Category: Courts

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

Privatizing the District Attorney?

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

I have to admit that I do not shock too easily.  However, when I read an article this morning in the New York Times, I was taken back by the news.  It seems that private debt collection companies across the United States have partnered with District Attorneys offices, to use the threat of criminal charges being filed against consumers in attempts to collect on alleged bounced checks to merchants.  The fact that people were being threatened by collection companies did not surprise me.  It was the fact that the veiled threats to the consumers were sent on District Attorney or Prosecutor letterhead that amazed me!  Continue reading “Privatizing the District Attorney?” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice

Judge Rejects Obama’s Gitmo Rules

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Royce C. Lamberth, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, issued what has been termed a “scathing” opinion in which he writes that the Obama administration’s superseding of “the Court’s authority is an illegitimate exercise of Executive power.” Lamberth has gained a reputation for his unique writing flair, and this opinion, which includes a line from Shakespeare, is no exception.

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Bizarre, Courts, Lawyering

Amicus Litigant Files Cartoon Brief in Protest of Five-Page Limit Imposed By Court

We have all chafed at the limitations placed by courts on filings — limits that often require counsel to drop whole claims or issues. For Bob Kohn, the chairman and chief executive of RoyaltyShare, however, the requirement that he reduce over ninety pages of arguments into five pages was absurd. According, he filed a five-page cartoon strip as his amicus filing.

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Academia, Courts, Supreme Court

YOLO: California Man Sends Tweets About Driving Drunk Shortly Before Crash Killing Five

Right before five people in a car ran a red light and crashed into a wall in Ontario, California, one of the occupants sent a tweet reading: “Drunk (expletive) going 120 drifting corners.” He followed it up at 1:20 a with “Driving tweeting sipping the cup (expletive) yolo I’m turning it up.” YOLO means “You Only Live Once. A few minutes later, all five were dead in the 2005 Nissan that crashed into the backyard of a house. The tweet was sent by @ink2flashyy belonging to Ervin McKinness, 21 (shown left).

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Courts, Criminal law, Politics, Society, Torts

Massachusetts Judge Denied Disability Pension For Hate Mail

Former Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy will not be receiving disability payments in addition to his multimillion dollar libel award against the Boston Herald. Murphy filed for disability pension based on a claim of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression linked to receiving hate mail and death threats due to his ruling in a rape case. The Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts found unanimously that the Contributory Retirement Appeal Board was correct in denying Murphy the disability pension.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Society

Zimmerman Gets New Judge

A Florida appeals court has ruled that George Zimmerman is entitled to a new judge. In a 2-1 decision (below), the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled Judge Kenneth Lester has to go. Zimmerman accused Lester of “gratuitous, disparaging remarks” he made as part of his bail bond proceedings. Lester accused Zimmerman of “flout[ing] the system” when he failed to report outside donations. That would normally not result in a forced recusal but Florida is one of the states that makes disqualification mandatory when the motion is “legally sufficient.”

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Bizarre, Courts

New York Judge Censured After Accidental Discharge Of Weapon In Chambers

Judge Vincent Sgueglia of the Tioga County Family and Surrogate’s Courts has been censure in a bizarre case after he took a loaded .38-caliber Smith and Wesson that discharged in his chambers. There is no rule preventing judges from packing heat in chambers in New York but the state Commission on Judicial Conduct declared that Sgueglia, 70, should not have approved his own concealed-carry permit.

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Bizarre, Courts, Politics, Society

Thanks-A-Lot: Texas Attorney Accuses Judge of Pressuring Him To Buy Girl Scout Cookie

Judge Elia Cornejo Lopez has been accused by Texas lawyer Nat C. Perez of a rather unique form of abuse: cookie coercion. Perez has filed an unusual motion for recusal that lists, among other complaints, Lopez’s alleged pressure on Perez to buy her daughter’s girl scout cookies. He suggests that a couple boxes of “Thanks-a-lot” would go a long way with Lopez and that he refusal meant he could not “Tag-a-long” in cases. . . but he did get a judicial “Shoutout”
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Courts, Lawyering, Society

Former New York Judge Retroactively Removed From Bench For Abusing 5-Year Old Deaf Niece 40 Years Ago Before Becoming A Lawyer

New York Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges, 65, thought that he had resigned from the bench in Onondaga County in April after allegations that he sexually abuse with 5-year-old deaf niece. However, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided to retroactively remove him from the bench and bar him from ever holding a judicial office again in the state of New York despite that fact that the incident occurred 40 years ago and before he become an attorney. It presents an interesting case on the reach of judicial ethics for judges.

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Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Politics

Massachusetts Judge and Former Senator Facing Larceny Charge Over Craigslist Sale Of Crib

Massachusetts Judge Cheryl Ann Jacques is facing a bizarre misdemeanor larceny charge for allegedly misrepresenting the features of a combination crib-and-playpen set she sold on Craigslist. Jacques, 50 sold the Graco Pack ’n Play to Tracey Christopher, 39, for $75. It sells for roughly $150 new. Christopher insisted that there were parts missing but that Jacques refused to return her money. On both this allegation and a prior ethics charge, the level of scrutiny does not appear (in my view) justified by the underlying allegations.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Courts, Media, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Breyer Who? Two Thirds of Americans Cannot Name A Single Sitting Justice

They may be Supreme but they are also apparently Supremely forgettable. Two-thirds of Americans polled cannot name a single sitting Supreme Court justice. Of the relatively few who can remember a name it is that of the Chief Justice John Roberts. The least well known is Justice Stephen Breyer. Only one percent could remember them all.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics

Pennsylvania Judge Denies Injunction Of State ID Law

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson issued an important ruling on Wednesday that rejected a motion for a preliminary injunction of the Pennsylvania Voter ID law. Since these motions are based on a determination of the likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the decision has a significant impact not only for the case but cases around the country. Even if one disagrees with Simpson’s decision, the 70-page opinion below is well-reasoned and will be, in my view, difficult to reverse in the appeal to the state supreme court (which is divided evenly between Republican and Democratic jurists). With one Republican justice, Joan Orie Melvin, fighting criminal corruption charges, the Court is divided three to three along party lines. However, there is no reason to assume that these jurists will all vote in line with their political affiliations as opposed to their view of the law. A tie on the Supreme Court would result in a decision upholding the decision. I will be discussing the case this morning on CNN.

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

“A Vision Of The Future”: Military Magazine Details Plan For Putting Down Domestic Uprising

Civil libertarians have been concerned for years with the move toward greater use of the military in domestic operations by both President George W. Bush and now by President Barack Obama. The military continues to shift resources for prepare for large-scale domestic operations. Most recently, the Marines moved to create a battalion to allow the military to “be capable of helping control civil disturbances, handling detainees, carrying out forensic work, and using biometrics to identify suspects.” Now the Small Wars Journal, a respected publication closely followed in the U.S. military, has published an article entitled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future” by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It lays out not just the military but the legal basis for military operations to crush domestic insurrections in the United States.

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Congress, Courts, Justice, Politics

Mortgages and Moral Hazards

By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger

In 1984 Leonard and Harriet Nobelman purchased a condominium with the assistance of an adjustable rate mortgage loan from American Savings Bank.  Six years later, the Nobelmans encountered financial difficulties and filed Chapter 13 proceedings in bankruptcy court.  At the time of their filing, their mortgage balance, including accrued interest and late fees, was $71,335.00 and the fair market value of their home was only $23,500.00.  Accordingly, the Nobelmans proposed a reorganization plan which treated the difference between the mortgage balance and the fair market value, a total of $47,835.00, as unsecured debt.

Under bankruptcy law, the reclassification of indebtedness exceeding the value of the collateral from secured to unsecured status is known as a “cramdown.”  This is a commonly used device that effectively “strips” the lien of a security interest down to the collateral’s value.  It enables a debtor to retain property while insuring that the secured creditor will recover at least as much as it would realize from a foreclosure sale of the property.

The problem is that as a practical matter, unsecured creditors, whether in reorganization or straight liquidating bankruptcies, seldom receive any of the amounts owed to them.  So American Savings Bank, staring at the potential loss of more than half of the mortgage principal, filed an objection to the Nobelmans’ plan.  The ensuing litigation odyssey required three years and produced a Supreme Court decision that has particular significance in the current housing crisis.

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