On the death of Nelson Mandela, the case of Williamson County State’s Attorney Charles Garnati before the the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission would seem to confirm just how much work has yet to be done. Garnati has been called to account to an argument in a murder trial that contrasted the black defendant with people “in our white world.”
Category: Courts
In a case that seems right out of Arsenic and Old Lace, Carla Rae Hague, 71, has been arrested for allegedly attempting to kill Judge Charles Hague, by putting antifreeze into his food or drink. Judge Hague survived but the hospital found high levels of ethylene glycol in his system. Police arrested Carla Rae Hague for felonious assault and is sitting in a jail cell next to the courthouse where her husband is a judge. She is expected to be charged with attempted murder and possible tampering with evidence.
Continue reading “Ohio Judge Poisoned With Antifreeze . . . Wife Of 45 Years Arrested”
This morning I will testify in Congress before the House Judiciary Committee on “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” The hearing will address areas where President Obama has ordered the delay or nonenforcement of federal laws. While I happen to agree with some of these policies, I have great reservations about this record and its implications for the separation of powers.
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“Despite suggestions by the President, various Senators, and numerous commentators that the Senate has a constitutional obligation to act on judicial nominations, the text of the Constitution contains no such obligation.“
-Adam J. White, “Toward The Framers’ Understanding of ‘Advice and Consent’: A Historical And Textual Inquiry,” 29 Harvard J. Law & Pub. Pol. 103, 147 (2005)
“… [T]he constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent in the judicial appointment process should be seen as a nondiscretionary duty constitutionally imposed upon the Senate and enforceable by the judiciary.”
–Lee Renzin, “Advice, Consent, and Senate Inaction-Is Judicial Resolution Possible?”, 73 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1739, 1751 (1998)
The Constitution requires no more than a bare majority of the Senate to approve a judicial nominee. How do we know this? First, there are only five situations in which the Constitution mandates super-majority approval: conviction of an impeachable offense (Article I, Section 3); expulsion of a member of Congress (Article I, Section 5); overriding a presidential veto (Article I, Section 7); approval of a treaty (Article II, Section 2); and the convening of a constitutional convention (Article V). Second, under a familiar rule of statutory construction known as “expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” the failure to include a super-majority vote requirement in the Appointments Clause means that no such requirement exists.
Nevertheless, the Senate has been able to transform its “advice and consent” function under the Appointments Clause into a sixth super-majority approval standard through its power under Article I, Section 5 to establish “the Rules of its Proceedings.” And the consequences have been more strongly felt during the current administration than at any other time in our history, Continue reading “Judicial Appointments and Bad Faith”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
The five alleged 9/11 defendants currently being held at Guantanamo Bay where they have been detained since 2006, are currently preparing their defenses for trials that are scheduled for September 2014. All five defendants have been subjected to what the United States government called enhanced interrogation techniques at CIA black sites even before they got to Gitmo. Continue reading “Kangaroo Commissions and Torture”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The “parsonage exemption” is found in 26 U.S. Code § 107 and states that a “minister of the gospel” does not have to include in his gross income, either the rental value of a home furnished to him or the rental allowance paid to him. Judge Barbara Crabb of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin has held that the “parsonage exemption” is unconstitutional. Crabb wrote in the decision that the tax exemption “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else, even though doing so is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on religious exercise.”
Continue reading “Parsonage Exemption Ruled Unconstitutional”
We have often discussed the lack of separation of temple and state in Israel as well as the control of religious figures on aspects of public life. A story this week vividly illustrates the problem. A rabbinical court has fined a woman hundreds of dollars for refusing to circumcise her baby son and thereby endangering her child. Many doctors are questioning the necessity and value of circumcision, which is generally left up to the parents. However, this is an issue with both religious and medical importance in Israel. The mother was fine $150 dollars every day that the boy was left uncircumcised.
Continue reading “Rabbinical Court Fines Mother $150 A Day Until She Agrees To Circumcise Son”
In celebration of Thanksgiving, I give you our annual Turkey Torts of a few potential and actual lawsuits from this holiday. Personal injury and criminal defense attorneys have much to be thankful for in a holiday that often brings family members together in sometimes awkward or hostile or inebriated circumstances. The result is a horn of plenty for litigators. It also may make any tense or dysfunctional moments with family today seem a bit less significant. Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
We previously discussed an Ohio judge who chastised a jury and threatened a defendant that his acquittal would not end the matter for her. Now Texas visiting Judge Jerry Ray has joined the ranks of judges who express their anger at juries for not ruling as they expect. Ray told a jury that it violated its oath and acted like the jury in the O.J. Simpson case.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
“Now if I stop there it sort of sounds like I’m asking you to let my guilty client go,” O’Mara told the jury. “I’m not. He’s not guilty of anything but protecting his own life. But the quote continues, ‘but for guilt and crimes that are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished, but if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizens say whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial. If innocence itself is no protection, and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizens, then it would be the end of security whatsoever.’”
~Mark O’Mara’s closing argument to the jury in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman
Innocence? You remember George Zimmerman from the last news cycle, right? He’s the wanna-be Batman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin on a rainy night as the teenager came back from the all-night convenience store. George was that “mellow” and “peaceful” man who just happened to pack a gun for self-defense according to his then-lawyer, Mark O’Mara. Exonerated by a hand-picked jury, one of whom now regrets the acquittal saying he “got away with murder,” Zimmerman, we were told, would just ride off into the sunset with his loving and apparently loyal to the point of perjury wife, chastened by the experience of being wrongly accused of murder. George was a victim in all of this his family said, and threats to his life were comparable to the Aurora Theatre shooting or the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He needs protection shouted his brother, Robert Zimmerman, Jr., in an email to St. Mary’s Police Chief Steve Bracknell: “Zimmerman is a Sandy Hook, Aurora waiting to happen. Your job is to protect the communities you serve and you are failing big time.”
There is a highly troubling case involving Jeremy Hammond,27, who was sentenced to 10 years for the December 2011 hacking of Strategic Forecasting. It was the maximum possible sentence that Chief US District Court Judge Loretta Preska could give him. The case involves a recurring controversy over the government’s effort to punish hackers and whistleblowers revealing a massive surveillance state and attacks on privacy in the United States. However, this case has the added disturbing element of an allegation of a conflict of interest by Preska who refused to recuse herself from the case despite the fact that her husband was an alleged victim of the hacking.
Continue reading “Jeremy Hammond Given Maximum Sentence In Hacking Case”
We have previously discussed actual evil twin defenses in past cases (here and here and here and here). However, a case out of Colorado Springs now has a detailed opinion specifically allowing the use of the defense in a major case. District Judge David Shakes ruled Friday that an Army artillery officer, 1st Lt. Aaron Lucas, could argue that his twin brother may be responsible for a series of sexual assaults.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
The Electronic Privacy Information Center recently won the first round of a court action asking that the Department of Homeland Security be required to disclose its plans to pull the plug on regional or national mobile telephone and internet communication systems pursuant to its Standard Operating Procedure 303.
“In the classicly-rendered case, DHS has argued that shutting down entire communication networks might be necessary in order to prevent the detonation of radio-controlled bomb or explosive device.
However, siding with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which brought a suit demanding more transparency for the DHS program known as “Standard Operating Procedure 303” (or SOP303), the federal judge at the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that because the release of the protocol could not reasonably be seen as harming law enforcement “investigative techniques or prosecutions” it’s cited reasons for keeping the details of the program secret did not hold up.” Common Dreams
The so-called SOP 303 could allow DHS to cut-off all internet and mobile phone communications at a regional level or a national level if it determined that there was a national security concern. We have already seen this government tactic used in Oakland in 2011 and that alleged over reach by the Bay Area Rapid Transit authorities may be the reason for EPIC’s lawsuit. Continue reading “Internet Kill Switch Plan is Killed…For Now.”
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
In recent years many studies have come out that have made the case that a high proportion of CEO’s of major companies are sociopaths. At the end of this blog I’ll provide a number of links that discuss this, some from major conservative business magazines. We do know that from 1% to 3% of humans are sociopaths sharing all of these 10 characteristics:
#1) Sociopaths are charming. #2) Sociopaths are more spontaneous and intense than other people. #3) Sociopaths are incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse. #4) Sociopaths invent outrageous lies about their experiences. #5) Sociopaths seek to dominate others and “win” at all costs. #6) Sociopaths tend to be highly intelligent #7) Sociopaths are incapable of love #8) Sociopaths speak poetically. #9) Sociopaths never apologize. #10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth.” http://www.naturalnews.com/036112_sociopaths_cults_influence.html
Now the problem with the definition of Sociopathy is that there can be a good deal of subjectivity in making the diagnosis, absent a clinician interviewing the subject. After all many people are charming, spontaneous, invent lies, try to dominate others and speak “poetically” and that doesn’t make them sociopaths. The subjectivity comes in trying to determine whether a given person is incapable of feeling guilt, shame, remorse and is delusional. A trained clinician may be able to do this via an intensive interview, but the nature of this disorder is such that even a trained clinician can be fooled by a sociopath. Rather than argue back and forth about the negative effects of CEO sociopaths on this society as the root of so much dysfunction, my readings this week suggest another theory that would provide a simpler explanation of why it seems that so many in this country have so little compassion and empathy for the less fortunate among us. We need not deem them sociopaths, but people who are simply removed from the misery that they inflict. The apocryphal story of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake” may well characterize those who control most of this country’s wealth. It may be why some are sincere philanthropists, yet show such disdain and lack a sense of responsibility for the suffering that they cause. Let’s explore this further. Continue reading “Selfish or Sociopath, Does It Make a Difference?”
Continue reading “Pilots File With Supreme Court In Age Discrimination Case”