- “This is just stunning. DOJ is soliciting tips from the public in order to build a case against a single citizen.” [@radleybalko, William Jacobson, @andrewmgrossman] Apparently, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has the power to remove prosecutor Angela Corey from office, and her post-verdict description of Zimmerman as “murderer” is the sort of unprofessionalism that might advance that day [Ian Tuttle with much more about her career, earlier] Ken doesn’t hold back from telling us what he thinks of Nancy Grace [Popehat, earlier]
- Washington Post covers USDA mandate of disaster plan for magicians’ rabbits [Lowering the Bar, David Fahrenthold/WaPo, earlier]
- “Joel Tenenbaum’s $675,000 Music Downloading Fine Upheld” [AP]
- “Hey look, an actual Third Amendment case” may be premature regarding this Nevada dispute, especially if we’re not sure cops = soldiery [Ilya Somin]
- “Why The State Attorneys General’s Assault On Internet Immunity Is A Terrible Idea” [Eric Goldman, Forbes]
- Connecticut: “Supreme Court Upholds $2.9 Million Award For Injured Bicyclist” [Courant]
- The ABA’s annual Blawg 100 nominations are now open, in case, you know, (nudge)
Posts Tagged ‘prosecutorial abuse’
Maricopa County settles another Arpaio-Thomas raid case
Taxpayers of the Arizona county are shelling out millions in settlements to compensate victims of the systematic abuses committed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and D.A. Andrew Thomas. The latest settlement, $1.4 million, was to a developer whose office was ransacked as part of a series of raids conducted against Arpaio’s and Thomas’s political enemies, purportedly in search of evidence of political corruption. “Thomas was disbarred for his actions last year, but Arpaio was re-elected to a sixth term as sheriff in November.” When organized lawyers display higher ethical standards than an electorate, I’m not sure it reflects well on the electorate. [Aaron Kase, Lawyers.com, Phoenix New Times; earlier on Arpaio and on Thomas]
Ethics roundup
- His own bad deal to make: client can’t sue lawyer for malpractice after lawsuit lending swallows up proceeds of $150K settlement [BNA]
- U.K. legal representation: “John Flood looks at the cab rank rule” [Legal Ethics Forum, more]
- Drumming up business: “Junk fax class action may proceed despite attorney misconduct” [Reuters]
- “Personal Injury Lawyers Sue Other Personal Injury Lawyers Over Solicitation” [Turkewitz, more]
- Manipulating time records to qualify for bonus proves costly for Wisconsin attorney [Volokh]
- Lawyer profile: “Defender of the Notorious, and Now Himself” [NY Times]
- Local prosecutors connive at debt-collection abuses thanks to 2006 legal provision [LA Weekly]
Prosecution and police roundup
- Forfeiture: “Defend the Right to Carry Cash and Travel Unmolested” [Eapen Thampy, Agitator]
- Recent Japanese racketeering law, unlike our RICO, actually focuses on organized crime [Adelstein]
- Sheriff’s flack to Fiona Apple: shut up and sing [Ken at Popehat]
- Jimenez case: 99-year sentence, “substantial likelihood defendant was not guilty of this offense” [Jacob Sullum]
- Conrad Black continues to speak out on barbarities of “prosecutocracy” [NY Sun]
- “Are whistle-blowers the new IRS business model?” [Victor Fleischer, NYT DealBook]
- “Minnesota Farmer Found ‘Not Guilty’ in Raw Milk Case” [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason]
- Utah man shoots neighbor he thinks “telepathically raped” his wife, is ruled mentally fit for trial [CBS]
Law enforcement and prosecution roundup
- Small favors dept.: police chiefs group supports use of drones, but concedes they probably shouldn’t be armed [USA Today; more on drones, Michael Kirkland, UPI, Paul Enzinna, PoL]. Earlier here, here, and here.
- Gibson Guitar settlement with feds controls what it can say about the case. Dangers in that, no? [Harvey Silverglate, earlier here, here, etc.]
- “Mission Creep Leads TSA to Racially Profile in Pursuit of Non-Terrorists to Arrest” [Virginia Postrel]
- Guestblogging at The Agitator, William Peterson outlines doubts about prosecutions that include the pursuit of Victoria Sprouse on mortgage-fraud charges in North Carolina, abuse accusations relating to the Creative Frontiers school near Sacramento, and the conviction of Courtney Bisbee at the hands of Maricopa County D.A. (and Overlawyered favorite) Andrew Thomas in Arizona;
- Canada: “Pay your dog license on time or we’ll arrest your wife!” [Sherwood Park News via @derekjamesfrom]
- “Overcriminalization, the comic” [Ted at PoL; plus videos from NACDL]
- “Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high-risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal.” [Sarah Stillman, New Yorker]
“Angela Corey threatened to sue Harvard Law over professor’s criticism, educator says”
If Alan Dershowitz’s accusations are to be believed, the Florida prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case behaved in grossly unprofessional fashion. [Jacksonville.com “The Gavel,” more, Jeralyn Merritt/TalkLeft]
Reluctant to recant rape accusation
Brian Banks served more than five years in prison after an old friend “falsely accused him of attacking her on their high school campus”:
In a strange turn of events, the woman, Wanetta Gibson, friended him on Facebook when he got out of prison.
In an initial meeting with him, she said she had lied; there had been no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record, court records state.
But she refused to repeat the story to prosecutors because she feared she would have to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against Long Beach schools….
It was uncertain Thursday whether Gibson will have to return the money.
[AP via Balko, Volokh; & welcome Reddit readers] Update 2014: School district obtains default judgment against Gibson; contrary to reports at the time, the amount paid in the original settlement is now reported at $750,000 rather than $1.5 million.
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, high-profile Brooklyn sex crimes prosecutor Lauren Hersh has resigned following a furor over a sex trafficking case in which “prosecutors had held on to documents showing the victim recanted rape allegations one day after making them.” [NY Post, more] P.S. Daniel Fisher reminds us of Hersh’s “starring role in New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s expose of Backpage, the Village Voice’s online personals section.”
May 7 roundup
- NY lawyer sanctioned $10K for behavior at deposition [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
- Obvious dangers and the W.V. frat-house rear-launched bottle rocket case [Popehat, earlier here, here]
- Review of Liberty’s Refuge, new book on freedom of assembly by Washington U. lawprof John Inazu [Anthony Deardurff, Liberty Law]
- If forfeiture and asset freeze can be deployed in a copyright enforcement case, where will they strike next? [Timothy Lee, Cato]
- Hard-hitting Kim Strassel column on Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz [WSJ, earlier] Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson: “If you want to live by the precautionary principle, then crawl up in a ball and live in a cave.” [Coyote] Washington Post on the case for the Keystone pipeline [Adler]
- Losing two looks like carelessness: second Durham County D.A. removed from office for misconduct [Volokh, KC Johnson]
- Why won’t the Eighth Circuit recognize fraudulent misjoinder? [Beck]
Arizona update: Thomas faces disbarment
Former Maricopa County, Arizona state’s attorney and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Andrew Thomas now faces disbarment for misdeeds that include launching unfounded prosecutions of local officials who had criticized him [Terry Carter, ABA Journal] The latest ABA Journal headline is an instant classic: “Defiant After Disbarment Ruling, Ex-Maricopa Attorney Andrew Thomas Compares Himself to Gandhi”
March 21 roundup
- Shame on DoJ: “Systematic concealment” of evidence when feds prosecuted Sen. Ted Stevens [WaPo, Caleb Mason/Prawfs] NYT notes feds’ losing streak in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions [NYT, our latest]
- Italy: tax officials stop luxury cars, demand drivers’ most recent tax returns [Secular Right]
- Pinterest: casual users (perhaps especially casual users) might be opening themselves to copyright liability [DDK Portraits, WSJ Law Blog] And in case you needed a reminder not to publish photos grabbed from random web sources… [Webcopyplus]
- In new Atlantic special report, Philip K. Howard collects papers on outdated government law and regulation from contributors Robert Litan, Julie Barnes, Mark Warner, Jim Cooper;
- Institute for Justice sues IRS over its new licensing requirements for tax preparers [Ilya Shapiro and Chaim Gordon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Barton Hinkle]
- “It is acceptable to refer to all court proceedings as a ‘trial,’ because seriously, you ever sat through one of those things?” [@FakeAPStylebook]
- Christopher Booker series on child-snatching by UK authorities [Telegraph: first, second, third]