- Watch where you click: “Kentucky (secretly) commandeers world’s most popular gambling sites” [The Register/OUT-LAW]
- Erin Brockovich enlists as pitchwoman for NYC tort firm Weitz & Luxenberg [PoL roundup]
- U.K.: “Millionaire Claims Ghosts Caused Him to Flee His Mortgage, I Mean Mansion” [Lowering the Bar]
- Prosecution of Lori Drew (MySpace imposture followed by victim’s suicide) a “case study in overcriminalization” [Andrew Grossman, Heritage; earlier; some other resources on overcriminalization here, here, and here]
- Exonerated Marine plans to sue Rep. John Murtha for defamation [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- Snooping on jurors’ online profiles? “Everything is fair game” since “this is war”, says one jury consultant [L.A. Times; earlier]
- Allentown, Pa. attorney John Karoly, known for police-brutality suits, indicted on charges of forging will to obtain large chunk of his brother’s estate; “Charged with the same offenses are J.P. Karoly, 28, who is John Karoly’s son, and John J. Shane, 72, who has served as an expert medical witness in some of John Karoly’s cases.” [Express-Times, AP, Legal Intelligencer]
- School safety: “What do the teachers think they might do with the Hula-Hoop, choke on it?” [Betsy Hart, Chicago Sun-Times/Common Good]
Posts Tagged ‘jury selection’
Twitter for 2008-09-19
- Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator; mine is Pie Gallon Palin. #
- McCain assails SEC’s Cox, but Bainbridge is going with Cox; #
- Yes, racial profiling figures into use of peremptory challenges [Sommers, Psychology Today via Deliberations] #
- SEC’s net capital rule waivers to blame for credit blowup? [NYSun] #
- NY Observer’s Doonan cool to Palin eyeglass craze; #
- Business lobbies went along with expansion of ADA litigant categories [Point of Law] #
- @teafortillerman I think “trough gutted palin” is the best I’ve seen yet #
- Don’t blame Gramm-Leach-Bliley for housing bubble [MargRev] #
- Experimentally incorporating Twitter into Overlawyered; #
- @kevinokeefe I’m using Firefox and “follow” button on Twitter fails until I refresh. #
- PR firm retracts Tweet that sought to scare up class action plaintiffs [O’Keefe] #
Juror privacy and voir dire, cont’d
If you apply for a job handling million-dollar financial exposures or life-and-death safety risks, your prospective employer generally won’t be allowed to ask at the interview what prescription medications you may be taking. On the other hand, if you’re called as a potential juror on a case, the lawyers may enjoy carte blanche to probe and dig to their heart’s content, and you may be obliged to answer the questions proposed by their jury consultants. “A secondary reason for asking is strategic — to bounce jurors they don’t want and use medications as an excuse.” How about requiring the voir dire inquisitors to restrict themselves to the same formulas employers are supposed to use to avoid ADA liability, e.g., “Is there any reason why, with suitable accommodation, you would not be able to concentrate, sit for long periods of time, apply unclouded judgment, and do the other things expected of jurors?” (Julie Kay, National Law Journal, Aug. 26).
August 22 roundup
- “Law school is not such a leap” for licensed Nevada prostitute’s next career move — hey, we didn’t say that, Robert Ambrogi at Law.com did [Legal Blog Watch, Bitter Lawyer]
- Today’s representative class-action plaintiff: “For five years, her diet consisted almost exclusively of Chicken-of-the-Sea tuna…” [PoL]
- Prolific California disabled-access filer Jarek Molski ordered to pay fees for “scorched-earth” tactics in one case, but wins a second [Metropolitan News-Enterprise via Bashman]
- Another sperm donor surprised by legal obligation to pay child support [Santa Fe, N.M. Reporter; earlier]
- “Lawyer Fees Jumped 50% After Bankruptcy Law Change” [ABA Journal]
- “Whatever it takes to win a case”, and checking out jurors’ Facebook profiles is the least of it [NLJ]
- High-profile U.K. attorney Nick Freeman registers his nickname “Mr. Loophole” [Times Online a while back]
- When can a plaintiff claiming sexual assault sue anonymously? Courts will apply mushy balancing test [NYLJ]
- Hold on to your hats, looks like Geoffrey Fieger is online [Fieger Time]
Great Moments in Voir Dire
Newsweek reports on Laura Day, a $10,000-per-month psychic to the powerful, who’s gained a few clients in the legal profession:
A Manhattan attorney who serves as special counsel to several white-shoe law firms has used Day’s insights to help her select juries and anticipate the opposing team’s arguments. “Day saves me thousands of minutes on my cell phone” working a case, says the attorney, who also didn’t want to be publicly identified.
Day denies that she has psychic powers, per se; rather, she has “intuition,” a term more palatable to her clients, “red-meat-eating, Barneys-shopping, Type A personalities.” (The $10,000-a-Month Psychic, Newsweek, Jun 30.)
A right to a jury consultant?
Unless defendant Neil Entwistle is provided with a jury consultant at Massachusetts taxpayer expense he won’t stand a chance of a fair trial in his much-publicized murder trial, or so runs his defense lawyer’s claim (Ambrogi; The Jury Box). More: Greenfield.
May 16 roundup
- Polar bears on parade: “Lawsuits are not the best way to force the public into solving planet-size problems such as climate change.” [Christian Science Monitor editorial]
- Jury convicts private investigator Anthony Pellicano, trial of entertainment lawyer Terry Christiansen set for July [Variety; earlier]
- Knockoff sneakers differed from Adidas original in having two or four stripes instead of three, didn’t save Payless Shoes from getting hit with $304 million verdict [American Lawyer]
- Following up on our discussion of municipal tree liability: Michigan high court OKs homeowner class action over sewer line damage from city trees [AP/MLive]
- Attorney Franklin Azar, of Colorado TV-ad fame, says jury’s verdict ordering him to pay a former client $145,000 was really a “big victory” for him [ABA Journal]
- Annals of tolling-for-infancy: “Dog bite 10 years ago subject of civil suit” [MC Record]
- Feds indict Missouri woman for cruel MySpace hoax that drove victim to suicide: Orin Kerr finds legal grounds weak [@ Volokh]
- “I blame R. Kelly for Sept. 11”: some ways potential jurors managed to get off singer’s high-profile Chicago trial [Tribune; h/t reader A.K.]
- Update: “click fraud” class actions filed in Texarkana against online ad providers have all now settled [SE Texas Record; earlier]
- Judge orders dad to stay on top of his daughter’s education, then jails him for 180 days when she fails to get her general equivalency diploma [WCPO, Cincinnati; update, father released]
- Lawyers still soliciting for AOL volunteer class actions [Colossus of Rhodey; earlier]
BP explosion trial: the uses of voir dire
It has long been noted that lawyers can (when judges let them) employ the process of jury selection to plant themes, factoids and manipulative images favorable to their cause before a trial even gets under way. Which brings us to the just-begun Galveston trial of lawsuits against BP over a deadly 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Tex. refinery:
As Brent Coon, an attorney representing four of the five workers whose lawsuits are set to be tried, talked to potential jurors, he displayed a picture of Enron’s logo on two large screens behind him.
Jim Galbraith, one of BP’s attorneys, objected to the oil company being compared to what happened at Enron, which went bankrupt in 2001. Galbraith accused Coon of arguing his case before the trial had begun.
“We are not trying to say BP is Enron. But Enron did have a major case with a lot of publicity and did a lot of things wrong,” Coon said before state District Judge Susan Criss ordered the Enron logo off the screens. …
Galbraith later objected when Coon showed the jury pool of more than 200 people a well-known photograph of major tobacco company CEOs raising their hands in 1994 just before they testified to Congress that nicotine wasn’t addictive when internal documents showed the companies knew the opposite was true.
“He’s still arguing his case,” Galbraith said.
Criss later told Coon he couldn’t show any more of these images. …
Just to confirm for those who may be wondering, BP, long known as British Petroleum, is not a tobacco company and has no particular connection to Enron other than being in the energy business. Maybe BP should have used its side of juror selection to flash large images of scandal-plagued or widely disliked Texas plaintiff’s attorneys who are not Brent Coon. (Juan A. Lozano, “BP Objects to Enron Comparisons”, AP/Forbes.com, Aug. 31).
Liveblogging a malpractice trial
We’ve pointed out doctor-bloggers who have provided first person accounts of being sued for malpractice, but the last doctor on the list, the pseudonymously-named “Flea,” is taking it one step further: he’s blogging about his own trial as it happens. Today’s post is “Flea on Trial – Day One: Jury Selection.” You can follow the whole series here.
Meanwhile, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Eric Turkewitz comments, from a trial lawyer’s perspective, on some of the dangers of a doctor blogging about a case in near-real time. Our favorite tidbit is this:
His decision to walk this high-wire without a net brings us to a third issue: If plaintiff’s counsel finds out about the blog, should it be used at trial? A lawyer’s gut reaction may be yes, in order to claim to the jury that what they are seeing is a well-rehearsed act.
But if the risk is that the insurance carrier uses it as an excuse to disclaim on a plaintiff’s verdict, it may be entirely counterproductive. In this sense, Flea shares a common goal with his nemesis: They both want the insurance company standing there in case of a plaintiff’s verdict.
Well, sure — it is about the money, after all.
February 5 Roundup
- First Democratic earmark for trial lawyers. [Point of Law; Grace]
- Philip Howard on the lack of trust in the American justice system. [Common Good/NY Sun]
- Cooperman pleads guilty to Milberg Weiss kickbacks. Anonymous commenter at WSJ Law Blog: “Mr. Taylor of Zuckerman Spaeder contends that Mr. Cooperman’s statements “have never been credible.” Then why on God’s green earth did Milberg Weiss repeatedly use Mr. Cooperman as a plaintiff in the first instance for so many years if he was not credible? Is Mr. Vogel, another plaintiff whom Milberg Weiss repeatedly used for decades who also has pled guilty similarly not credible? Milberg Weiss certainly has a penchant for finding “not credible” plaintiffs for representing class interests.” [Point of Law; WSJ Law Blog]
- Bone-screw litigation and informed consent claims. [Drug and Device Law Blog]
- Dan Markel has a more theoretical look at the car-wash “forgiveness” case. [Prawfsblawg]
- Getting rich on backdating (but not the way you think) [Ribstein]
- Jury selection in San Francisco [Cal Biz Lit; see also NLJ]
- Hawaii losing doctors; gov calls for reform; 86% of Hawaii med-mal claims without merit [The Honolulu Advertiser]
- The miracle of joint and several liability: Police chase injuries put city on hook $4.5 million, because city held a 10% responsible for felon’s car accident. [The Olympian]
- Judge Harry Hanna becomes star for his slap on the wrist to Chris Andreas, but, more jaw-dropping: Ninth Circuit Judge Bea defends the double-dipping lawyer. [Point of Law; Legal Pad; WSJ Law Blog photo of Andreas t-shirt]
- The Guardian v. AEI. [Adler @ Volokh; Frum; Point of Law]