Posts Tagged ‘police’

April 30 roundup

  • “Sioux split on suit seeking money for Black Hills” [Associated Press]
  • More on nomination of Mothers Against Drunk Driving CEO to head highway safety agency [Balko, see also comments on earlier post]
  • Push by advocates in Congress to extend shakedown-enabling Community Reinvestment Act to all financial institutions [Victoria McGrane, Politico] And some numbers from Bank of America raise doubts about those oft-heard “CRA default rates lower than regular default rates” assertions [Weisenthal, Business Insider]
  • Illinois attorney general Madigan to Craigslist: purge vice ads or I’ll see you in court [L.A. Times]
  • Here and there, acknowledgments in the press of the damaging effects of laws entrenching auto dealers against termination [L.A. Times via Craig Newmark]
  • How many people get arrested for “contempt of cop”? [Coyote Blog] Blogosphere has helped spread awareness of police-abuse issues [Greenfield]
  • Virginia Postrel: I told you so on that light bulb ban story [earlier]
  • U.K. law reform panel: “charlatan” and “biased” expert witnesses put defendants at risk of wrongful conviction [Times Online]

April 28 roundup

  • Forensics gone wrong: Alabama mom spends nine months in jail after medical examiner misdiagnoses stillbirth as murder [Patrick @ Popehat]
  • Bouncer shot outside bar going after owners individually to collect $1.5 million verdict [W.V. Record]
  • “Feds Seize Assets of Companies Suspected of Hiring Illegal Aliens” [Reisinger, Corporate Counsel]
  • Dealing with compulsive-hoarder tenants who fill apartment up to the ceiling with trash can be legally tricky [San Francisco Weekly]
  • NYC has paid more than a half billion dollars over past decade to settle police misconduct suits [NY Post]
  • Los Angeles schools taking aim at state laws that make it near impossible to fire teachers [L.A. Daily News via Kaus]
  • Another parent put through mistaken-identity child-support hell, this time in Pennsylvania [Harrisburg Patriot-News via Amy Alkon] For a similar case from California, see August 7-8, 2001;
  • Disabled man finds vehicle towed, wheels himself in cold to distant lot, catches pneumonia. Liability for tow company and parking lot owner? [John Hochfelder, who also hosts Blawg Review #209 this week on a theme of remembering his father, a veteran of the WWII battle of Iwo Jima]

April 20 roundup

  • Boy fatally shoots stepbrother at home, mom sues school district as well as shooter’s family [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
  • Problem gambler sues Ontario lottery for C$3.5 billion [Toronto Star]
  • Cop declines training in which he’d be given Taser shock, and sues [Indianapolis Star]
  • Ultra-litigious inmate Jonathan Lee Riches scrawls new complaint linking Bernard Madoff, Britney Spears [Kevin LaCroix]
  • Just to read this update feels like an invasion of privacy: “Judge to Hear Challenge to $6M Herpes Case Award” [On Point News, earlier]
  • “Best criminal strategy: join the Spokane police” [Coyote Blog] More: Greenfield, Brayton.
  • Will mommy-bloggers be held liable for freebie product reviews? [Emily Friedman, ABC News, earlier]
  • Update: “Fifth Circuit says no bail for Paul Minor” [Freeland]

The thugs wore badges, cont’d

The Philadelphia officers’ excuse for their raid on Jose Duran’s bodega was the same as their excuse for other bodega raids: he was selling grocery zip-lock bags, and Pennsylvania law makes it unlawful to sell containers that a seller reasonably knew or should have known will be used to store drugs. The cops methodically snipped the wires to seven or eight security cameras around the store, and Duran said nearly $10,000 in cash, cigarettes, batteries and other goods then mysteriously vanished from the store. [Philadelphia Daily News and more via Metafilter; earlier] More: Radley Balko.

April 2 roundup

  • Topic we’ve covered before: should the MCAT exam for prospective M.D.s grant extra time to applicants with learning disabilities? [KevinMD]
  • Virginia blogger Waldo Jaquith fighting subpoena seeking identities of anonymous commenters [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
  • A free marketer’s case for why fired professor Ward Churchill might deserve to win his case against the University of Colorado [Coyote Blog]
  • She videotaped cops arresting her son. They took her camera. Could she have it back, please? [Ken @ Popehat]
  • Despite Obama campaign hints of Second Amendment truce, lower-level appointees far from gun-friendly [Dave Kopel] And new State Department legal advisor Harold Koh pushed international curbs on small-arms trade [Fonte, NRO “Corner”]
  • U.K.: “Man Who Attempted Suicide Sues Hospital that Saved Him” [Telegraph via Lowering the Bar]
  • National media jump on Luzerne County, Pa. judicial scandal, some details I hadn’t seen in earlier coverage [NYT, ABA Journal]
  • Atlanta jury — of 11 women and one lone guy — awards $2.3 million for circumcision injury [Fulton County Daily Report]

March 22 roundup

  • No back-alley bikini lines: New Jersey consumer affairs director rejects proposed ban on Brazilian waxing [Asbury Park Press, JammieWearingFool, Jaira Lima and protest site, Popehat, News12 video] Florida, however, won’t let you get a fish-nibble pedicure [WWSB]
  • Kids doing well in homeschool but divorcing dad disapproves, judge says they must be sent to public [WRAL, Volokh]
  • Al Franken comes out for loser-pays in litigation (well, in this case at least) [MSNBC “First Read”]
  • U.K.: “A man who tried to kill himself has won £90,000 in damages from the hospital which saved his life but hurt his arm in the process” [Telegraph]
  • Life in places without the First Amendment: “Australia’s Vast, Scattershot Censorship Blacklist Revealed” [Slashdot, Volokh, Popehat]; British Telecom passes all internet traffic through “‘Cleanfeed” filters to identify (inter alia) racist content [Glasgow Herald]
  • More on that suit by expelled student against Miss Porter’s School; “Oprichniki” said to be not identical to Keepers of Tradition [NYTimes; our December coverage]
  • “Why We Need Cop Cameras” [Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune] Shopkeepers terrorized in Philadelphia: “The thugs had badges.” [Ken at Popehat]
  • Counting former lobbyists in Obama Administration? Don’t forget Kathleen Sebelius [Jeff Emanuel, RedState]
  • Wisconsin: “$50,000 claim filed over girl’s time-out in school” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]