Tending to confirm the predictions of those who hoped or feared, as the case may be, that the legal system would not actually be willing to encourage juries to take into consideration the justice of the outcome as well as the facts of the case in deciding whether to acquit. [Tuccille, our post two years ago when the law passed]
Archive for 2014
“Alabama man gets $1K in police settlement, his lawyers get $459K”
“An Alabama man who sued over being hit and kicked by police after leading them on a high-speed chase will get $1,000 in a settlement with the city of Birmingham, while his attorneys will take in $459,000, officials said Wednesday.” [Reuters/Yahoo] Readers may argue about whether this kind of outcome is fair, but note that it seems to happen more often, rather than less, in this country (with its putative “American Rule” that each side pays its own fees) than in other industrialized countries which tend more to follow “loser-pays” or “costs follow the event” fee principles. One reason for that is that the U.S. does not actually hew consistently to the so-called American Rule; across wide areas of litigation, including civil rights suits, it follows “one-way shift” principles in which prevailing plaintiffs but not prevailing defendants are entitled to fees, and whose encouragement to litigation is greater than either the American Rule or the loser-pays principle.
Related: The Pennsylvania legislature is moving to adopt a rule adopting one-way fees for some cases in which municipalities trample rights protected by the Bill of Rights’ Second Amendment, provoking peals of outrage (“dangerous,” “outrageous,” “threatens municipalities’ financial stability,” etc.) from elected officials few of whom seem to be on record objecting to one-way fee shifts when plaintiffs they like better are doing the suing. [Free Beacon]
Jury finds unlawful bias against one-armed security guard
“MIAMI – In a verdict in favor of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a jury has found that a licensed security guard with only one arm was unlawfully discriminated against based on his limb loss when his employer removed him from his post following a customer complaint about his disability, the federal agency announced today.” The agency said it was well-settled under federal anti-discrimination law that employers cannot act on the basis of discriminatory consumer preferences. [EEOC press release]
George Will: the Wisconsin John Doe raids and the system’s legitimacy
George Will, hard-hitting but on target, on what happened to people who took the wrong side of the Wisconsin public-employee wars:
The early-morning paramilitary-style raids on citizens’ homes were conducted by law enforcement officers, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests and lugging battering rams, pounding on doors and issuing threats. Spouses were separated as the police seized computers, including those of children still in pajamas. Clothes drawers, including the children’s, were ransacked, cellphones were confiscated and the citizens were told that it would be a crime to tell anyone of the raids.
Earlier on the Wisconsin John Doe raids, including this Cato piece. More Will:
Chisholm’s aim — to have a chilling effect on conservative speech — has been achieved by bombarding Walker supporters with raids and subpoenas: Instead of raising money to disseminate their political speech, conservative individuals and groups, harassed and intimidated, have gone into a defensive crouch, raising little money and spending much money on defensive litigation. Liberal groups have not been targeted for their activities that are indistinguishable from those of their conservative counterparts.
Such misbehavior takes a toll on something that already is in short supply: belief in government’s legitimacy. The federal government’s most intrusive and potentially punitive institution, the IRS, unquestionably worked for Barack Obama’s reelection by suppressing activities by conservative groups. … Would the race between Walker and Democrat Mary Burke be as close as it is if a process susceptible to abuse had not been so flagrantly abused to silence groups on one side of Wisconsin’s debate? Surely not.
“Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required”
“’How can this happen?’ [Arnolds Park, Iowa restaurant owner Carole] Hinders said in a recent interview. ‘Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?’
The federal government does.”
For years I’ve been writing about the injustice of federal deposit-structuring law, from the South Mountain Creamery case in Maryland on up, and more recently the Institute for Justice has embraced the issue. Now that the New York Times has put a reporter on the case [Shaila Dewan, Oct. 25], the IRS says it will roll back its enforcement of the law to cases where there is other criminality — an excellent first step, although only a first step, since other federal agencies can also generate cases that result in seizures and prosecutions under structuring law.
As always, if you’re a small merchant fearful of this law, don’t go to your bank expecting helpful advice:
In May 2012, the bank branch Ms. Hinders used was acquired by Northwest Banker. JoLynn Van Steenwyk, the fraud and security manager for Northwest, said she could not discuss individual clients, but explained that the bank did not have access to past account histories after it acquired Ms. Hinders’s branch.
Banks are not permitted to advise customers that their deposit habits may be illegal or educate them about structuring unless they ask, in which case they are given a federal pamphlet, Ms. Van Steenwyk said. “We’re not allowed to tell them anything,” she said.
“DHS Agents Raid Lingerie Shop, Save America From Unlicensed Underwear”
Because if there was any rationale for creating the Department of Homeland Security, it was to ensure that America was not threatened by unlicensed panties suggestive of baseball-team logos. [Tim Cushing, Techdirt]
Great moments in social welfare policy
New York law “mandates that the city pay for storing furniture and personal belongings for homeless people.” The city has paid more than $200,000 so far for Andrea Logan’s, part of a program whose costs to the city now exceed $14 million a year. [New York Post]
Needed: a post-Frieden CDC
Bloomberg’s nanny-in-chief was never the right choice to lead the Centers for Disease Control, much less with an actual epidemic in sight, argues the New York Sun:
…it was the former mayor of New York City who gave the nation Thomas Frieden, who is one dangerous doctor and is the middle of the catastrophe. … Because of the government’s blunders in the Ebola emergency, people are starting to look a harder look at Bloombergism.
… the CDC budget has soared more than 200% since 2000 to $7 billion. The Centers, moreover, are squandering this lucre (which was seized from the American public via taxes) on regulating motorcycle helmets, video games, and playground equipment, as if any of that has anything to do with diseases. No wonder that when Ebola hits, the CDC seems to be staggering….
Mr. Bloomberg is enormously invested in this through the school of public health at Johns Hopkins. Do Americans want a cabal of left-wing, government doctors in Atlanta engineering our playgrounds, motorcycle helmets, and video games? No one plays a video game or rides a motorcycle for his health….
It is important that the Ebola emergency is starting to get people thinking about the first principles of the Centers for Disease Control.
Read the whole thing. Related: Heather Mac Donald and Steve Malanga, City Journal; Jacob Sullum.
While we’re at it: I’ve got a new post at Cato about the international aspects, including the U.N.’s World Health Organization and Prof. Lawrence Gostin’s article “Healthy Living Needs Global Governance.”
Illinois Supreme Court battles
Really, the headline is as good an introduction to this tangled web as any: “Clifford firm contributes $150K to unseat Justice on the same day he’s in court saying campaign money corrupted Supreme Court.” [Madison County Record, related post ten years ago] Also, Illinois election officials say the state may need to have a slow Election Night [The Southern Illinoisan]
Food roundup
- Sugar, tea, fish and game, public houses: food freedom grievances helped fuel America’s revolution against Britain [Baylen Linnekin]
- Colorado, Oregon voters consider GMO labeling, which “likely will mislead more than inform.” [David Orentlicher, Health Law Prof and more] “Say No to GMO Labeling, Even If It Feels Terrible” [alt-weekly Portland Mercury; earlier on GMOs]
- “White House Boosts Fictional ‘Food Addiction’ Concept to School Kids” [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
- D.C. Circuit: immigration law doesn’t block specialized Brazilian steakhouse chefs from coming to U.S. [Joe Palazzolo, WSJ Law Blog]
- “Why Is the USDA Buying Submachine Guns?” [Modern Farmer]
- Little evidence new FDA food labeling rules will improve health [Robert Scharff and Sherzod Abdukadirov/Regulation mag, more] Flaws of agency’s “added sugar” labeling proposal [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
- California tries to dictate standards for raising animals in other states; do you think the Constitution might have something to say about that? [Linnekin]