Here is our annual list of Halloween torts and crimes. This holiday remains a favorite for personal injury lawyers around the world and this year’s additions show why. Of course, with Sandy, our area is already looking pretty spooky with downed trees and tattered exteriors.
So, with no further ado, here is this year’s updated list of actual cases related to Halloween.
Continue reading “Spooky Torts: The 2014 List Of Halloween Litigation Horrors”
There is another controversy raising the increasing assertion of authority of school officials over pictures and statements made by students outside of school. In Massachusetts, Jamie Pereira was suspended from school after a photo of her and her boyfriend, Tito Velez, both 16, holding Airsoft rifles was posted on Facebook. A caption beneath the photograph read: “Homecoming 2014.” The picture looks like a new American Gothic for some and a threat to others. However, the controversy again raises the limits and discretion of school officials in monitoring speech outside of school for students and teachers alike. There was good reason to be concerned but the punishment was due to the disruption caused rather than an actual threat from the picture.
There is a highly disturbing controversy outside of Salt Lake City where Darrien Hunt, 22, was shot six times by police officers who claimed that he charged them with a sword. Hunt was dressed in a Japanese anime costume with a 2 ½ foot steel sword that the family insists was nothing more than a prop. An autopsy released this week shows that several of the shots entered in the back of his body. The case has raised racial concerns since Hunt was black and the officers were white.
Continue reading “Utah Police Shoot Man Dressed in Anime Costume and Carrying Sword”
There is a bizarre and disturbing case out of India where an Indian man has been criminally charged after his wife filmed homosexual liaisons in their home and took the evidence to the police. It is a crime punishable by life in prison to engage in homosexual relations in India. The case is an insight not only into the abusive Indian criminal code but the traditions of such arranged marriages. What is interesting is that the wife, a dentist, has also charged her in-laws with a crime after alleging that they had to know that their son was gay before the marriage.
I have previously discussed my admiration for Pope Francis, who strikes me as a truly holy man in every true sense of that term. Francis has pulled the Church into the Twenty-First Century with massive reforms and new approaches. This week saw one of the most remarkable such changes: Pope Francis announced that it is perfectly consistent to be a Catholic and an evolutionist. For many Catholics who cannot deny the evidence that the Earth is billions rather than thousands of years old, the announcement shows that it is possible to believe in both God and evolution.
Continue reading “Pope Francis: Evolution Is Consistent With Being Catholic”
Having watched the Redskins-Cowboys game last night, this story caught my eye. I previously wrote a Washington Post column on the controversy over the Redskins name. In the column, I mentioned that a large number of both Native Americans and non-Native Americans do not view the team name to be offensive and explored the issue of of who should decided such questions. A story in the Washington Post discusses a vocal opposition to changing the name “Redskins” in Red Mesa, Arizona. It is the other “Redskins” team from Red Mesa High School — a school composed of largely of Navajos.
Finally, a study that we can believe in and truly get behind. A study published in Nature Neuroscience found that chocolate has a natural compound from cocoa that can reverse age-related memory loss. The problem is that you have to eat so much that you immediately remember that you have a serious weight problem.
I have been organizing my pictures from my recent trip to Italy and was struck by the many people that we met on our wanderings. The led to the column below.
The video below has gone viral on YouTube not only for the dangerous motorcycle antics of some 50 bikers in California but their open dismissal of a California Highway Patrol officer who is told to “go away” . . . and he does.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
It never ceases to amaze me that the heads of major corporations and officers of those companies just never seem to go to jail when the corporation’s fingers are caught in the cookie jar. We saw two separate examples of that concept this week. One example is simply a case of corporate greed at employees expense and the other is a brutal and deadly tragedy that caught up the corporate employees, but not their bosses.
In the past, I have written about banks getting away with fines and financial penalties for committing crimes, but today the focus is on two corporations in two different areas of endeavor. I am referring to the corporation formerly known as Blackwater and Electronics for Imaging (EFI). Blackwater as you may recall was in the private security and intelligence gathering business with many government clients, while EFI is a Silicon Valley tech firm with earnings of over $100 million in 2013. They both have one thing in common. They broke the law and one got a slap on the wrist and the CEO and founder of the other and his fellow corporate officers avoided any culpability in a brutal murder case. Continue reading “Two Corporate Crimes and No Accountability for the Suits”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Fascinating book out by NPR media reporter, David Folkenflik, entitled Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires that explores the strange world of publisher Rupert Murdoch. Gobbler of such English-speaking newspapers as The News of The World, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times, Murdoch is mostly known for his media collaboration with Roger Ailes in the development and promotion of Fox News, the Right’s mouthpiece of choice. Until his inglorious dismount from credibility in the London Phone Hacking scandal where a Murdoch newspaper employee was convicted of hacking the telephone voice mails of murdered British teenager, Milly Dowler, Murdoch had personified all that is unseemly about tabloid journalism. The personification of Charles Foster Kane, Murdoch fed the Right the red meat of dissention blending news with opinion and relying on practices that were criticized by honest journalists (even conservative ones) around the world calling it right-leaning tabloidism (here).
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
I have been reading about the latest Breitbart-inspired dire prediction of the nefarious ( and possibly illegal) machinations of the Obama Administration. You know “Green Paper-Gate.” It’s the one where the conservative blog, Breitbart, reports that a draft solicitation proposal for purchase of green paper issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services definitely means that the Obama Administration is secretly planning a massive amnesty campaign of undocumented aliens. And, worse still, that it’s keeping that secret until after the mid-term elections as a boon to Democratic candidates. I went back and took a look at the proposal and here is the offending language: “The requirement is for an estimated 4 million cards annually with the potential to buy as many as 34 million cards total. The ordering periods for this requirement shall be for a total of five (5) years.” A draft RFP issued a few days later contains the same language but adds the following: “In addition, the Contractor shall demonstrate the capability to support potential “surge” in PRC and EAD card demand for up to 9M cards during the initial period of performance to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.” You can view the proposal (here) and the RFP (here) and then read all the GSA bureaucratic verbiage for yourself. Have a good time.
Continue reading “Predicting Obama: Is The Right Ever Right?”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Members of the Kurd Community residing in the United States will host a demonstration to draw attention to the plight of Yezidi and Christian women in Iraq and Syria suffering and persecuted at the hands of ISIS.
Reportedly beginning at 10:00am on Monday, October 27, members of the Kurdish Diaspora will begin a five-day hunger strike at Lafayette Park across from the White House, culminating with a march to the White House and a demonstration on Friday, October 31 from 12:00-3:00pm. The procession will include a mock Islamic State (IS) slave market, exhibiting the humanitarian disaster being faced by thousands of Yezidi and Christian women and girls currently being held captive by IS in Iraq and Syria.
Continue reading “U.S. Kurds To Stage Mock Sex Slave Auction and Begin Hunger Strike At White House”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another example of the bureaucratic disarray shackling the recreational and medical marijuana industry in Washington State, the City of Seattle sent a warning letter to over three hundred medical marijuana dispensaries requiring them to obtain a state license for medical marijuana by next summer or face closure. The problem is Washington does not license medical marijuana dispensaries.
We have been discussing the extraordinary and public decision of President Barack Obama to withhold any information on his promised changes in immigration until after the election. While immigration remains one of the most important issues of this election, Obama officials have admitted to preparing for the changes while refusing to give any details or even summaries of what is being planned, as we discussed again yesterday. There has been surprisingly little hard reporting on the decision to withhold this information from voters until after they have voted. However, yesterday White House CBS reporter Major Garrett broke from the mainstream pack and pressed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on a report that the Administration has order material for a “surge” of immigration IDs of up to 9 million in one year. Ernest called the questions “crazy” and encouraged everyone not to speculate . . . before the election obviously.