“The Ohio Parole Board has decided a Cleveland-area man has spent the last 25 years behind bars for a crime he may not have committed and voted unanimously for his release.” Gary Reece was convicted of rape in 1980 on the accusation of a neighbor despite his denials and a lack of any evidence that he had ever been in the accuser’s apartment. In the years since then much evidence has accumulated casting doubt on the credibility of his accuser, Kimberly Croft. In fact, “on one television news program, [Croft] claimed that Gary Reece actually killed her during the attack in question, but that ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ brought her back to life,'” according to a brief filed with the parole board by law students working with the Ohio Innocence Project. (Roy Wood, “UC law students convince board: Man is innocent”, Cincinnati Post, Dec. 18; “Imprisoned on a shaky story”, (editorial), Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 5).
Author Archive
“Workplace bullying” legislation
Michael Fox of Jottings by an Employer’s Lawyer sees a resurfacing of this campaign, about whose merits he’s skeptical (Dec. 20). For the schools context, see Feb. 14-15, 2001. More: Point of Law, Apr. 18, 2005 (jury award in Indiana on the theory). More: Mar. 2, 2007.
Thanks to KeyMonk
…for a highly productive week as guestblogger (five posts yesterday alone). His regular blog (“Politics, Sports, Law, and occasionally Religion — whatever you want to argue about”) can be found here.
“The county had no neurosurgeon, and the boy died”
Chester County, Pennsylvania:
The boy [a 17-year-old who had sustained head trauma in an auto accident] could not be treated at Brandywine Hospital in Coatesville because the trauma center had closed, so he was transferred to Crozier-Chester Medical Center in Delaware County….
‘The last neurosurgeon in Chester County was Sam Lyness, a world-class neurosurgeon,” [Robert] Surrick said, but Lyness left Pennsylvania when his malpractice premiums reached $383,000. With no neurosurgeons, Brandywine shut down its trauma center in 2002.
(Paul Carpenter, Allentown Morning Call, Nov. 28).
Batch of reader letters
We’ve posted four more reader letters from our alarmingly backed-up pipeline, at our letters page. Among topics this time: Manhattan attorney Ravi Batra invites us to take a closer look at his lawsuit against the TV program “Law and Order”; can Texas exercise jurisdiction over out-of-state class action lawyers’ representation of Texas class members?; freeing innocent prisoners, and the other kind; and the continuum of disabilities.
Clarence Thomas’s life and times
I’ve got a review in Sunday’s New York Post of Ken Foskett’s new biography “Judging Thomas”. (“Thomas’s Trials and Triumph”, Dec. 19). In his more than readable book Foskett concentrates on the remarkable life story of Clarence Thomas and makes next to no effort to evaluate his jurisprudence; but (contra Sen. Harry Reid) it’s not hard these days to find legal analysts who, while disagreeing with much of what Thomas stands for, acknowledge that he represents that viewpoint with much skill on the Court. For a sampling of such views, see David J. Garrow, “Saving Thomas”, The New Republic, Oct. 19, and, among bloggers, Gabe (“Unlearned Hand”) (Dec. 6) and Dispatches from the Culture Wars (Dec. 7). Also see Stephen B. Presser, “Touting Thomas”, Legal Affairs, Jan.-Feb. (more generally favorable view).
Tenants who “know their rights”
And the lawyers who enable them: a horror story of New York City housing court. (Josh Barbanel, “A Landlord’s Worst Nightmare”, New York Times, Dec. 19).
Thanks…
…to Andrew Sullivan for his kind reference on Thursday to Overlawyered as a “superb blog“. And also to David Frum today for calling this site “indispensable“, an even kinder reference in the context of disagreeing with my views, as here.
Update: taking kids away from abused mothers
New York City, settling a controversy discussed in this space Jul. 12, 2000 and Oct. 31, 2004, has “essentially conced[ed] that children could not be placed in foster care just because their mothers had been abused.” (Leslie Kaufman, “City Settles Suit Over Separating Abused Mothers From Children”, New York Times, Dec. 18).
Australian med-mal crisis
It’s now abated, following states’ enactment of laws limiting recovery, and “the country’s biggest medical indemnity company has emerged from near collapse to reveal it will be able to cut premiums by an average 20 per cent”. (Mark Metherell, “Indemnity crisis heads for recovery” Sydney Morning Herald, Nov. 5). The government also threw some subsidies at the problem. For more on medical liability and legislated reform Down Under, see Jul. 16, 2003 and May 30, 2004.