Martin Odemena, a former law student at the Massachusetts School of Law, has taken the school to court over a D that he received in contracts. Odemena maintains that Professor Joseph Devlin clearly stated in his syllabus that a quiz would not count toward the final grade and then counted the score. It is an ironic position for Devlin (left) who specializes in drafting contracts. The result was that Odemena was suspended for academic performance and was unable to transfer to another school. He is suing for more than $100,000. The case is Odemena v. Devlin et al.
Category: Lawyering
Below is my column yesterday in the Chicago Tribune. It remains unclear whether Bowe Bergdahl will be charged. However, the allegations are mounting over his disappearance from his base. This column explores some interesting possible defenses and their historical context. Bergdahl returned this week to the United States, a move that will likely magnify these questions for the Administration.
Continue reading “Where To Go With Bowe? A Bergdahl Trial Could Raise Some Familiar Defenses”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Guy
Carol Anne Bond was overjoyed to learn that her best friend, Myrlinda Haynes, had become pregnant. That joy was short-lived when she learned that the father was none other than her husband,Clifford Bond. The Philadelphia woman embarked on a course of revenge that would result in federal charges for deploying chemical weapons and a trip to the United States Supreme Court. Passed in 1998, the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, enabled Congress to enforce the terms of an international treaty banning deployment of some chemical weapons. Taking advantage of that law, federal prosecutors charged Bond with obtaining two chemicals which together or separately could have killed her pregnant rival.
Continue reading “The Chemistry of Revenge: Bond v. U.S. – A Study In The Carpenters And Treaties”
By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor
On this day in 1892 Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the “whites-only” car of a train. The resulting court case, which Plessy lost, generated one of the most disgraceful decisions the Supreme Court of the United States ever made.
On June 7, 1892 thirty year old Homer A. Plessy boarded a train in New Orleans. A short time later, Plessy was arrested and removed from the train at Press and Royal streets by a private detective with arrest powers. The detective had actually been hired by the Comité des Citoyens (Citizens’ Committee of New Orleans), a civil rights group of which Plessy was a member. They were challenging Louisiana’s 1890 separate-car law.
Continue reading “122 years ago today, a humble but brave shoemaker boarded a train.”
We have previously discussed of former Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner who had a secret intimate relations with a prosecutor trying a capital murder case in her court in 2007. She has now been disbarred despite her earlier resignation from the court. That is far harsher punishment than what was received by former assistant state attorney Howard Scheinberg, who was suspended for two years due to the relationship.
I previously wrote on the scandal at General Motors (GM) over its lethal defect in the ignition switch on various models. Now General Motors has fired 15 employees and disciplined five others after an internal investigation by attorney Anton Valukas. The move raises some interesting litigation issues going forward in the controversy with both civil and criminal elements.
Continue reading “General Motors Fires 15 Employees After Internal Report”
I have previously written about my concerns over the elimination of basic rights of due process at universities for students accused of sexual assault or harassment under pressure from the Obama Administration. That pressure continues to build this year with the Obama Administration investigating dozens of universities and threatening to take away federal funds if they do not remove certain protections under their rules of adjudication. Now a North Carolina judge has issued a rare order enjoining Duke University from expelling a male student, Lewis McLeod, who was accused of raping a female freshman. The concern over the lack of due process afforded the accused is of course a continuation of the criticism of Duke over its handling of the infamous Duke lacrosse team case. I have previously written about my view that Duke abandoned not just those students but any sense of due process or fairness in joining the mob accusing them of raping a stripper.
If the judges over in Broward County are having trouble staying sober, it appears that anger management may be the challenge for judges in Brevard County, Florida. Judge John Murphy has been accused of saying that he wanted to throw a rock at a public defender and then saying that he wanted to meet him behind the courtroom to “beat your ass.” According to public defender Andrew Weinstock, he proceeded to try to do precisely that. However, no criminal charges have been brought against Murphy and there is no reported judicial discipline proceeding.
Broward Circuit Judge Lynn Rosenthal (left) has been arrested for DUI after she not only alleged struck a car while driving drunk but it turned out to be a cruiser of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department. She is the third such judge in the county to be arrested. Last November, yet another Broward judge, Cynthia Imperato, was busted for DUI. Broward County Circuit Judge, Gisele Pollack (right) was arrested two weeks ago. Pollack’s case however raises an interesting issue. She has objected to a suspension under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and asked that she be placed on paid leave to overcome a “disease.” For the county citizens, the line of hammered (gaveled?) judges does not exactly instill faith in the court system.
Continue reading “Benched: Third Broward County Judge Arrested For DUI”
We previously discussed how terribly confused Hillary Clinton appeared in discussing National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. She just could not understand why he would not have trusted the government to deal with any problems or why he would not come back to the United States. Now, Secretary of State John Kerry is offering his own brand of macho advice to the kid: “man up and come back to the United States.” Sure leaders have called for him to be tried as a traitor and either incarcerated for life or executed. Sure, he is not guaranteed to see all of the evidence used against him or even be guaranteed a federal trial as opposed to a military tribunal. However, Kerry appears ready to give him an “attaboy” on his way to solitary confinement under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) that cut off virtually any contact with the outside world.
Continue reading “Kerry To Snowden: “Man Up and Come Back to the United States.””
There is an interesting case out of Canada where a prominent lawyer, Kristine Robidoux of Calgary, has been suspended after she admitted that she was the source of negative disclosures regarding Arthur Kent — a former reporter known as the “Scud Stud” who was running for the Alberta Legislature. Robidoux had served as volunteer counsel to the campaign and supplied information confidentially to Canwest columnist Don Martin for an article entitled “Alberta’s ‘Scud Stud’ a ‘Dud’ on Campaign Trail.” Kent had received the nickname after reporting from a hotel during Iraqi Scud launchings against Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading “Prominent Canadian Lawyer Suspended In “Scud Stud” Case”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
Thanks to the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden, we now know how far our government went to hide the warrantless surveillance by the NSA. “If you blinked this week, you might have missed the news: two Senators accused the Justice Department of lying about NSA warrantless surveillance to the US supreme court last year, and those falsehoods all but ensured that mass spying on Americans would continue. But hardly anyone seems to care – least of all those who lied and who should have already come forward with the truth. Continue reading “Did The Justice Department Lie to the Supreme Court…And Get Away With It?”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Loose lips sink ships and auto manufacturers, too, it seems. Lost amid much of the commotion on Friday surrounding GM’s agreement to pay the largest possible fine ($35 million) for failing to recall defective ignition switches in its Cobalt car line which are linked to 13 deaths already, was a 2008 presentation GM made to its employees. Made during the public bailout of GM by American taxpayers, the presentation obviously was designed to thwart plaintiff’s discovery in similar product liability law suits. The mandatory video outlaws certain words from GM’s internal correspondence which are routinely used to demonstrate exactly what the auto giant knew and when it knew it in court. These internal memos are crucial to determining the then prevailing sentiment about auto safety issues by the people who knew it best — the engineers and scientists who design and test the cars.
Burned already by damaging emails, GM directed its employees to refrain from words like, “Hindenburg,” “powder keg,” “Titanic,” “apocalyptic,” “You’re toast,” and “Kevorkianesque.” They weren’t too keen on certain phrases either, like “This is a lawsuit waiting to happen,” and “Unbelievable engineering screw-up.” The masters at GM found such language to be “examples of comments that do not help identify and solve problems.”
Raymond Cote, an attorney in New York, has resigned not only from his position as board president but withdrawn from his campaign to be re-elected to the Mahopac Board of Education. The reason? An open mike caught him referring to a parent during a meeting break as a “chubby wubby.”
We have previously discussed the lack of priority in this country as Congress has spent trillions on wars and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan while our most basic state and federal public programs and services are cut. Indeed, we spend billions on increasingly hostile countries like Pakistan or affluent countries like Israel while our educational system and infrastructure collapses. There is no greater example of that lack of priority than the decline of our court systems which are woefully underfunded and facing a growing crisis in dealing with civil and criminal cases. I often speak to judges and they all complain that they are overwhelmed and unable to meet the most basic demands of the legal system. In California, one court had to resort of a garage sale while another is imposing a $1 a page charge for people to get copies of needed court records. Our legal system is one of the most basic governmental functions — the very definition of a nation committed to the rule of law. However, California alone shows how dire the situation has become.