- “God convinces woman to withdraw her voodoo-related lawsuit” [Minneapolis Star-Tribune via Obscure Store]
- Federal, state judges differ on whether wildlife officials can be sued over fatal Utah bear attack [Heller/OnPoint News]
- GPS helped trip him up: highest-paid Schenectady cop sure seems to spend a lot of time off patrol in a certain apartment [Greenfield]
- More coverage of Luzerne County, Pa. corrupt-judge scandal, including reputed mobster link [Legal Intelligencer/Law.com, ABA Journal, earlier here and here]
- Reductio ad absurdum of laws dictating where released sex offenders can live: proposal to keep them from living near each other [Giacalone and sequel]
- Defamation suits: “What happens when it’s the plaintiff that is anonymous, and wants to stay that way?” [Ron Coleman]
- Scalia: “Honest Services” fraud statute lacks any “coherent limiting principle” to restrain runaway prosecution [Grossman/PoL, Kerr/Volokh, Hills/Prawfsblawg]
- Because they’d never enact a law except to deal with a real problem: “Kentucky Prohibits First Responders from Dueling” [Lowering the Bar]
Posts Tagged ‘police’
Forfeiture: “Police Departments Addicted to ‘Dirty Money'”
That one Texas town’s habitual seizure of the money of motorists passing through may not have been an isolated incident [NPR, Defending People, Grits for Breakfast].
February 8 roundup
- There’s money in lost personal data: “Counsel Could Rake in $5 Million from Veterans Settlement” [Weissmann/BLT]
- Commentaries on now-settled GateHouse v. NYTimes lawsuit (news organization grabs/aggregates rival’s reports) [Ardia and Lindenberger, Citizen Media Law; Nieman Journalism Lab]
- Funny and instantly recognizable: cop talk converted to human talk [Legal Antics]
- No need to worry about revival of Fairness Doctrine, they told us — uh-oh, here comes talk radio “accountability” [Patterico]
- Lenders whipped up one side of the street for too-easy credit standards, then down the other for tightening them [McArdle]
- Murder convictions for drunk drivers? Not so fast, a New York appeals court decision suggests [Greenfield]
- When no one writes a leniency letter at your sentencing, maybe problem is not so much that you’re a crooked lawyer as that you’re a powerless lawyer [YallPolitics on Tim Balducci, Mississippi]
- If lawyers strike everyone who’s griped about jury duty on Facebook “we’re going to run out of jurors really fast” [Anne Reed]
U.K.: “Disability discrimination risk for council suing former MD”
American legal concepts crossing the Atlantic yet again: “A council suing its former managing director for £1m for allegedly lying on her job application is at risk of being accused of disability discrimination, an expert has warned.” Cheltenham Borough Council claims its former executive gave false answers on a medical history to conceal a history of depression, but an employment lawyer says employers should not assume they have a right to discipline workers for lying about their medical history during the application process.
Readers of my book on employment law, The Excuse Factory, may recall the somewhat similar case with which I started off Chapter 1. Incidentally, those who are curious what became of the Boston police officer cited in that account may be interested in following this link.
U.K.: “Buffoonery” issuing from constabulary
Chronicled at a Scotland-based blog called The Police Box.
January 12 roundup
- Airline off the hook: “Couple drops lawsuit claiming United is liable for beating by drunken husband” [ABA Journal, earlier]
- Why is seemingly every bill that moves through Congress these days given a silly sonorous name? To put opponents on the defensive? Should it do so? [Massie]
- With police payouts in the lead, Chicago lays out more money in lawsuits than Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Dallas put together (but NYC still #1 by far) [Chicago Reader]
- Who’s behind the website Asbestos.com? Bill Childs does some digging [TortsProf]
- When not busy carrying out a mortgage fraud scheme from behind bars at a federal prison, inmate Montgomery Carl Akers is also a prolific filer of lawsuits, appeals and grievances [Doyle/McClatchy]
- Alcohol policy expert Philip Cook on Amethyst Initiative (reducing drinking age) [guestblogging at Volokh]
- Must Los Angeles put career criminals on public payroll as part of “anti-gang” efforts? [Patterico]
- Some “local food” advocates have their differences with food-poisoning lawyer Bill Marler [BarfBlog, which, yes, is a food-poisoning policy blog]; Marler for his part is not impressed by uninjured Vermont inmates’ “entrails in the chicken” pro se suit [his blog; more from Bill Childs and in comments; update: judge dismisses suit]
More on “KopBusters” sting
Last month we noted the controversy about a video purportedly showing police misconduct caught on hidden tape, namely the raiding of a fake “drug house” in Odessa, Texas without probable cause. Orin Kerr @ Volokh writes that it’s looking increasingly likely that there’s less (or more) to the story than meets the eye, and that many bloggers’ initial assumption of police misconduct was too hasty.
Cops busted in probable cause sting
Police wouldn’t manufacture fictitious probable cause to obtain warrants for a drug raid, would they? Don’t be so sure:
KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana [grow lights are themselves lawful — ed.]. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.
The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.
(WindyPundit, Dec. 6; Balko, “Hit and Run”, Dec. 6; J.D. Tuccille, Dec. 7). A cautionary view: Greenfield. And Orin Kerr @ Volokh has likewise warns that we don’t know yet all of the circumstances about the engineering of the sting, raid and video; read the comments as well.
Pork-handling and religious accommodation, cont’d
Hasanali Khoja, a Muslim chef employed by London’s Metropolitan Police as a catering manager, has filed a discrimination claim after being asked to prepare breakfasts with pork sausages and bacon, saying he had been assured he would not have to handle the meat products. (David Barrett, “Muslim police chef claims religious discrimination over sausage and bacon breakfasts”, Telegraph, Nov. 2). The Minnesota meat-packing case discussed earlier is here.
“He’s not a klutz”: $4.5 million for NYC cop shot in tippy chair
A Brooklyn jury has awarded $4,548,000 to Anderson Alexander, a former New York City police detective injured when the office chair he was sitting on tipped over and he shot himself in the knee with a 9 mm Smith & Wesson he was holding.
“This case is not about him shooting himself,” Alexander’s lawyer Matthew Maiorana told the Daily News. “This case is about a broken chair and an unsafe workplace.”…
Alexander, 49, who retired on a three-quarters-pay disability pension, moved to South Carolina, where he works as a sheriff’s deputy.
(Scott Shifrel, “Ex-city cop wins huge award after chair he sat in broke, sending bullet into his knee”, New York Daily News, Nov. 26).