I recently published a column on how Barack Obama has publicly assumed many of the powers that were once cited as the basis for the investigation and attempted impeachment of Richard Nixon. One of those areas was the Obama Administration’s crackdown on journalists. This week Attorney General Eric Holder appears to have yet again added to this ignoble record. It appears that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press. This disclosure follows another recent disclosure that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted conservative groups associated with the Tea Party. Yet, once again, most Democrats remain silent in a type of cult of personality where principle is discarded in favor of loyalty to the President.
Category: Lawyering
I have previously written about how the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) set out to create a crime never approved by Congress: the crime of making a joke in an airport about security issues. The TSA has long appeared to chafe at the notion of an agency dependent on Congress or the public for its authority. That appears the message being sent to John E. Brennan. You may recall Brennan from a story last year when he stripped in the Portland International Airport in protest of increasing invasive TSA security measures. He was cleared by a judge who found his stripping was a form of protest. However, the TSA was clearly miffed by decision of the judge, so Brennan was pulled into the administrative abyss by TSA with an agency charge. It appears that, if the law will not punish a citizen, TSA will.
As reported this morning in various newspapers and sites, the World Bank case (Chang) ended its evidentiary hearings before Special Master John M. Facciola, United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, yesterday with the testimony of District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan. Like his predecessor, ex-AG Peter Nickles, Nathan was called by the court to answer questions on the latest controversy over false statements in filings by his office and the failure to inform the court for 70 days that someone had attempted to delete evidence in the case. As co-lead counsel, I am limited in what I feel comfortable in saying about the case, but, given the inquiries on yesterday’s hearing I wanted to give the status in the case. Continue reading “DC Attorney General Nathan Testifies In World Bank Case And Denies Any Wrongdoing By Staff Or Need For Investigation”
Judge Belvin Perry appears to believe that, as Oscar Wilde advised, “the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Perry decided to get his 15 minutes of fame by granting an interview on the Casey Anthony murder trial during which he attacked Anthony as “very manipulative.” I will remind you that Anthony was acquitted of the first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. There are also judicial ethical rules meant to bar such commentary by judges. The question is whether the state bar will take action after this grossly inappropriate interview. Perry is the chief judge on Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit.
Toys R Us has vowed to appeal a $20 million verdict in Massachusetts in favor of the family of Robin Aleo who was killed after slamming her head on a concrete pool deck when a 6-foot inflatable pool slide deflated. The major issue in the appeal is likely to be the argument that the slide did not comply with federal safety standards. Toys R Us claims the federal standards were written for solid slides and that inflatable slides did not exist when the regulations were written.
Continue reading “Jury Awards Family $20 Million Against Toys R Us For Slide Injury”
For some, the liquidation of Bernard Madoff’s firm is approaching the same levels of excess as the original crime. Irving Picard and his firm, Baker & Hostetler LLP, have just asked for an additional $50 million in fees and expenses for work between July 1 through Nov. 30. That would bring the total fees to . . . wait for it . . . $440 million.
A retired State Department employee has been indicted on two charges of first-degree murder in the latest case involving “castle doctrine” claims. There is little dispute that the two teens, Nicholas Brady, 17, and Haile Kifer, 18, broke in the Minnesota home of Byron Smith, 64, on Thanksgiving Day. Indeed, Brady may have broken into the home twice before. However, Smith’s shooting the unarmed teens and his actions captured on his own videotaping system led to the charges.
Continue reading “Minnesota Man Faces Double Murder Charges In Home Burglary Case”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Like most of us I have been watching the developments in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon tragedy throughout the week. Because I’m retired I probably logged more hours of viewing it on TV than most people who are younger. The initial bombings on Monday and their aftermath made me terribly sad at the loss of innocent lives and the maiming of so many, which will have future pain and consequences for the entire lives of the victims. As a father and grandfather how could I not feel painful tears for the death of an 8 year old and the lifelong pain of his parents? Yet beyond that sadness, I also felt a sense of anxiety in my chest as I listened to the hour upon hour of cable news coverage and the analysis of “terrorism experts” aligned with prognosticators telling us what it all means.
My anxiety did not stem from fear of terrorism, because that fear is irrational. This is so not because terrorism is a chimera, but because this type of terrorism is an all too real fact of the lives of humanity and indeed while we in America have suffered it, so has the rest of the world to an even greater degree. Great Britain, Spain, Iraq, Israel, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia etc. and so on and so forth. Life itself is always uncertain and unseen death lurks as a constant possibility for even the most protected of us. This has always been the human condition and the truth is that as the eons of human history have passed we are far safer now than our ancestors ever were. Yet it is also a human necessity to maintain the illusion of our own safety and indeed immortality. When horrors like the Boston Marathon bombings occur it tends to shake up our human illusions and engender fear. In the aftermath of these horrors though come the “explainers” whose attempts to soothe us only increase the fears. Following the “explainers” come those who would exploit the aroused fears for their personal gain or predilection. This happened in America from 9/11 and in its wake the false meme “This Changes Everything” was transformed into a reality of war, torture and the shredding of our Constitution. My anxiety was raised because as I watch this all unfold on TV I became fearful of how this new attention arousing horror would be used by those intent upon transforming this country into a Police State under the guise of saving it from terror. Continue reading “SWAT: Is America Coming Under Martial Law, Redux”
Lawyer Thomas Moore has instantly become something of a legend in legal circles after he secured a $130 million verdict after being publicly ridiculed for turning down an $8 million settlement and losing the first trial and then facing a hung jury in the second trial of his medical malpractice case.
Park Avenue lawyer James R. Ray, 50, is the subject of a bizarre allegation that he pressured his female paralegal to be his “third wife.” Sarbrina Rafi, 27, make the allegation in a sexual harassment complaint in which she says that Ray boasts of multiple wives and referred to her ethnic background in making her ideal for his third spouse. As lead counsel in the Sister Wives case, I am not sure of how Park Avenue Polygamy works, but this (if true) sounds more like simple sexual harassment than a consensual plural relationship.
The Justice Department has long been accused of whitewashing misconduct of its own prosecutors and rarely acting on acts of prosecutorial misconduct, including common complaints of federal prosecutors withholding evidence and making misrepresentations to counsel or the courts. Even in high profile cases of misconduct, the Justice Department often drags out investigations only to later quietly end them without sanctions. One of the few sanctions meted out by the Justice Department came with attorneys responsible for the disastrous prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens where their misconduct not only led to reversal of the case but the waste of millions of dollars. Now, however, an Administrative Law judge has overturned the suspensions of two federal prosecutors.
The Justice Department imposed the suspension after finding that the two prosecutors had engaged in reckless professional misconduct. Notably, this finding excused the prosecutors of intentional misconduct, a finding ridiculed by many in a case of clear prosecutorial abuse. The penalty came years after the misconduct and only involved a suspension without pay. Joseph Bottini was suspended for just 40 days and James Goeke was suspended for just 15 days. Even that is now dismissed under the ruling of Judge Benjamin Gutman. The reasoning gives an insight into why it is so difficult to get the Justice Department to mete out even mild punishment for prosecutorial misconduct.
This week, the State Bar Court of California took the rare step of not only finding Del Norte County Dist. Atty. Jon Michael Alexander guilty of misconduct but recommending disbarment to the California Supreme Court. Many of us have long complained that prosecutors are rarely punished for abuses like withholding evidence, even when such misconduct leads to costly reversals. This case sends a stronger message that we will not continue to tolerate prosecutors who routinely withhold evidence and violate ethical rules. I have personally seen all of these forms of misconduct by prosecutors in prior cases without any sanction or discipline resulting for those responsible. The Justice Department has a particular poor record in disciplining its attorneys even in the face of outrageous acts of misconduct from supporting torture to withholding evidence.
Continue reading “California Bar Recommends Disbarment of Del Norte District Attorney”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Watching the unfolding meltdown at Rutgers University this week you had to be struck by the full array of human weakness on display. Prompted in large measure by a disgruntled former employee (all truth seems to come out that way), the school was rocked when a compilation video surfaced showing three years of verbal, physical and mental abuse heaped on student athletes whose crime was winning a basketball scholarship and having the misfortune to play for Head Coach Mike Rice and Assistant Coach Jimmy “Baby Rice” Martelli.
The murders of two prosecutors in Kaufman County, Texas has caused heightened security measures to protect court staff and prosecutors. However, few expected those concerns to lead to the withdrawal of a federal prosecutor in Houston. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman has reportedly announced that he will withdraw from a case out of personal safety concerns. If true, it is a rare case for a federal prosecutor to refuse to litigate a case out of fear.
You may recall Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree found our earlier discussion of his sending court personnel revealing pictures of himself. He was sanctioned for that little episode. McCree is back before a judicial ethics panel for allegedly making a false report of a felony, misrepresentations to the commission and engaging in improper bench conduct and demeanor. The latter charges involve having sex with a witness in his chambers, a relationship that he insisted did not affect his judgment in any way in the child-support case. He also allegedly impregnating Geniene La’Shay Mott (left with McCree). Despite his continual bizarre and improper conduct, McCree has remained on the bench in an indictment of the entire political and judicial system in Wayne County in Michigan.