innocence Project offered to shoulder all of the costs. The position of the Justice Department was inimical to the values of due process and the rule of law, in my view. The United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit rejected the highly technical claims that neither Watson nor the court should knew the true identity of source of key evidence found at the crime scene.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

Federal Judge Orders Dinesh D’Souza To Continue Psychological Counseling Despite Contrary Expert Recommendation

220px-Dinesh_D'SouzaI am rather perplexed by a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman to order not just four more years of community service for filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza but continuation of psychological counseling despite the countervailing findings of two experts in the case. Judge Berman was on solid ground in much of his opinion on the conditions of the prior sentencing order. While tough, the defense was trying to curtail key aspects of the order. However, the counseling component does concern me.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

China Arrests Over 100 Lawyers and Activists In Latest Crackdown on Human Rights

225px-mao_zedongThe Chinese government is carrying out another infamous sweep of human rights lawyers and activists with over 100 people arrested nationwide. The authoritarian communist regime has offered preposterous excuses for the arrests but the message is clear: human rights will not be tolerated in the worker’s paradise that is China. Indeed, with pollution and corruption choking the life out of the public, the communist rulers still view human rights lawyers as the priority danger for the country.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Politics, Religion, Society

Chad Outlaws Burka After Suicide Bombing

150px-Burqa_IMG_1127There is an interesting story out of Chad where the country has outlawed the wearing of Islamic veils over the face of women. The country took the step after a suicide bombing by the Muslim group Boko Haram used a burka-wearing man. France has been criticized for outlawing full veils or burkas so the move by a country with a majority of Muslims is surprising.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Russia Shuts Down Popular Atheist Site For “Insulting The Feelings of the Faithful”

220px-philipandnikonWe have previously discussed the crackdown on free speech in Russia, including examples of quasi-blasphemy prosecutions by the country. While we often see such prosecutions in Muslim countries, there is a growing trend in the West against free speech, particularly when deemed anti-religious or insulting to particular groups. The unholy alliance of Vladimir Putin with the Russian Orthodox Church has accelerated this trend as shown in the move to shutdown a popular atheist social networking page of “There is no God” on VKontakte. The site’s 26,000 followers woke up to notice that the site was shutdown after a ruling from a count in the Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya under the control of strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a key Putin ally.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Australian Woman Posts Picture Of Car Parked Across Two Handicapped Spots . . . Abu Dhabi Court Convicts Her Of “Writing Bad Words”

1436817150041We have been discussing the intolerance shown by countries in the Middle East for free speech, particularly those Muslim countries applying the medieval Sharia law system. Abu Dhabi has again stepped forward to reaffirm its rejection of fundamental principles of free speech. Our Middle Eastern ally has jailed an Australian woman, Jodi Magi, 39, for merely posting a photo on Facebook of a car parked across two disabled parking spaces. She even blurred out the license plate (which most people would not do) in showing the rude conduct of some driver. The driver called police and Magi was arrested for on the truly moronic charge of “writing bad words on social media.” In bringing the charge, the prosecutors in Abu Dhabi confirmed that they are maintaining a faux legal system that recognizes neither basic rights nor basic logic.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Oregon Reportedly Allows Children As Young As 15 To Secure Sex Change Without Parental Notice Or Consent

336px-Seal_of_Oregon.svgRainbowFlagVarious states have moved to allow children to secure birth control without the knowledge or notification of parents, including schools that reportedly will implant IUDs in children as young as sixth graders. Oregon however is going further still and reportedly allowed 15-year-olds to get a sex-change operation at state expense under its Medicaid program. What is curious is that Oregon officials are thus far refusing to discuss the program with media despite its obvious importance to the citizens of the state. If these reports are inaccurate, we should hear it directly from these officials. If this story is true, we are witnessing a significant change in our notion of parental rights without even a passing conversation over the basis and scope of such changes.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Lawyering, Society

Tennessee Judge Allowed To Remain On Bench After Conditioning The Right To Counsel On Work And Donating To His Chosen Charities

gavel2Judge Reese Holley of Dickson, Tennessee has agreed to stop conditioning representation of counsel on making donations to his favorite charities or performing public service. What is most astonishing is not that Holley did not know what any first-year law student could tell him but that he has only been reprimanded and will be allowed to continue to serve as a judge in Tennessee after doggedly maintaining such facially unconstitutional and abusive rule. He only received a public reprimand.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Media, Politics, Society

Federal Court Upholds Decision Stripping Redskins Of Trademark Protection

350px-Washington_Redskins_logo.svgThe Redskins lost a major challenge this week to the cancellation of the their trademark protection by the Patent and Trademark Office. I have previously written about my disagreement with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision to rescind federal trademark protections for the Redskins as a racially disparaging name as well as the underlying law used to strip the team of its trademark protection. The law allows for a small administrative office to effectively dictate the outcome of a long simmering societal debate over the team name. More importantly, the standard for determining what names or words are disparaging remains dangerously undefined with striking contradictions as we have previously discussed in permitted and disallowed trademarks.

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Animals, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Environment, International

Australian Minister: Same-Sex Marriage Is Bad For The Cattle Industry

220px-Senator_Barnaby_Joyceblack-and-white-cow-3I thought that I had heard every argument against allowing same-sex couples to marry but leave it up to the Abbott Administration in Australia to come up with an especially whacked out rationale. Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce has announced that the country must preserve traditional marriage . . . for the cattle. Do it for the cattle.

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