- Under new Illinois law, third offense of tossing cigarette to ground will be a felony [Andrew Stuttaford]
- “The New York Times calls for prosecutors to establish an ‘open file’ policy to combat prosecutorial misconduct.” [Nicole Hyland, LEF; New York Times; Radley Balko, whose column at the Washington Post has now launched]
- “Three Arrests Illustrate the Impact of New York’s Silly Seven-Round Ammunition Limit” [Jacob Sullum]
- Forfeiture reform on the agenda in Michigan? [John Ross/Reason, Institute for Justice, earlier]
- Speaking of law enforcement for profit, more on the proliferation of fees and third-party collectors that can land minor miscreants in “debtors’ prison” [Fox News; related, Balko]
- “Want to stop repeats of Columbine and Newtown? Deprive mass killers of the spotlight. Can the media do that?” [Ari Schulman, WSJ via @garyrosenwsj]
- “She’s regretted the lie that sent him to prison ever since.” [NY Mag]
Archive for January, 2014
“Efforts under way to convene ‘common law grand juries'”
No, a random group of discontented citizens can’t declare itself a grand jury. Good grief. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle; compare frivolous “sovereign citizen” claims] More: Greenfield.
Uninsured drivers: “no pay, no play”
At least ten states have now adopted variations on the idea that motorists who unlawfully drive without insurance should give up at least some of their right to sue for pain and suffering in a later accident. Missouri has become the latest, its legislature overriding a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon (D). Organized insurers have backed the idea, which one recent study says can reduce the number of drivers on the road without insurance. It should be noted that trial lawyers’ collective interest in the issue is subject to some ambiguity: while they will recover less in a given lawsuit if their uninsured-motorist client cannot sue for pain and suffering, a rise in the share of drivers that are insured improves their chances of recovering funds in cases generally. [Insurance Journal, Billy Smith/Wolters Kluwer Compliance Corner, PCIAA, Susan Ladika/CarInsurance.com]
Disabled rights roundup
- “US Airways has agreed to pay $1.2 million in fines because it provided inadequate wheelchair service at the Charlotte and Philadelphia airports” [Charlotte Observer, USA Today; on abuses of the right to request wheelchair service at airports, see links in our post last May] Support animals on airplanes, cont’d [NYT]
- In New York, indefinite leave of absence may be deemed a reasonable accommodation that employer is obliged to grant [Erin McPhail Wetty, Seyfarth] Per Second Circuit in NYC case, timely attendance not essential job function [Mark Kittaka, Barnes & Thornburg]
- US disability rate fell 25 percent between 1977-87, then more than doubled [Tad DeHaven, Cato via Bryan Caplan] Has a Kentucky attorney found holes in the SSDI system? [Jillian Kay Melchior]
- Per EEOC, employer may be obliged to grant employee’s request to work from home as reasonable accommodation [Johanna Wise, Seyfarth]
- Lawprof suspended for allegedly yelling at subordinates sues under ADA [Althouse, Above the Law]
- “None of the people who complained had even been into the store” [San Diego Reader]
- And yet more from EEOC: employer “integrity testing” meant to assess applicants’ honesty, trustworthiness and dependability can run afoul of disabled-rights law [link]
Chris Christie bridge lane closure class action
The lawsuit, which contends that the politically motivated closure of two bridge lanes from Fort Lee by Christie advisors with resulting traffic jams was a deprivation of “liberty,” was filed by attorney Rosemarie Arnold, who’s run some attention-getting TV ads in the past. [UPI]
P.S. From Widener lawprof John Culhane, a more serious look. “IRB/Human Subjects form from the Chris Christie bridge scandal” (humor, Kieran Healy) And Steve Chapman: “Anytime someone wants to expand some power of government, here’s what you should assume: [Bridget Anne] Kelly and [David] Wildstein will be the ones exercising it.”
The case for popular legal education
“A British woman attempted to sue her former lawyers for professional negligence, claiming that, alongside a number of other allegations, they failed to advise that finalizing divorce proceedings would inevitably cause her marriage to end.” [Independent, U.K.]
N.J. suit: home seller should have disclosed troublesome neighbor
A New Jersey woman is claiming in a lawsuit that “who sold her the unit [in Mays Landing, N.J.] ‘knowingly concealed’ that a ‘dangerous individual’ would be her future neighbor, which she alleges is material misrepresentation and fraud, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Atlantic County Superior Court of New Jersey.” [ABC News]
Virginia lawmaker introduces “cyber-bullying” ban that includes adults
The measure, introduced by Del. Mark Keam (D-Vienna), would criminalize online “bullying,” defined among other things to include behavior (or speech) intended to “harass” or “humiliate” when it “is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma,” but purportedly excluding “ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict.” Unlike Maryland’s enactment of “Grace’s Law,” which I criticized last year, this one would not be limited to speech directed at minors. Another prerequisite for liability is that the online verbal aggression “involves a real or perceived power imbalance between” the parties, which can be expected to involve courts in some delicate inquiries. Eugene Volokh criticizes (“dangerous and deeply unsound”).
“Buzz off, Waxman”
“…Congress can’t tell a newspaper how to do business.” [Jack Shafer, Reuters; my 2011 take on Rep. Henry Waxman’s fall from his committee chairmanship]
DoJ: school discipline must follow disparate-impact standards
The Justice Department and Department of Education have sent out a Dear Colleague letter discouraging schools from pursuing strict discipline policies against student misbehavior, especially against “routine” or “minor” infractions; Education Secretary Arne Duncan cited tardiness and disrespect as examples of the latter. [Christian Science Monitor]
Assuming that the federal government has somehow acquired the legitimate constitutional authority to begin dictating the fine points of disciplinary policy to local schools in the first place — a big if — it might seem at first that much of this is innocuous. Some early coverage, for example, makes it sound as if the letter is mostly aimed at obtaining a reconsideration of zero-tolerance policies, long criticized in this space, as well as the sorts of suspensions and expulsions that are based on far-fetched dangers like finger guns or forbidden hugs.
Unfortunately, there’s much more. The letter represents the culmination of a years-long drive toward imposing tighter Washington oversight on school discipline policies that result in “disparate impact” among racial or other groups. Policies that result in the suspension of differentially more minority kids, or special-ed kids, will now be suspect — even if the rate of underlying behavior is not in fact uniform among every group. (Special-ed kids, for example, include many placed in that category because of emotional and behavioral problems that correlate with a higher likelihood of acting out in misbehavior. Boys misbehave more than girls.)
If the policy helps speed the correction of some overly harsh, mechanical school policies, both under the zero-tolerance rubric and otherwise, it may have some positive side effects. But the disparate-impact premise is a pernicious one that’s sure to create many new problems of its own. [Andrew Coulson, Cato; Scott Johnson, PowerLine]
More: in 2012 Senate testimony, Andrew Coulson pointed out that 1) compared with the alternatives, the use of out-of-school suspensions appears to improve the learning environment for other (non-disciplined) students by protecting them from disruption; 2) zero-tolerance policies were adopted in the first place in part as a defense for administrators against disparate-impact charges. In other words, the new supposed remedy (disparate-impact scrutiny) helped cause the disease to which it is being promoted as the cure. (& welcome Andrew Sullivan, Scott Greenfield, Hans Bader readers; cross-posted at Cato at Liberty)