There is an interesting legal ethics case out of New York involving Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (left) and his girlfriend, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz (right). It appears that Sliwa, now a radio host making some $400,000 annually, is in the midst of a messy divorce after being accused of adultery. He has been sending confidential legal communications without realizing that his wife, Mary Sliwa was being blind copied on the messages. Paul Siegert, her lawyer, however, insists that it is the fault of Curtis Sliwa and neither he nor his client had any obligation to let him know of the breach of confidentiality or refrain from reading the confidential communications.
We have another highly disturbing case involving a police officer who abused and arrested a citizen for recording an encounter. I have previously written about the first amendment right to videotape officers. The courts have consistently upheld this right despite efforts of prosecutors like Anita Alvarez in Cook County to put citizens in jail for such recording. However, police officers continued to misrepresent the law and seize cameras or threaten citizens with arrest. In a cellphone recording (available here), Florida mother Brandy Berning is roughed up and arrested by Broward Sheriff Deputy William O’Brien after he tries to seize her cellphone as evidence of the crime of recording him.
Rep. Gail Finney, a Democrat from Wichita, has created a bit of a stir in Kansas with new legislation that would allow parents, teachers and caregivers to spank children hard enough to leave redness or bruising. While most parents assume that they already have such authority, Finney is worried that physical punishment and restraint is increasingly being viewed as a form of abuse. It raises an interesting question of whether societal standards have changed to the point that the old-time spanking is now a questionable practice from a legal perspective. Notably, the bill would actually limit the number and kind of spanks allowed to parents.
Below is my column today in The Chicago Tribune (including the original last paragraph and a couple lines that were cut in editing). I commented on this controversy yesterday but had to run something back home in Chicago. As someone who believes in pluralism in society and pizza, I am willing to accept both thin and deep pizza as equally worthy members of the pizza family. In this sense, pizza is part of a living culinary kitchen that changes in its scope and meaning. On closer examination, Scalia’s definitional approach is as thin as the crust of his New York style pizza.
You know you are in trouble when you spot your dog practicing her new Diva look.
Remember former Chicago Representative Mel Reynolds? If you recall, he resigned from his congressional seat in 1995 after he was convicted of 12 counts of statutory rape, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. Well, he is back in the news after an arrest in Zimbabwe. You guessed it. He is charged with allegedly possessing pornographic material and violating immigration laws.
Continue reading “Ex-Rep. Mel Reynolds Arrested in Zimbabwe”
Through the years, I have put up with a lot from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who I have always said has retained an admirable level of consistency and intellectual honesty in his views even though I often disagree with him. Nevertheless, I have criticized his conduct in public, including his enthusiastic embrace of being a conservative “celebrity justice” (here and here), shocking elitism in speaking with law students, and making public comments on issues before the Court (here and here). Yet, I have always tempered this criticism with a degree of respect for Scalia’s consistent adherence to a jurisprudential foundation that is missing with some of his other colleagues. However, he has finally gone too far. I am done. This week, Scalia did his usual ill-considered comments about issues before the Court but added in a speech in Chicago (my home town) at the Union club about Chicago-Style pizza. To the boos of the audience, Scalia declared that Chicago-Style pizza is not pizza but some form of “tomato pie.” It is not just injudicious but downright sacrilegious. In my view, Scalia has crossed the line into potentially impeachable conduct in his attack on this highest form of pizza and should be removed faster than one of those pathetic New York wafers that people fold and call pizza.
Continue reading “The Justice Is Blind: Scalia Declares Chicago-Style Pizza To Be “Tomato Pie””
Russia appears to be looking at a new cause for protesters who are seething with anger. No, it is not over Putin’s rollback on free speech or the criminalization of open displays of homosexuality. Women in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are rising in anger over a trade ban on lacy lingerie. The ban prevents the importation, manufacture, or sale of any underwear containing less than 6 percent cotton. It is not clear if Putin’s infamous police units will begin panty raids in addition to their press raids, but the law has many knickers in a knot.
Continue reading “Putin Panties: Russia Bans Importation and Sale Of Lacy Lingerie”
Believe or not, it has been 25 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death fatwa for Salman Rushdie — promising paradise and reward to anyone who killed the author simply because he wrote a book with what was viewed as blasphemous to Islam. For civil libertarians, it was a defining moment where Islam was pitted against the most basic and cherished values of free speech. The world was shocked by the decision even from the radical Iranian government. However, we have not heard much of the fatwa in years. Just to prove that the Islamic clerics remain as fanatical and anti-speech as they were in 1989, senior cleric Ahmad Khatami renewed the call to kill Rushdie and declared that the “historical fatwa” is “as fresh as ever.” What is clear is that, while the world views the fatwa as an example of religious extremism and insanity, the Islamic cleric remain proud of the death order as a pure expression of Islamic law and values.
We have previously discussed how many Democrats and liberals have stayed relatively silent as the Obama Administration has launched attacks on privacy, press freedoms, and civil liberties. In addition President Obama has engaged in military interventions, declared the right to kill citizens on his own authority, refused to investigate the U.S. torture program, and repeatedly violated the separation of powers. Now, we can add the violation of attorney-client privilege and confidentiality. Once again, the disclosure came as a result not of congressional oversight or Executive reforms, but the Snowden disclosures.
Continue reading “Report: NSA Spied On Lawyers In Confidential Communications With Clients”
There have been a host of complaints about the NBC coverage of the Olympics. I criticized NBC during the opening ceremony on Twitter for useless banter of its hosts rather than allowing viewers to actually listen to the opening ceremony. It was yet another example of the network’s view that viewers want to hear from their celebrities rather than watch the actual news. It is obviously not appealing to viewers. Ratings are down from the Vancouver games and just even with the Torino games seven years ago. However, few aspects of the coverage hit a more angry note than the interview
I previously blogged on an oral argument before Judge Richard Posner where I felt he had shown a surprising antagonism toward privacy and a civil liberties lawyer. Given my respect for Posner as a brilliant academic, I was surprised to read of his open dismissal of arguments that later prevailed in the court. Now, Posner is again the news with a heated exchange with a lawyer, Matthew Kairis, who he said was talking over his questions and refusing to direct questions with direct answers. The case is Univ. of Notre Dame v. Kathleen Sebelius. The oral argument tape below presents an interesting example of how lawyers respond to aggressive questioning from the bench in such arguments.
Howard “Jack” Aleff and Reena Slominski, of Knoxville, have been found guilty of receiving $303,890 in wool loans for unsheared sheep. The problem is that the sheep were not only not sheared, they did not exist. The couple told the government that they had the sheep in 132 fraudulent applications for loans for their company L & J Wool & Fur.
Denmark’s Agriculture and Food Minister Dan Jørgensen has signed a new regulation that bans religious slaughter of animals. The move has outraged Jewish and Muslim leaders but Mr Jørgensen publicly declared that “animal rights come before religion.” The new law bars slaughterhouses from allowing Muslim and Jewish leaders from killing animals without first stunning them. Muslims and Jewish religions believe that God only allows for the consumption of Halal or Kosher meat that involves the slitting of the throat of animals. Animal rights advocates insist that these religious rituals are cruel to animals.
I am not sure what is more of a concern: that there are cats living in the ceilings of the Adler Arena in Sochi Russia or that the work of the new building is so flimsy that the weight of a cat can cause a collapse. No doubt the Russian government will insist that plenty of buildings have cat walks and this was a particularly heavy kitty.