Category: Courts

Courts, Justice, Uncategorized

Relative’s “Perfect Match” Donor Kidney Accidentally Thrown Out in Trash at UTMC

KidneyDiagramSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

(Updated Below)

Imagine that you have end-stage renal disease and that you need a new kidney in order to survive. Imagine that a perfect match has been found for you—a kidney from your younger brother. Imagine that you and your brother are admitted to the University of Toledo Medical Center (UTMC) for kidney transplant operations. Imagine waking up after surgery and discovering that your brother’s kidney was removed from his body but not transplanted into yours.

All this actually happened in August of 2012 to a twenty-four-year-old woman named Sarah Fudacz. Fudacz said that she knew something had gone wrong as soon as she was being led out of surgery. “I lifted up my shirt and there was no incision.” She and her brother found out later that a nurse had mistakenly thrown away her brother Paul’s healthy kidney thinking that it was medical waste.

“Somebody wasted part of my brother,” Sarah Fudacz said. “I thought this was going to be the end of it and I’d finally start feeling better. I remember just asking over and over again, what happened?”

Continue reading “Relative’s “Perfect Match” Donor Kidney Accidentally Thrown Out in Trash at UTMC” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Higher Power or Else!

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

200px-HK_Central_Statue_Square_Legislative_Council_Building_n_Themis_sA story four days ago caught my attention and I thought I’d present it for discussion. In recent years many have claimed that there is a “war on religion” taking place in America. This “so-called war” has been the result of many rulings that have tried to enforce the cherished principle of “freedom of religion”, but of necessity could also be called “freedom from religion.” When I was young most of the stores in my neighborhood were required to close on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. This was a hardship for Jews that celebrated their Sabbath on Saturday and Muslims that celebrated their Sabbaths on Friday. It affected Asian merchants, with their own native beliefs, that didn’t have a formal Sabbath. Many of these “blue laws” have been repealed because of the reality that they are showing preferential treatment to one particular religion, in a country that is made up of many religions and whose Constitution is believed by many to ban such preferential treatment.

The Supreme Court’s most important case on “blue laws” is McGowan vs. Maryland.

“The Supreme Court of the United States held in its landmark case, McGowan v. Maryland (1961), that Maryland‘s blue laws violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It approved the state’s blue law restricting commercial activities on Sunday, noting that while such laws originated to encourage attendance at Christian churches, the contemporary Maryland laws were intended to serve “to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens” on a secular basis and to promote the secular values of “health, safety, recreation, and general well-being” through a common day of rest. That this day coincides with Christian Sabbath is not a bar to the state’s secular goals; it neither reduces its effectiveness for secular purposes nor prevents adherents of other religions from observing their own holy days.[9]

There were four landmark Sunday-law cases altogether in 1961. The other three were Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., Inc., 366 U.S. 617 (1961); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961); Two Guys from Harrison vs. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582 (1961). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws

I personally disagree with the SCOTUS decision in these cases and think that the logic used is disingenuous. The purpose of the Sunday “blue laws” was of course to promote religious attendance and encourage that attendance at Christian services on Sunday. A secondary reason was one of respect to Christianity and its belief that the Sabbath day of rest demanded in the Ten Commandments was Sunday. To say that it was to serve as a “uniform day of rest for all citizens” is frankly an untruth and adds intent to these laws that was never present in their imposition. This week though another ruling came down in what I see as a related case involving what I see as our right to have “freedom from religion” and I would like to add that to the discussion. Continue reading “Higher Power or Else!” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Media, Society, Uncategorized

Alternative Sentences and Punishment: Creative or Inhumane?

Submitted by Charlton Stanley, guest blogger

pilloryThere is no dispute that jails are overcrowded. Many counties spend millions on new and improved jails, only to have them fill to capacity the first day they open. This is nothing new. Some judges have found themselves faced with the dilemma of sentencing a defendant to jail, but there is literally, “No room at the inn.” Some chief judges have been forced to order felony inmates released before their sentences were up, simply to make room for new inmates.

 Some judges, especially at the municipal and county levels, have turned to creative sentencing. Some of the sentences seem to fit the crime and make one smile at the same time, such as sentencing young adults with ‘boom-box’ cars ticketed for loud music to spend anywhere from an hour to all day listening to classical music, jazz, bagpipes and oriental music. There was one judge who played saxophone in a jazz band, and he would throw in a few recordings of his own music. I don’t know how good the judge is on the sax, or whether that might come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment.

There are a number of cases where slumlords were ordered to live in their own slum properties. One of those cases was used as the story line on a TV crime drama program several years ago.

Public shaming has been tried as an alternative sentence. Wearing sandwich board signs in public proclaiming their idiocy to their friends and neighbors, wearing a chicken suit, and whatever else the judge thought appropriate. When the Stolen Valor Act was in effect, one defendant was sentenced to 500 hours of community service working with groundskeepers tending the graves at the nearest National Cemetery. I don’t have a problem with making the sentence fit the offense, but some go too far, and some are far too lenient. Lack of consistency or rules for alternative sentences results in lack of fairness to both victims and defendants. It is the other extreme from mandatory minimum sentences where the judge has no discretion at all.flogging scars

This weekend, Jonathan Turley, our blog host, debated Professor Peter Moskos on NPR. Mr. Moskos is a former police officer and now teaches law. He has written on the subject of alternative punishment, and the title of his most recent book, In Defense of Flogging, is provocative if nothing else. He also authored a column in the Washington Times entitled, Bring Back the Lash: Why flogging is more humane than prison.

Sorry, Professor Moskos. Fifty years after Dr. King gave his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I don’t think we want to go there.

Ever again.

Continue reading “Alternative Sentences and Punishment: Creative or Inhumane?” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Lawyering

Sovereign Citizens With a Penchant for Filing Liens

SPLC_Logo

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

I have to admit that I knew very little about the sovereign citizen movement before I read a New York times article a couple of days ago that opened my eyes to the movement and how some in that movement have attacked government officials and civil service workers.  To fully understand how members of the sovereign citizens movement think, one must know a little about their beliefs.

“Sovereign citizens believe that in the 1800s, the federal government was gradually subverted and replaced by an illegitimate government. They create their own driver’s licenses and include their thumbprints on documents to distinguish their flesh and blood person from a “straw man” persona that they say has been created by the false government. When writing their names, they often add punctuation marks like colons or hyphens.” New York Times Continue reading “Sovereign Citizens With a Penchant for Filing Liens” →

Bizarre, Courts, Free Speech, Justice, Media, Society

Paula Deen Discrimination Suit Settled – Racism, Not [Updated w/ Incredible Statement From Lisa Jackson]

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

paula-deen2_custom-0b30419dbbe077460d439775b6a773a8fdd8c906-s3-c85We’ve been following the discrimination suit brought by an employee of restaurants owned by  food maven Paula Deen. Lisa Jackson, who is Caucasian, claimed that she was subjected to a racially hostile work environment at Deen’s Uncle Bubba’s and The Lady and Sons restaurants. Jackson alleged that Paula Deen’s brother, Bubba,  routinely used derogatory racial epithets and sexually suggestive comments during her working hours as a manager at the restaurant. She also alleged that Deen acquiesced in the treatment and used racist comments herself.  A firestorm of negative publicity formed after Deen’s deposition transcript was leaked to the media in which she admitted using the term “ni**er” many years ago. Deem lost two national cable television shows and a host of endorsements following the story. Her two video apologies did little to assuage the sentiment that she was a racist.

Continue reading “Paula Deen Discrimination Suit Settled – Racism, Not [Updated w/ Incredible Statement From Lisa Jackson]” →

Courts, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Society, Testimony, Torts, Uncategorized

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

Junior_Seau_2Football fans around the nation are feeling the excitement grow as we again approach the NFL Football season. They are avidly watching their favorite team’s pre-season games, checking out the new rookies and preparing for their various fantasy football leagues by analyzing league rosters. NFL Football has become the preferred sport of the country and generates many billions of dollars. It is our budding empire’s version of the gladiator battles in the various Roman Coliseums that were spread across the Empire as a palliative to an enslaved populace. While it is true that the Roman Gladiator battles usually ended only by the death and dismemberment of the “losers”, the news of the physical and mental costs to pro football players has begun to receive more publicity of late. This is due to the realization of the lasting damage done by football head trauma referred to broadly as concussions. As someone who has watched the National Football League for perhaps 60 years the idea of a concussion is one that is intertwined with the sport itself. For much of that time while it was discussed openly by the game announcers, analysts and sports journalists, in truth they all made light of them and players themselves would cheerfully discuss “getting clocked” or “having their bell rung.” The players thus injured who would insist on returning to the game were seen as “real men” and “heroes” for their fortitude. Then too coaches concerned with winning would tell them to “man up” and their teammates opprobrium for them “relaxing” on the sidelines would add peer pressure to continue to play even through their disorientation and head pain.

As the sport grew and outpaced baseball as the nation’s “national pastime,” like the gladiators of old players became heroes with nationwide celebrity. Many noted how some retired players from era’s past seemed to die relatively early in life, especially considering that to play football one must be an excellent physical specimen. As fans we were also aware how many of our heroes’ sustained injuries that in their retirement rendered them somewhat physically disabled for life, but merely made passing note of this reality, rather than feel discomfort at what this violent sport was doing to those who played it for our entertainment. The truth is that football fans and football professionals celebrated the violence of the game, even while shedding “crocodile tears” for player carted off the field with terrible injuries. Coaches and players talked about the exultation one felt when they made a jarring hit upon another player. It was common in interviews for players to talk of the joy they felt “making contact”, a minor euphemism for hitting or being hit with jarring intensity. We are to my way of thinking no more evolved than those Roman Citizens who would excitedly vote “thumbs down” on whether a losing gladiator should receive the killing blow. Our social norms require that we “feel sad” about a terrible injury, but if it occurs to an opposing player and affects our teams prospects, only the most unaware would deny that in the back of their mind they are calculating what this injury will mean. Our consciences are salved by the fact that many football players get paid enormous sums of money for their skills and so from a legal perspective one might say there is an assumption of risk. I want to examine this “assumption of risk” and discuss the implications that it has for NFL, the players and for us the fans. Continue reading “Are You Ready for Some Football?” →

Courts, Criminal law, Torts

Virginia Woman Falsely Accuses Man Of Rape And Sends Him Away For Four Years Before Recanting . . . Given Just 60 Days In Jail To Be Served On Weekends

52118bc04b6a1-1.preview-300I have previously discussed the pattern of prosecutors in either not charging false rape victims or seeking relatively light sentences despite the incarceration of innocent men. (here, here, here, here, here, and here). While I would never recommend a prison sentence for a rape victim who simply identified the wrong man by mistake, the most disturbing cases are those involving false rape claims. For an example of this problem, you need to go no further than the case of Elizabeth Paige Coast.

Continue reading “Virginia Woman Falsely Accuses Man Of Rape And Sends Him Away For Four Years Before Recanting . . . Given Just 60 Days In Jail To Be Served On Weekends” →

Bizarre, Courts, Criminal law, Politics, Society

West Virginia Judge Charged With Conspiracy to Plant Drugs And Frame “Romantic Rival”

275px-Seal_of_West_Virginia.svgIn West Virginia, Mingo County Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury is the only judge in his county. However, federal prosecutors have charged that he had enough time on his hands to frame have an affair with his secretary and frame her husband for a series of crimes, including the planting of drugs. Thornsbury, 57, is charged with two counts of conspiracy against rights to frame what U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin calls “his romantic rival.”

Continue reading “West Virginia Judge Charged With Conspiracy to Plant Drugs And Frame “Romantic Rival”” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, International, Justice, Lawyering, Military, Politics, Supreme Court

Single Mom Versus George W. Bush

George W. Bush

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

With all of the discussion we have had on his blog about the abandonment of the rule of law in this country, I was very interested when I read about a class action lawsuit that was filed in March of this year.  The case is Saleh v. Bush, and it was filed in an attempt to hold former President George W. Bush and five members of his administration responsible and liable for the damages incurred when Iraq was attacked by the United States and some of its allies in 2003.

“Saleh is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit targeting six key members of the Bush Administration: George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz. In Saleh v. Bush, she alleges that the Iraq War was not conducted in self-defense, did not have the appropriate authorization by the United Nations, and therefore constituted a “crime of aggression” under international law—a designation first set down in the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. The aim of the suit is simple: to achieve justice for Iraqis, and to show that no one, not even the president of the United States, is above the law.” Yes Magazine   Continue reading “Single Mom Versus George W. Bush” →

Constitutional Law, Courts, Free Speech, Justice, Lawyering, Society, Supreme Court

Bloomberg’s Sweet Revenge?

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

soda_kidA recent study by Columbia University researchers may present a problem for civil libertarians basking in the defeat of Mayor Bloomberg’s Big Gulp ban. As many of us know, the NYC mayor proposed and then passed a health rule  prohibiting restaurants, mobile food carts, delis and concessions at movie theaters, stadiums and arenas from selling sugary drinks in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces. The New York State appellate division upheld Judge  Milton Tingling’s ruling that Bloomberg “eviscerated” the separation of powers doctrine by making an end run around  the City Council and presenting the measure to the NYC Board of Health. The city plans to appeal but it is now armed with an important study concerning the effects of sugar on children.

Continue reading “Bloomberg’s Sweet Revenge?” →

Constitutional Law, Courts, International, Politics, Society

Report: NSA Violated Privacy Rules “Thousands of Times” Under Warrantless Surveillance Program

National_Security_Agency.svgPresident_Barack_ObamaWhile President Obama continues to tell the public that there is no widespread domestic surveillance program and denies the violation of privacy rights, another report again contradicts those statements. According to the Washington Post, the National Security Agency broke privacy rules thousands of times every year under the warrantless surveillance program. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that civil libertarians view the programs themselves to be violations of Constitution, but the Administration violated even those rules. Moreover, this information did not come from Congress or the White House. It came from Edward Snowden. You remember him. He is the guy Obama said is no patriot and could have taken a different course to address his concerns. The information reviewed by the Post is more than would have been shared with Congress under current rules.

Continue reading “Report: NSA Violated Privacy Rules “Thousands of Times” Under Warrantless Surveillance Program” →

Constitutional Law, Courts, Society

Kansas Prisoner Released After DNA Evidence Clears Him Of Rape . . . Judge Then Fires Clerk Who Told Prisoner How To Seek Such Testing

div03There is an interesting case out of Kansas that first aired late July.  Kansas Judge David Byrn (left) was the presiding judge in the case of Robert Nelson, 49, who was sentenced to 70 years for a rape that he insisted that he did not commit. Byrn refused repeated requests from Nelson to prove his innocence through DNA testing.  Nelson would have stayed in jail for the 70 year sentence if it was not for the fact that Sharon Snyder, 70, directed a family member to an earlier motion where such testing was ordered.  Using that information, Nelson won the right to the testing and proved his innocence. When Bryn found out it was the clerk who informed him of the earlier successful motion in another case, he fired her just months before her retirement (though she later found that she could still receive her pension). She had been a clerk for 34 years.

Continue reading “Kansas Prisoner Released After DNA Evidence Clears Him Of Rape . . . Judge Then Fires Clerk Who Told Prisoner How To Seek Such Testing” →

Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Society

New Mexico Supreme Court Rules That Non-English Speaking Citizens Cannot Be Excluded From Juries

250px-Jury_box_croppedThe New Mexico Supreme Court has attracted considerable attention this week with its ruling in the State of New Mexico v. Samora where it ruled that courts could not exclude jurors who did not speak English. Michael Anthony Samora was charged with first-degree murder and other crimes for the bludgeoning death of his girlfriend and a subsequent robbery and stabbing at an Albuquerque convenience store. He appealed on the grounds that a juror was excluded because he could not follow the proceedings in English. The Court agreed but found that the error did not deny him a fair trial.

Continue reading “New Mexico Supreme Court Rules That Non-English Speaking Citizens Cannot Be Excluded From Juries” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Obama: Snowden Is No Patriot

President_Barack_Obama228px-Picture_of_Edward_SnowdenPresident Barack Obama on Friday seemed to acknowledge that the determined effort by the White House and Congress to demonize Edward Snowden has not exactly worked. The White House has put pressure on many people in this town to make clear that Snowden is not to be praised in the media or by members of Congress. Various reporters and new organizations have held the line in mocking Snowden or refusing to call him a “whistleblower” rather than a “leaker.”  After all, the fear seems to be that Snowden has to be a traitor or Obama would look like a tyrant. Even high-ranking members have been frog walked back before cameras for uttering a work of praise for Snowden. The problem is that it has convinced few people, even with alteration of Wikipedia and other sites to maintain the party line. Now Obama has come forward to assure people that Snowden is no patriot. No, I guess that title belongs to Obama and others who have engaged in warrantless surveillance and continue to mislead the public on the erosion of privacy and civil liberties. Those patriotic souls include John Clapper who lie under oath to mislead the public about the programs. He is not a perjurer but a patriot in America’s New Animal Farm. Notably, however, not a single reporter asked Obama about the perjury by Clapper. Instead, Obama laid out another set of meaningless measures designed to lull the public back into a comfortably and controllable sleep.

Continue reading “Obama: Snowden Is No Patriot” →