That was fast: it looks as if the first charge under Louisiana’s new “Blue Lives Matter” law was made to hang a felony rap on a man who shouted slurs at police as they escorted him to the station. Hours later, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department acknowledged that a sergeant at the scene had applied the hate crime law incorrectly and that the charge would be reviewed before proceeding with prosecution. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, and followup; Scott Shackford, Reason (“The release bond for Delatoba’s ‘hate crime’ charge of yelling bad words ($10,000) is actually higher than the amount for the vandalism ($5,000) that drew the police in the first place”); earlier and more]
Posts Tagged ‘New Orleans’
January 29 roundup
- Bi-counsel-ar? “Lawyer Defending Congressman’s Wife in Bigamy Case Accuses Client of Having a Second Lawyer” [Slate]
- “Why tort liability for data breaches won’t improve cybersecurity” [Stewart Baker]
- Pennsylvania passes a new gun law, and suddenly liberal standing with attorney fee shifting stops being the progressive position [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
- “Letting a case die like a pet rat forgotten in the garage” [Ken at Popehat on Todd Kincannon challenge to South Carolina state bar discipline threats]
- Getting to it late: hour-long Cato podcast with Randy Barnett on his book Structure of Liberty including Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus;
- Once a fun party town, New Orleans now will ban vaping in private clubs and while waiting in line at drive-throughs [Christopher Fountain, Ronald Bailey on vaping bans and public health] More: Bailey on exaggeration of risks, Jacob Sullum on California proposal;
- Colorado legislature looks serious about tackling liability reform [Denver Business Journal]
Law enforcement for profit roundup
The “equitable sharing” civil forfeiture program (see weekend post) being just one of the more visible corners of a whole scaffolding of bad incentives in law enforcement:
- “Our view: Civil asset forfeiture is government at its absolute worst.” [USA Today editorial] Washington, D.C. votes forfeiture reform [Nick Sibilla, Institute for Justice] “Philadelphians Save Homes From Civil Forfeiture Machine” [IJ]
- “Police Chief Magazine: Generating Revenue Streams” [Instapundit]
- Public drunkenness outside the French Quarter said to serve New Orleans as key tourist tax [Paul Gowder, PrawfsBlawg]
- “The Debt Penalty: Exposing the Financial Barriers to Offender Reintegration” [Sentencing Law and Policy, Justice Fellowship back in August]
- To catch a non-predator (so as to grab his car through forfeiture) [Conor Friedersdorf on Florida police]
- “Prosecutors Burn Down the Law: How fire investigators distorted evidence to loot a company.” [WSJ editorial on Moonlight Fire case, earlier here and here]
Blue-ribbon excuses: lawyer says he was hiding cash from wife, not law
A lawyer who resigned abruptly from the office handling BP oil spill claims has denied allegations he accepted kickbacks from lawyers with claims pending in the process, saying the money was paid for earlier work and that his aim was to hide it from his wife — who also happened to work at the claims office — rather than to conceal anything improper. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
“Caution! Non-edible baby inside this cake”
Photo via David Boaz. We’ve been covering the Mardi Gras King-cake-figurine-liability issue at Overlawyered for years.
New Orleans: “Those left out of class action lead poisoning lawsuit speak up”
Following news of a $67 million settlement over lead exposure in New Orleans public housing, various residents feel unfairly left out. Lawyers in charge explain that the case covers only a set class of plaintiffs: to qualify for funds, claimants must (quoting the broadcast account) have lived in New Orleans public housing before Feb. 2001, have been born before late 1987, and be able to show medical records indicating lead poisoning before the age of six. [WDSU; auto-plays video including starter ad with no halt button]
Unfortunately, the televised report makes it very hard to evaluate the strength of the protesters’ complaints, since it does not sort out such questions as: are they saying that their personal situations do qualify for compensation under the settlement’s terms, but that they missed out by not being notified in time? Or are they claiming instead that the settlement should have been negotiated to compensate a more broadly defined class, such as persons whose claims are more recent? If the latter, as one passage in the report suggests, their right to seek compensation by way of a separate suit may not actually have been extinguished. Some related minutes here.
Judge blasts prosecutor misconduct in New Orleans police abuse case
“Citing the ‘grotesque’ misconduct of federal prosecutors, a judge on Tuesday granted a new trial for five former New Orleans Police Department officers convicted in the deadly shootings at the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent cover-up.” [Juliet Linderman, New Orleans Times-Picayune, embedded PDF; earlier here, here, etc.]
More: J. Christian Adams (why no consequences for supervisor in Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division?), Stephen Gillers.
May 14 roundup
- “Never forget all the people who in the aftermath of Benghazi were writing things like ‘When Censorship Makes Sense'” [Matt Welch on Twitter, referring to lawprof Tim Wu’s New Republic piece; BuzzFeed (blasphemous video was “non-event” in Libya and never seriously mistaken for cause of attack); Nick Gillespie]
- Nevada: political contributions and federal judgeships [ATL]
- In Louisiana, Orleans Parish pays its lawyers about $1.7 million a year. Are they worth it? [Lee Zurik, WVUE]
- “I brought the big soda back to my desk, and then the terminal said ‘You really shouldn’t have so much sugar.'” [@ledbetreuters via @jackshafer] “I Know When You Logged In Last Summer: The Bloomberg Spying Scandal” [ChartGirl]
- “How did progressive journalists get the Pigford scandal so wrong?” [Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic; earlier here, here, etc.]
- Is the Roberts Court unusually “pro-business”? [Jonathan Adler, Michael Greve, Ted Frank, Jon Hyman (Court’s handling of substantive employment law doesn’t fit supposed pattern)]
- Mel Weiss beats the rap on supervised-release DUI [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ; earlier]
DoJ suddenly drops high-profile New Orleans prosecution
Some locals are “stunned” that Justice would drop the River Birch case after four years of vigorous prosecution, and wonder whether there is any link to recent resignations and misconduct charges among high-level figures in the U.S. attorney’s office. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, more, earlier]
Don’t
If you’re high-ranking figures in a federal prosecutor’s office, don’t resort to pseudonymous rants on comment boards to settle scores, especially not if it means commenting on open cases that your office is handling [three now-resigned officials from the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Orleans; WWL, Gambit, Daily Mail]