There is a growing scandal over pornographic emails that has now snared a State Supreme Court Justice. There has been an ongoing investigation over pornographic emails being shared by employees at the attorney general’s office. That investigation has led to the disclosure of 54 emails sent from Justice Seamus McCaffery’s personal Comcast email address to an employee at the State Attorney General’s Office. In those emails were a reported 8 pornographic images and videos.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Justice Identified In Pornographic Email Scandal”
Category: Lawyering
It appears that the Uber Taxi driver discussed today is not the only person who is reportedly using the “she asked for it” defense to sexual assault. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office is blaming a former state prison clerk for her own rape in litigation against the prison. The 24-year-old typist was working at the state prison at Rockview in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 2013 when she was choked unconscious and raped for 27 minutes by Omar Best, an image convicted three times previously of sex-related crimes. Worse yet, Best had been transferred from a different state prison for assaulting a female assistant but the prison still allowed him unsupervised visits with female employees.
Continue reading “The Best Defense? Pennsylvania Blames Prison Employee For Her Own Rape By Inmate”
Below is my column on the resignation of Eric Holder as United States Attorney General. For civil libertarians, Holder’s tenure as Attorney General under President Obama has been one of the most damaging periods in our history with a comprehensive attack on various constitutional rights and principles from free speech to the free press to international law. In recent polling by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, Holder was the second most unpopular government official after the positively radioactive Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
As someone who previously called for Holder’s firing after the investigation of various journalists under national security powers, I am hardly one who can offer congratulatory sentiments for such a record. However, much like President Obama, one has to wonder what could have been if Holder had chosen a more principled and less political approach to his office. Holder is resigning the same week that a federal judge ordered the release of “Fast and Furious” documents after the Justice Department was accused of a pattern of delay and obstruction. Holder was previously held in contempt by Congress for his withholding documents and conflicting accounts to an oversight committee looking into the scandal. Indeed, Holder was looking at an even more aggressive period with the possible loss of the Senate and increased GOP seats in the House.
Ironically, Holder came into office trying to distinguish himself from such disastrous predecessors as Alberto Gonzales but proved no less political or blindly loyal to his own president. Indeed, both men fought aggressively to expand the powers of the presidency and national security laws over countervailing individual rights and separation of powers principles. It will be civil liberties and not civil rights that will be the lasting, and troubling, legacy of Eric Holder. The column is below:
Continue reading “The Holder Years and The Perils Of Politics Over Principle In Government”
We previously discussed the arrest of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller in Alabama for misdemeanor battery of his wife. Now members are raising the possibility of impeachment if he does not resign despite the absence of a conviction on the misdemeanor. Rep. Martha Roby (R., Alabama) is citing a rather novel source of extraconstitutional precedent: the NFL Ray Rice case.
Continue reading “High Crimes and [NFL] Misdemeanors? Members Raise Impeachment In Fuller Case”
We previously discussed the bizarre case of Faulkner County Circuit Judge Mike Maggio who was identified as an anonymous commenter known as “geauxjudge” in a an an interesting controversy in Arkansas where Maggio was was outed from online sites. Maggio previously apologized and withdrew from a race for the appellate court. The controversy raised the question of whether such comments should be a subject for ethical discipline and whether judges should have the right to comment anonymously on such sites. Now Maggio has been permanently removed from the bench for his discussion of a confidential adoption of a child by actress Charlize Theron. He agreed with the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission about the lifetime ban. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected the recommendation because it included Maggio being suspended with pay until the end of the year when his term expires.
Continue reading ““Geauxjudge” is Gone: Judge Maggio Removed From Court For Anonymous Postings”
As we previously discussed, the criminal charges against former Bush White House lawyer John Michael Farren for the attempted murder of his then-wife Mary Margaret Farren, a former partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He has now been convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Continue reading “Former Bush Lawyer John Farren Sentenced In Attempted Murder Of His Wife”
Washington state prosecutor Marriya Wright has resigned from her $83,000-a-year job after a photograph of her in a bikini was found in the cell of Matthew Baumrucker, a prisoner who supports a forehead tattoo reading “criminal.” Officials later found that she had texted or called Baumrucker over 1,200 times during a period of a little over one month.
Continue reading “Washington Prosecutor Resigns After Photo In Bikini Found In Prisoner’s Cell”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
In light of the recently observed 13th anniversary of the events on 9/11/01, I read an article this week that caught my eye. According to reports, there is a 28 page section of the 9/11 Commission report that has never been released publicly and remains secret to this day. Indeed, Congressmen must go through numerous security reviews before they can read the document in a secure room in Washington, D.C.
What kind of secret and clandestine information can be found in such a guarded document? Since it is top-secret, we can only go by the reviews of people who have read the report. What is found in that report may surprise you in light of its level of secrecy. Continue reading “9/11 and the Saudis and State Secrecy”
LawDragon has released the results of its increasingly popular survey of the top lawyers in America. I was fortunate to again make the list this year, which included the recent win in the Al-Arian case in the background statement.
Continue reading “LawDragon Selects Top 500 Lawyers For 2014”
Perry County Judge Dean L. Wilson is well known in the Columbus area for holding drunk driving trials to New Lexington High School each year as a warning to students not to drink and drive. Wilson is now facing public criticism as he was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs and, worse yet, leaving the scene of an accident. Both are first-degree misdemeanors punishable subject to a maximum of six months in jail for each.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I guess I should not be surprised anymore, but it still saddens me to read that our old friend, Halliburton, has pled guilty to destroying evidence concerning their participation in the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and the subsequent environmental disaster in 2010. If they pled guilty why should I be upset? I am upset that the Department of Justice agreed to a $1.1 Billion fine instead of jail time. Once again a corporate “citizen” has committed a crime and no one is going to jail. Continue reading “Halliburton Commits Crimes and Gets a Fine”
It is a rather bizarre week for the California bench after two judges were separately sanctions for sex in their chambers. Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner (right) was censured for such multiple trysts with women. Kern County Superior Court Judge Cory Woodward (left) magnified the sanctionable conduct by not just having multiple trysts with his court clerk from July of 2012 until May of last year but engaging in such conduct in both his chambers and in public places. Both were censured but allowed to continue on the bench. Both are former prosecutors.
Continue reading “Two California Judges Sanctioned For Sex In Chambers”
Lawrence Winger, a leading labor and employment lawyer in Maine, was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with possessing child pornography. Winger, 63, consented to a search of his office where investigators allegedly found dozens of images and videos of prepubescent children engaged in sexual activity. Winger has a blog specializing in labor and employment issues.
Continue reading “Leading Labor Lawyer Arrested For Child Pornography in Maine”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Eating habits in Guangdong Province, China are likely about to change. There, the Indochinese spitting cobra is a prized delicacy. The preparation of the serpent is a time-honored tradition but yesterday something went terribly wrong for Chef Peng Fan of Foshan. Disposing of the head of the snake that had been killed twenty minutes before, Fan was fatally bitten and died before the anti-venom could be administered. Spitting cobra venom contains one of the world’s most powerful neurotoxins that kills within hours of injection by suppressing involuntary muscles which control respiration.
Continue reading “Biting The Hand That Cooks You: Severed Cobra Head Bites, Kills Chef”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
We have read in recent weeks and months about the continued movement of corporate profits by US corporations to their overseas subsidiaries in order to avoid paying taxes here on those profits. Walgreens almost went that route recently but they decided to not do what is called an “inversion” to avoid taxes. At least for now.
You may be wondering what the picture is all about. The building in the attached photo is one of the main buildings on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. And Microsoft has also been busy working on their taxes.
Microsoft, made news recently, by admitting that they have stashed $92 Billion dollars overseas in an attempt to avoid paying $29 Billions in taxes! While Microsoft has not officially “inverted” its profits, they have done the next best thing.
Many large US corporations have complained that they have to move profits overseas because they cannot be competitive in the world market without a lower tax base. Just how true is that claim? Continue reading “Economic Patriotism or Treason?”