Social media clues to an AFL-CIO shift is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Disrupt the pipeline? We had to do it, Your Honor is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 16 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Canada’s Charter allows for override of judicial rulings, and 2015 Canadian Supreme Court ruling finding a constitutional right to strikes in essential public services would make a good occasion for it [Conrad Black, National Post, with a further discussion of the native residential schools issue]

May 17 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 29 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

I am indebted to reader J.B. for the following rough paraphrase of some themes and highlights of the juror’s letter:

* We didn’t intend to affirm or endorse the defendants’ views.

* We were certainly convinced that the defendants’ actions caused a lot of real-world disruption and damage.

* We don’t want to encourage other people to do stuff like that and regret the possibility that the acquittal might do that.

* The government had a complicated theory that, according to the law as the judge explained it to us, made the defendants’ subjective intentions more significant than the actual effects of their actions.

* We didn’t think the evidence about the defendants’ subjective intentions was strong enough to meet the legal standard for conviction under the government’s complicated theory as the judge explained the law to us.

* We’re frankly kind of puzzled as to why the government didn’t charge less complicated crimes like criminal trespass that might have been easier to get a conviction for.

All of which is not short enough to fit on a bumper sticker. The report by the Oregonian’s Maxine Bernstein, again, is here.

Oregon occupiers acquitted: one juror’s statement is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Environment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New Department of Labor regulations will require, on pain of serious criminal penalties, regular disclosures by lawyers, consultants, advisers, website developers, P.R. firms, pollsters and many others whose activities might persuade employees not to sign union cards. (Current regulations require disclosures only regarding consultants who actually meet with employees, as opposed to generating information that might reach them.)

The result would be not only to put we-know-where-you-live intimidation pressure on a much wider range of persons, and create many new tripwires for damaging liability, but also imperil attorney-client privilege, as with a provision demanding that attorneys disclose relationships with other clients.

Federal judge halts Labor Department “persuader” rule is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

As my Cato Institute colleague Randal O’Toole skillfully explained, none of the protagonists in the Oregon standoff really deserve our admiration: the Hammond ranching family misbehaved, the federal government overcharged, and then the Bundy cranks arrived to spray kerosene on the glowing embers….

Unlawful protest occupations of public places and government buildings have long been a familiar part of American public life, and even those not involving arms sometimes have rather serious consequences for the health and well-being of innocent bystanders….

In the ordinary calculations of humanity, events like Waco and Ruby Ridge and the Philadelphia MOVE bombing represent a grotesque failure. Despite the spirit of the mob and the ever-present temptation to shoot first, most such situations in our country are resolved with legal consequences for the wrongdoers but not with loss of life and limb. We should be glad of that.

Read the whole thing here. I’ve covered the earlier Bundy Nevada standoff in this space, as well as the wider phenomenon I call folk law. For more coverage of occupations, blockades, and acts of physical intimidation that were resolved without bloodshed (and sometimes without later legal consequences to those who broke the law) see our tag on selective law non-enforcement, including this from 2011 about how some cheered when unionized Wisconsin police announced solidarity with protesters occupying the state capitol and refused orders to oust them.

More: Randal O’Toole has a new post up on the Hammonds’ actions and punishment.

Occupy Malheur and the Bundy boys’ bait is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system