Innocence Project – Overlawyered

February 9 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:31:55 +0000

Court declines to dismiss stripper’s suit blaming her DUI crash on club that made her drink with customers [Heller/OnPoint News, earlier]
Served 23 years in Wisconsin prison, then cleared by DNA evidence [Innocence Project]
Headlines we didn’t make up: “Grad Student Threatens to Sue Over Destruction of Rare Lizard Dung” [ABA Journal, U.K. case]
Wisconsin middle school suspends teacher Betsy Ramsdale because her Facebook photo shows her with gun [Never Yet Melted] http://is.gd/iQaj
David Ogden, now up for a high Department of Justice post, assisted in Clinton-Reno era’s ghastly RICO suit against tobacco companies (maybe on-orders-from-superiors, given the extent to which the whole thing was wired by hotshot outside lawyers suing the industry) [Carrie Johnson, WaPo]
You’d think they’d learn: appliance energy-use mandates led to lousy clothes-washer and dishwasher designs, but more of the same on the horizon [Kazman, CEI “Open Market”]
Walks out of psychiatric hospital and kills himself, state of New Jersey ordered to pay $600K to survivors [Newark Star-Ledger]
Why there was a market for burned out light bulbs in the former Soviet Union [Tyler Cowen]

Tags: Facebook, guns, Innocence Project, New Jersey, psychiatry, strippers and exotic dancers, Wisconsin, zero tolerance

February 9 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Mississippi: “Former state pathologist suing Innocence Project”

Walter Olson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:18:26 +0000

“Dr. Steven Hayne, the man who performed most of Mississippi’s autopsies for 20 years, has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Innocence Project.” (Howard Ballou, WLBT, Oct. 30).

Hayne has been criticized because he said he conducted about 1,500 autopsies a year, much higher than the recommended standard [of fewer than 250 — ed.].

His testimony in two murder cases from Noxubee County turned out to be inaccurate and both men convicted in those cases were released from prison earlier this year.

One of the men had spent 15 years on Death Row for a crime he didn’t commit.

A third man has confessed to both slayings.

(“Investigation changes are needed”, Hattiesburg American, Oct. 22). As part of its campaign against Hayne, the Innocence Project sent more than 1,000 pages of material documenting its complaints to the Mississippi state medical licensure board and also denounced him to the national College of American Pathologists. (Jerry Mitchell, “Embattled doc suing Innocence Project”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 31). Radley Balko at Reason has been a longtime critic of Hayne (“Hit and Run”, Nov. 7), as has Lotus @ Folo. On Jun. 6, we reported on charges that Dr. Hayne’s forensic work has been of extensive assistance to plaintiff’s lawyers in Mississippi liability suits.

Tags: expert witnesses, Innocence Project, libel slander and defamation, medical, Mississippi

Mississippi: “Former state pathologist suing Innocence Project” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 17 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:31:08 +0000

“I did not know what kind of monster we were dealing with”: dramatic testimony from Judge Lackey on Scruggs corruption [Folo; and repercussions too]
New at Point of Law: Pork-barreling Albany lawmakers shell out for just what NY needs, three more law schools; Sarbanes-Oxley unconstitutional? Ted goes after JAMA on Vioxx; sadly, appeals court overturns Santa Clara opinion that nailed ethical problems with govt.-paid contingency fee; legal aid lawyers, to subprime borrowers’ rescue? and much more;
Cadbury claim: we own the color purple as it relates to chocolate [Coleman]
A world gone mad: Innocence Project directors include… Janet Reno? [Bernstein @ Volokh]
Not unrelatedly: Can a California prosecutor be held liable for wrongful murder conviction of man freed after 24 years? [Van de Kamp versus Goldstein, L.A. Times via Greenfield]
With all his lawyer chums from Milberg-witness days, you’d think Ben Stein could have saved the makers of his creationist movie from stumbling into textbook IP infringements [Myers, again, WSJ law blog]
Groggy from dental anesthesia, plus a half a glass to drink: then came the three felony DUI counts [Phoenix New Times, Balko via Reynolds]
Shell says boaters had years of notice that mandated ethanol in fuel was incompatible with fiberglass marine gas tanks, which hasn’t stopped the filing of a class action [L.A. Times via ABA Journal]
Terrorism asymmetry: “They say ‘Allahu Akbar!’ we say ‘Imagine the liability!'” [McCarthy/Lopez, NRO]
Deborah Jeane Palfrey convicted [WaPo; earlier]
David Neiwert truly born yesterday if he thinks Kevin Phillips is noteworthy for his record of being right [Firedoglake; some correctives]

Tags: Ben Stein, contingent fee, Dickie Scruggs, ethanol, Innocence Project, Janet Reno, Kevin Phillips, Milberg Weiss, prosecutorial abuse, roundups, terrorism, trade dress

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