Dwight Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, has some crowing rights this week. He found a serious factual error in the majority opinion barring the death penalty for child rape defendants — a flaw that was missed by both the majority and dissenting justices in Kennedy v. Louisiana as well as all of the attorneys in the case. The error was flagged by Sullivan on CFlog.
Continue reading “Military Blogger Finds Flaw in Supreme Court’s Child Rape Ruling”
The annual poll of lawyers by Law Dragon has begun. You can vote for your favorite lawyers and judges here.
Continue reading “Feeding the Dragon: Annual Lawyer Poll”
In a remarkable admission, former Manhattan prosecutor Daniel Bibb has stated that he intentionally threw a murder case because he did not believe the evidence. The case against David Lemus and Olmedo Hidalgo has become a major embarrassment for District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who is seeking reelection. Lemus was later acquitted and the charges dropped against Hidalgo in the Palladium case.
Continue reading “New York Prosecutor Says He Intentionally Threw Murder Case”
The Supreme Court continued the downward spiral of our insanity rules this week. The majority held that a defendant can be held to be competent to stand trial but held incompetent to represent himself — a green light for judges to continue to find clearly crazed individuals sane while denying them the right to act in their own defense. Justices Scalia and Thomas wrote a stinging and well-founded dissent.
In a massive blow to the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the opinion below, Justice Kennedy delivers the opinion of a lifetime: holding faithfully to the Constitution in a time of prolonged crisis.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Rules in Favor of the Detainees in Massive Blow to Bush Administration”
Various sites are now reporting that lawyer Cyrus Sanai is taking credit for the recent controversy involving Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. Sanai has a long-standing dispute with both the Ninth Circuit and Kozinski over a rather arcane doctrine called the Rooker-Feldman doctrine — holding that district courts may not entertain lawsuits challenging the validity of state court judgments.
Continue reading “Kozinski Snitch Revealed: Lawyer Cyrus Sanai”
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is in a controversy over his publicly accessible website, which featured sexually explicit photos and videos. He insists that some of these photos were posted privately as a joke. Kozinski is a long-time friend, who has appeared in my classes in past years. While I never visited the website in question or received such material, I can attest to the fact that Kozinski has a peculiar sense of humor. He is a brilliant jurist and a leading libertarian voice on the Court. Nevertheless, the disclosure is complicating Kozinski’s sitting in a leading pornography case involving Ira Isaacs.
Niagara Falls city court judge Judge Robert Restaino lost before the New York State Appellate Court, which upheld his removal for the jailing 46 people over a cell phone in his courtroom. It was not a close question with a 9-1 vote to send Restaino packing.
Continue reading “Removal of New York Judge Upheld for Jailing 46 People over Cell Phone”
In a serious attack on both free speech and free press, the Singapore government has arrested a California blogger (and U.S. citizen) after Gopalan Nair, 58, criticized Justice Belinda Ang Saw Ean. Nair is a former Singapore lawyer who is now charged with insulting a public servant and has already spent a year in jail. He could be faced with one year in prison.
There is a very interesting controversy brewing in Orange County, Florida. A 13-year-old girl Alisha Dean has a MySpace page that portrays herself as a 19-year-old divorced woman. She has been accused about lying to two men — Morris Williams, 22, and Darwin Mills, 24, about her age in two separate incidents. Both have been convicted and sent to jail for statutory rape — regardless of whether the older looking girl deceived them. While her parents admit that they did not take down the MySpace page and that she still stays out late at night, her father insists that minors are not expected to have the same judgment as adults.
Continue reading “13-Year-Old Girl Reportedly Lies About Age Leading to Statutory Rape Conviction — Twice”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court reprimanded Justice Annette Ziegler, who recently joined the Court, for conflicts of interest in cases that she handled as a circuit judge. Ziegler committed obvious judicial ethics violations in hearing cases involving a bank on which her husband was a director. Legal and ethics experts have decried the decision as insufficient — arguing that Wisconsin judges use a double standard for their own misdeeds and that lawyers are treated more harshly in such sentences.
Continue reading “Wisconsin Supreme Court Reprimands One of Its Own”
A new judge is under scrutiny over improper her relationship and conduct. Ana Gardiner, the chief criminal judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit, is accused of having a romantic relationship with defense attorney John Cotrone and also discussing pending murder cases over dinner with prosecutors — including laughing about the evidence, jurors, and capital charges.
Continue reading “Florida Judge Ana Gardiner Accused of Improper Relationship and Conduct”
Judge Robert Somma of the United States Bankruptcy Court has everyone debating whether he is a judge or not. Somma first resigned after being caught drunk driving while wearing a dress and make up. He then tried to unresign and now it is not clear and a few litigants and their lawyers would like to know.
Continue reading “Are You In or Are You Out? Judge Summa Resigns and Then Un-Resigns After Drunk Driving Arrest”
Willie Campbell, 42, is a homeless man who is HIV-positive. In May 2006, he spit in the face of three Dallas police men who arrested him. He was sentenced to 35 years for harassing a public servant with a deadly weapon: his saliva. It is a very disturbing sentence given the lack of a credible threat to passing AIDS by saliva.
Continue reading “HIV-Positive Man Gets 35 Years for Spitting on Officer”
With the networks canceling shows this week, the Maryland courts have decided to take off the bench one of the most colorful and quotable jurists. The Maryland Supreme Court has suspended Baltimore County District Judge Bruce S. Lamdin for his use of profanity and wise cracks from the bench. Continue reading “Show Suspended: Baltimore Judge Punished for Jokes from Bench”