Academia, Criminal law, Society

New York Principal at Struggling School Accused Of Building Private Gym

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Principal Jazmine Santiago is under funding over school spending this week but it is not the usual tension between added teachers versus greater school supplies. Santiago is accused to effectively using school funds in the struggling PS 260 in Flatbush to build her own private gym with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser. While Santiago says that she shares the equipment with older students, the oldest students at the school is only 11 years old since they top out at 5th grade.

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Constitutional Law, Justice, Religion, Society

Myth and the Marriage Pledge

By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor

“That no person whatsoever in this Jurisdiction shall joyn any persons together in Marriage but the Magistrate, or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants shall authorize in such places where no Magistrate is near.”

-Lauues and Libertyes of Massachusetts (1648) (Legal Classics Library Ed. 1982)

First Things is a highly regarded ecumenical journal on religion and society. Its editor, R.R. Reno, recently posted online a document entitled “The Marriage Pledge.” The pledge is a reaction to the expansion of same-sex marriage recognition across the country, a phenomenon which conflicts “with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and a woman.” To protest these changes, Christian ministers who sign the pledge agree that they “will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage” and “will no longer sign government provided marriage certificates.” As of this writing, the pledge has attracted over 400 signatories.

The Marriage Pledge is an unfortunate document, however, and more than a little ironic. It is ineffectual because it presumes a level of importance that the clergy does not have in the formation of lawful marriages, and it abandons religious believers in the process. Those who understand something of the history of marriage will correctly perceive the pledge as a form of witless moral witness.

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Uncategorized

The Fair Housing Act: How fair is Fair?

Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor

There was a case argued two weeks ago that I’ll admit I paid no attention to when I created my roster of Cases to Watch in the OT14: Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project.  A woman who teaches a course on social justice in urban areas asked if I knew anything about this case after it popped up on her Twitter feed.  Her students were interested in the impact of the case and, as many of them had just taken my law and politics course and knew the ideologies of the Supreme Court bench, wanted to know more about it so they could make predictions about the outcome.  As an educator and (self-described) specialist of Supreme Court activities, I did a deep dive into researching it in an effort to help with this teachable moment and immediately moved it into the top five cases to watch this term.

This is a case about a specific part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, that iconic piece of legislation signed one week after Dr. King was shot, called the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Continue reading “The Fair Housing Act: How fair is Fair?” →

Bizarre, Criminal law, Society

Family Accused Of Kidnapping Boy To Teach Him Not To Talk To Strangers

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Denise Kroutil
Denise Kroutil

In another example of bizarre and horrific treatments of children by relatives the Lincoln County Missouri Sheriff’s Office accuses a family of staging a frightening kidnapping of their six year old son because they believed he was being too friendly with strangers and needed to be taught a lesson.

Several felony charges later, the family is now being taught that lesson in the county jail.

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Bizarre, Criminal law

Police Accuse Mother Of Attempting To “Sell” Daughter’s Virginity

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

250px-Hinged_Handcuffs_Rear_Back_To_BackIn a bizarre and depraved case of alleged child abuse, police in Carnation, Washington accuse Mary Miles of bringing her fourteen year old daughter to a truck stop in North Bend for the purpose of selling her daughter’s virginity to Miles’ boyfriend Bryan Murphy.

The two agreed on a child exploitation scheme where Miles is alleged to have entered Murphy’s truck with her daughter. Miles and he then engaged in a sex. When Murphy then grabbed the daughter’s leg she became extremely distressed and escaped the truck. She walked several miles to a middle school where she met with her seventeen year old sister who then called police.

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Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

Legal Aid Organization Under Fire For Participation In Film With Cop-Killing Images and Lyrics

Screen Shot 2015-02-06 at 9.01.57 AMThere is a growing scandal in the Bronx that has led to the resignation of two legal aid attorneys (Ryan Napoli and Kumar Rao) and calls for the defunding of Bronx Defenders, an organization that represents over 35,000 indigent persons each year under a $20 million annual contract with the city. The controversy erupted after the release of the video below entitled “Hands Up” featuring a popular rap artist and noting sponsorship and participation by the Bronx Defenders. The video includes repeated images to two African-American men about to shoot a white police officer and lyrics call for the shooting of police officers.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, Lawyering, Religion, Society

New York Lawyer Pleads Guilty To Bilking Jewish Cemetery . . . After Taking Over From Couple Who Bilked The Same Cemetery

cemetery11n-1-webAttorney Timothy Griffin, 55, has been sentenced to a six-month prison stint in a pile up of criminal and unethical conduct, including the theft of $1.8 million from a non-profit Jewish cemetery. It turns out that he was not the first professional to victimize the cemetery.

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Academia, Columns, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

CHARLIE’S FALSE FRIENDS

dXBsb2Fkcy9tYWdhemluZV9pbWFnZXMvMDdmZjQ2YWQxZTFiNjg1OTQ4NjY1M2U3NWVmODE4NGNiZDZjYmQ5YS5qcGc=.238.600.1.1.70I had the pleasure this month of writing a piece on free speech in the leading policy magazine in Switzerland, “Schweizer Monat.” The piece is published in German (Charlies falsche Freunde or Charlie’s False Friends), which is particularly cool for my son Benjamin who is taking German at McLean High School in Virginia. The German version can be found here. Germany is currently our fifth highest supplier of readers with Switzerland close behind. Ironically, Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein also wrote a piece in the same issue this month. The translated column is below:

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Religion, Society

Toronto Pastor Charged With Sexually Assaulting Woman As Part of Exorcism

pastor.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterboxRev. Wayne Marlon Jones, 53, has been criminally charged in a case where police say that he sexually assaulted a woman during exorcisms and defrauded her over the course of years. The case could raise questions over questions of consent and religious beliefs.

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Academia, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Media, Politics, Society

Dr. Sami Al-Arian Leaves The United States

unnamedIn the conclusion of ten years of intense litigation, Dr. Sami Al-Arian and his wife Nahla boarded a plane last night and left the United States for Turkey. He arrived in Istanbul a couple hours ago. I was Dr. Al-Arian’s lead criminal defense counsel in Virginia until all charges were eventually dropped by the United States Department of Justice against him. I have received many calls from the media over the last couple of days and I have declined to respond because Dr. Al-Arian was represented by an immigration law team after the criminal proceedings concluded. I wanted to defer to those lawyers in any media comments, as I have since handed over the case last year. Dr. Al-Arian issued the statement below this morning.

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Courts, Science, Society

Pom Ads Less Than Wonderful: D.C. Circuit Rules That Pom Wonderful Engaged in Deceptive Advertising

Pom_Wonderful_logogavel2The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that Pom Wonderful was engaging in deceptive advertising over health claims in ads urging consumers to “Amaze your cardiologist” and “Drink to prostate health.” The Court found that the company lacked the medical or scientific foundation to make such claims in upholding the actions taken by the Federal Trade Commission.

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International, Society, Torts

Video Captures Taiwan Airplane Crash

_80771317_planeThere is a horrific videotape capturing the crash of a TransAsia airplane crashing in Taiwan. The plane in the videotape below appears to lose control after takeoff, clip a bridge, and then crashes into a river. That is amazing is that people survived this crash and were seen swimming from the wreckage. This video is likely to be analyzed for years not just in the crash investigation but the likely litigation over the accident.

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