Anthony Miller, 39, does not appear to have heard of a no-fault divorce. Caught in a joyless marriage, Miller says that he did the only thing that he could of to escape his wife: he robbed a bank and waited to be arrested.
Continue reading “Till Prison Do Us Part: Man Claims Private Necessity in Robbing Bank to Escape Wife”
Judge John Doyle is facing accusations that he is a latte-hating, cigar-smoker baiting jurist or worse. Doyle recused himself after losing his patience with a bank lawyer, Farzad Milani, and telling him that he could not allow the lawyer to sit in his office “smoking his Cohiba cigars and drinking his lattes” while the court does all the work. He should be less worried about playing around with judicial ethics as ticking off those jackbooted, over-caffeinated thugs at Starbucks.
Continue reading “Judge Recuses Himself After Denouncing Latte Drinking, Cigar-Smoking Lawyer”
Who says no one will read your college or university thesis? Robert F. McDonnell, Republican candidate for Governor in Virginia, is now wishing that he had chosen a simple paper on the life and times of Thomas Jefferson. Instead, as a masters student at Regents University, he wrote a thesis against government policies favoring “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.” He also denounced as “illogical” a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.
Continue reading “Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Under Fire For Master’s Thesis”
There is an extraordinary case out of Queensland, Australia. Chris Illingworth, 61, is charged for merely copying and watching a viral video of a man swinging a baby. Prosecutors have charged that he distributed a child abuse video –even though the government itself rated the video as MA15+ (appropriate for anyone over 15). It is part of an ongoing trend in the West in rolling back on free speech rights.
Continue reading “Australian Man Faces Twenty Years for Sharing Baby-Swinging Video”
Last night I discussed the growing speculation that Justice John Paul Stevens, an icon of the Court with over three decades of service, may be preparing to retire (here). On both a personal and jurisprudential level, Stevens remains one of my favorite judicial figures. He is a man who had a transformative impact on his country. His place in history will likely be discussed for years to come. With this news and the justices returning to the city for the new term, this story may be of interest. Below is my cover article in the American History Magazine on my choices for the top nine justices — as well as my list of the Supreme failures on the Court.
Continue reading “The Supremes: Picking the Top Nine Justices of All Time”
There is an interesting criminal and torts case out of Georgia. Roger Stephens, 61, is accused of slapping a 2-year-old child across the face when she would not stop crying. That is bad enough, but the child was not his.
Public schools are cutting back deeply during this economic downturn but you would not know it from reading the credit card bill for Brian Keith Johnson, the Montgomery College president. Johnson appears to have personally taken on the cause of stimulating the economy with his state-funded spending. Unfortunately, he has a global reach, including a $4,051 hotel bill in Delhi. To make matters worse, last year an Arizona court issued a warrant for Johnson for failure to pay $12,000 in unpaid child support.
Continue reading “Maryland College President Under Fire For Lavish Spending”
Due to its cultural insularity and secrecy, legal commentators often have to act like old Sovietologists who would predict shifts in power by who in the Politburo was standing where on top of Lenin’s tomb. For Supremologists, there are other common indicators: the most prominent is the reduction of judicial clerks. Speculation over Stevens’ retirement is now at its peak with news that he has selected only one clerk for next year. I will be discussing this story on tonight’s Rachel Maddow.
Continue reading “Stevens: Speculation Grows Over Stevens Resignation”
Bank of America may have given out money like a drunken sailor before the federal bailout, but it held the line with Steve Valdez. The bank refused to allow Valdez to cash a check after he stubbornly refused to give them his thumbprint to confirm his identification. His feeble excuse is that he has no arms, let alone thumbs.
The annual selection of the top 500 lawyers in America has begun at LawDragon. You can vote for your favorite colleagues, teachers, or counsel.
Continue reading “Top 500: Vote For Your Favorite Lawyers”
An undercover video by Mercy for Animals purportedly reveals a shocking treatment of baby chicks at the Hy-Line North America’s hatchery in Spencer, Iowa. The video below shows workers discarding unwanted chicks by tossing them alive into a grinder while others are left to die on the factory floor.
Continue reading “Hatchery Horror: Video Shows Live Chicks Being Discharged By Being Thrown Live Into Grinder”
Gary Moody appears to have a problem. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to trespass in a pit toilet in White Mountain National Forest property in New Hampshire. He was ordered to seek help. However, he has now been arrested again for climbing down into a pit toilet at the park. It turns out that it is a crime to climb into a public pit toilet.
There is a mass arrest story. As has been discussed earlier, we have an ongoing arrest case in Washington, D.C., here. In May 2007 police arrested dozens of young people who police alleged were basically rioting through the streets. The students insisted that they were on their way to a funeral for a murdered friend. Now, there has been a settlement of the case with all charges dropped and the payment of damages.
Continue reading “New York Settles Mass Arrest Case — Drops Charges”
When Dick the Butcher declared in Shakespeare’s Henry VI “The first thing we do let’s kill all the lawyers,” he may have been prophetic. Jones Day partner Mark Herrmann has written on his blog that his unscientific survey shows that legal blogs tend to have a lifespan of less than a year.
Continue reading “The First Thing We Do Kill All The Lawyer Blogs”
Vicki Walker was fired because she was a habitual user of all caps on emails. She was reinstated after a New Zealand board found in her favor and ordered payment of lost wages.
Continue reading “WORKERS OF THE WORD UNITE! WOMAN FIRED FOR WRITING IN ALL CAPS”