Ramsey Orta, whose street video of Eric Garner’s chokehold death at the hands of NYC cops became a worldwide sensation, has only days later been nabbed by that same police force on grounds of an unlawful gun infraction in what the police describe as a known drug location. “To decipher some of the police jargon, every location in New York other than St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a ‘known drug location’ as far as the police are concerned,” writes Scott Greenfield [Simple Justice]
Posts Tagged ‘photography’
“1. Turn back lights on. 2. Turn front lights on. 3. Position thing on platform. 4. Take picture.”
“US Patent Office Grants ‘Photography Against A White Background’ Patent To Amazon” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt] Critics suspect there is prior art.
April 30 roundup
- “7 Reasons U.S. Infrastructure Projects Cost Way More Than They Should” [Scott Beyer, Atlantic Cities]
- Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointments could reshape California Supreme Court [Mark Pulliam, City Journal]
- Critics say hiring of outside counsel in Pennsylvania government is an insider’s game [WHTM]
- Could “Bitcoin for contracts” replace legal drafters’ expertise? [Wired with futurist Karl Schroeder]
- “Getting state out of marriage” makes for neat slogan but results would be messy in practice [Eugene Volokh]
- Lobbying by auto body shops keeps Rhode Island car repair costs high [Providence Journal, PCIAA press release and report in PDF]
- “Bipartisan, publicity-hungry members of Congress want the FTC to investigate Photoshopping in ads” [Virginia Postrel on this WaPo report; Daily Beast; earlier here, here, etc.]
Maryland roundup
- In end-of-session scramble, lawmakers pass minimum wage hike [Jenna Johnson, WaPo], vote to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana [Alex DeMetrick/WJZ, Jackie Wellfonder, earlier here, here, here]
- More on trial lawyer priority False Claims Act that passed House of Delegates mostly on party lines, advancing fast in Senate [coalition letter in PDF, bill status, earlier]
- “[Baltimore County] Cop Pushes and Shoves Videographer, Telling Him He Has ‘Lost’ his Freedom of Speech” [Carlos Miller/Photography Is Not a Crime via Radley Balko]
- Bill to legalize raw milk sales gets hearing, no committee action [SB 1092 (Jennings), Maryland Legislative Watch, CNS, some background]
- Much early zoning served purposes of racial subordination, Baltimore history furnishes sad example [A. Barton Hinkle]
- “Baltimore judge denies Angelos firm’s attempt to consolidate asbestos claims” [Heather Isringhausen Gvillo, Legal NewsLine] State’s high court limits asbestos “take-home” liability [Michael Ellis, Fed Soc]
- Civil-libertarian-backed bill to apply controls to law enforcement use of drones gets unfavorable report in Senate judiciary committee [SB 926, MLW, background at Cato]
“Illinois Supreme Court Overturns Insane Recording Laws”
It is now legally safer to record Illinois public servants generally, as well as cops in particular, as they go about their public duties. [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
“Choosing What to Photograph Is a Form of Speech”
New WSJ op-ed by Eugene Volokh and my colleague Ilya Shapiro, with which I agree 100%: “We support the extension of marriage to same-sex couples. Yet too many who agree with us on that issue think little of subverting the liberties of those who oppose gay marriage. Increasingly, legislative and judicial actions sacrifice individual rights at the altar of antidiscrimination law.” Existing precedent affords a handy if narrow way to reverse New Mexico’s wrong-headed Elane Photography decision: “The Supreme Court’s ruling in Wooley guarantees the right of photographers, writers, actors, painters, actors, and singers to decide which commissions, roles or gigs they take, and which they reject.”
Related on bake-my-cake laws: in the absence of more robust rights to freedom of association, could we at least narrow what’s a public accommodation? [Scott Shackford, Reason; David Link, Independent Gay Forum (on precedent of landlord reluctance to rent to cohabitors] Earlier on photography and cake cases here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
P.S. Cato podcast with Caleb Brown interviewing Ilya Shapiro on the topic.
Wedding photographer loses New Mexico discrimination case
In Elane Photography LLC v. Vanessa Willock, the New Mexico Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a wedding photographer is obliged under the state’s anti-discrimination law to offer its services to two women seeking to record their commitment ceremony, despite its proprietors’ religious objections to the ceremony. The Court was not persuaded by an amicus brief filed by UCLA lawprof Eugene Volokh on behalf of the Cato Institute arguing that the First Amendment protects persons in expressive occupations such as photography from being obliged to create expressive works they don’t want to create. Commentary: Dale Carpenter, Ken at Popehat, Hans Bader, John Fund, Ilya Shapiro/Cato at Liberty, Stephen Richer.
Police and prosecution roundup
- Detroit police blasted for arresting Free Press photographer who filmed arrest with her iPhone [Poynter]
- “The discomfort of principles” in criminal defense matters [Gideon’s Trumpet]
- House Judiciary panel on overcriminalization and mens rea shows genuinely useful bipartisanship [Jonathan Blanks, Cato] One in four new bills these days to create criminal liability lacks mens rea [Paul Rosenzweig/Alex Adrianson, Heritage]
- Auburn, Alabama: “Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Ticket and Arrest Quotas” [Reason TV]
- Film project on overturned Death Row convictions [One for Ten] “Forensics review reveals hair evidence was possibly exaggerated in 27 capital cases” [ABA Journal]
- Critics of Stand Your Ground seem to be having trouble coming up with examples to back their case [Sullum]
- Maine: “Hancock County prosecutor admits violating bar rules in sexual assault trial” [Bill Trotter, Bangor Daily News]
“Bill of Rights a live wire, 222 years later”
At Utah’s Deseret News, reporter Eric Schulzke writes on how “the U.S. Bill of Rights remains a work in progress 222 years after it became law — a continuing struggle between government claims for order and security, and the individual’s interest in clarity and freedom. This past year, the struggle played out in numerous areas, including free speech and search and seizure rules, to touch just a few.” He quotes me on the hope of bright-line rules establishing the public’s right to take pictures of law enforcement (recent Hawthorne, Calif. cause celebre here), on the need to focus on state and local police use of DNA databases before the inevitable abuses establish themselves, and on how four significant Fourth Amendment cases made it to the Supreme Court this year: “‘Here we are 200 years later, and a lot of big, interesting questions still haven’t been settled on what the Bill of Rights says about search and seizures,’ Olson said.” A sidebar reviews the year in civil liberties controversies.
Bans on farm-filming, cont’d
“Even though I was always on public property when I filmed the horrors I saw outside that slaughterhouse in February, I became the first person charged under one of these ‘ag-gag’ laws.” [Amy Meyer, Washington Post, Utah]