While the Superbowl was a bit of a bust, lawyer Jamie Casino is being widely heralded as scoring a touchdown with his local commercial during the game in Georgia where he tells his life’s story as an advocate for clients. Since I have already ventured into film critique this morning with the students of Columbia, I might as well say my peace about the film of Mr. Casino despite the overwhelming popularity of the commercial. I found the commercial below to be unprofessional and self-serving and just a bit creepy. What is striking about this story is that it was not long ago when such an advertisement would have been viewed as an ethical breach. I did not support those earlier rules against advertisements. However, Casino has a history of such commercials that trade content for flashy effects along the lines of a car salesman or infomercial pitchman.
Category: Criminal law
Our erstwhile ally Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is back reminding American citizens of the waste of thousands of dead and wounded U.S. soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars. Karzai has refused to sign an agreement to keep a significant number of troops in the country for training and counter-insurgency operations — an agreement guaranteeing more U.S. losses in lives and treasure that the Obama Administration wants signed. Karzai however has been negotiating with the Taliban to force the U.S. out and return them to power in a sharing arrangement with this government. In the meantime, he is repeating his condemnations of the United States as a “colonial” power and alleged that insurgent attacks were actually staged by U.S. forces. I understand that the “enemy of our enemy is our friend” but what about the friend of our enemy?
We have been following the prosecution of French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, 46, for hateful speech in France, particularly his alleged anti-Semitism. While I do not consider Dieudonne funny in the slightest and rather offensive, the prosecution reaffirms the growing divide between the United States and its closest allies over free speech. Now, England has magnified those concerns by barring Dieudonne from entering the country. This sounds strikingly like the equally controversial move against Michael Savage.
Continue reading “England Bans Comedian For Hateful Jokes and Gestures”
Saudi Arabia has long been criticized as a feeder nation for terrorists, including some of those who attacked this country on September 11th. Well, the country is finally cracking down with its own counterterrorism law but it turns out that the law may have more to do with political dissidents than religious fanatics. Civil libertarians are denouncing the law that would allow the arrest of any reformer or government critic as a terrorist.
The confirmation hearing for Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has many of the standard elements and witnesses on Adegbile’s career as a lawyer and an advocate. One witness however is not like the other: Maureen Faulkner, the widow of a Philadelphia police officer gunned down in 1981. Now, Adegbile is not accused of gunning down Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner or even being an accomplice before or after the act. No, the witness is being called to suggest that Abegbile should not be confirmed because he represented the man convicted of the murder. Faulkner is being joined by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the Fraternal Order of Police in saying that such representation is relevant in determining if he should be confirmed. It is move that strikes at the heart of the notion of the right to counsel and due process. Many law students become prosecutors because they fear that representing criminal defendants or controversial clients will bar or hinder their professional advancement while the presidents and members of Congress continue to favor prosecutors for judicial appointments (making the federal bench a sometime hostile place for criminal defense counsel).
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)–Weekend Contributor
In the years since the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War began, there have been some sizeable protests and demonstrations, but not quite to the level seen during the Vietnam War. We have seen several significant protests during various economic and political summits and conventions in the United States and around the world, but they have been met with severe police crackdowns. The Occupy Movement is one example of a long-term protest that on more than one occasion suffered through severe police restrictions and in some cases, brutal police tactics.
In response to the 9/11 attacks, the United States passed so-called anti-terror legislation that many claim have usurped and restricted personal liberties. However, several states also jumped on that bandwagon and passed their own anti-terror legislation. The State of Illinois is one of the states that passed its own anti-terror legislation and the use of that legislation prior to the NATO Summit meetings held in Chicago on May 20 and 21st, in 2012 is currently being litigated right now in Chicago in a criminal case brought against 3 protestors known as the NATO 3 under the Illinois anti-terror statute. Continue reading “Have We Lost the Right To Protest?”
By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor
The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis County, MO is the repository of millions of personnel, health, and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century. Records from before WWI are kept in Washington, DC. The Center also stores and maintains the records of dependents and other persons treated at medical facilities owned and operated by the US military.
Or at least it’s supposed to.
Continue reading “Military Records Destroyed: Does the punishment fit the crime?”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Julius Cæsar built a temple to her memory and commissioned statuary depicting the Roman conqueror strolling amiably hand-in-hand with the goddess. Augustus cited her name in pardoning Cinna for plotting an assassination attempt to install himself as ruler of Rome. Legend has it that Augustus’ wife, Livia, reminded the emperor that violent retribution against his enemies had not deterred their incessant murderous plotting and thus a new tactic was warranted. It must have worked well as Cinna went on the next year to be named consul and reportedly left all his possessions to Augustus in his will. The act of mercy also earned the Roman strongman an undying reputation among the people as the “good emperor.” For citizens of the ancient Italian city-state, Clementia was the ugly goddess murdered for being too rotund and not fitting the Olympian image of health and vigor. She was something else as well — the embodiment of mercy, restraint, forbearance and humanity. What we still call today the virtue of clemency.
I read Thursday that the USDOJ had decided to ask for the death penalty in its case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged
Boston Marathon bomber. Tsarnaev is charged with one of the most horrific acts of wanton brutality ever committed on American soil when he and his brother loaded two backpacks full of shrapnel and high explosives and placed them behind the appendages of kids and adults watching the Boston City Marathon on Tax Day, 2013. Killing three and horribly wounding 260 in callous savagery few could match, the now 20-year-old’s record of mayhem and senseless violence has resulted in a capital charge of premeditated murder by means of terrorism.
Continue reading “The Quality of Mercy: What Price Justice?”
An Italian court has reversed the ruling of an earlier appellate court that found Amanda Knox not guilty in the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. The latest court actually handed down a longer sentence against Knox who has remained in Seattle, Washington with her family. The case has drawn attention to a number of flaws in the Italian legal system and I have serious reservations over this ruling. I believe that there is evidence that Knox committed the crime but the evidence is highly circumstantial and much of the crime scene was contaminated by poor police work.
Continue reading “Amanda Knox’s Conviction Reinstated By Italian Court”
This horrendous abuse is the work of Russell Seese, 27, in Pennsylvania. Seese was reportedly planning to kill the dog, Lexi, when his abuse was discovered. Now he has served his relatively brief sentence and Pike County Judge Joseph Kameen had confirmed that he cannot own another dog.
We previously discussed the horrific case out of New Mexico involving David Eckert involving a series of demeaning and invasive cavity searches of an innocent man stopped along a road. That abuse cost the city and county $1.8 million in a recent settlement. However, recent reports indicate that neither the sheriff nor this deputies were disciplined. Now there is a new lawsuit against Hidalgo County that suggests that officers are “cavity happy” in caring about such searches — a frightening prospect for citizens and a ruinous prospect for county taxpayers.
Continue reading “New Mexico County Faces New Lawsuit Involving Abusive Cavity Searches By Police”
Minister Michael Todd Abromovich is accused of having a curious sideline in Denver. Abromovich was arrested for alleged luring a man to a Denver motel with an offer of sex and then handcuffing and robbing him while claiming to be a U.S. marshal. Judging from his mugshot, I am not sure which seems more implausible: the image of a minister or a marshal.
In an important decision on immunity, the United States Court of Appeal for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that a prosecutor is not protected by immunity for allegedly coercing false testimony that sent a man to death row 17 years ago. Two prosecutors were accused of egregious misconduct: Lawrence Wharrie and David Kelley. The new opinion from the Seventh Circuit is Fields v. Wharrie, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1333. Ironically, I just filed on qualified immunity this week in the ongoing litigation in the Sister Wives case in Utah. We are advancing some of the same arguments, though our case has distinguishable characteristics. However, today we filed the Fields case as new supplemental authority.
Washington has been rocked recently by the news of a high-ranking congressional staff, Jesse Ryan Loskarn, was arrested for possession of child pornography. Loskarn was the long-time director of the office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. He recently committed suicide by hanging himself. A letter has now been released where Loskarn explains his demise and his shame. In the letter, he refers to abuse as a child but does not identify the culprit. Psychiatrists have long documented the tendency of victims of child abuse to be drawn to child pornography. I was personally involved with such a case of a man with documented such abuse who downloaded such images — a reaction that a respected psychiatrist testified was extremely common. You may or may not believe the final account of Loshkarn but it is a striking letter from a man clearly struggling with the shame of his action.
GOP Georgia congressman Paul Broun has a slight variation on Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign of “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage?” Broun would like to add an AR-15 in every home or at least one home. Broun is offering a drawing to his supporters to win an AR-15 to show his unparalleled support for gun ownership.