mrshl | blog

Robert Ambrogi writes:

If the conversation recorded on this YouTube video is real, then it is shocking. In it, a male lawyer seeks to convince his female client to give him oral sex — urging, "30 seconds of pleasure, big deal!" This appears to be the same recording described in these 2006 New York Post and New York Press stories. According to these reports, when she first visited the lawyer’s Wall Street office about a traffic case, he asked her for sex. On a subsequent visit, she wore a recording device. When the Manhattan DA declined to prosecute the lawyer, she brought a civil suit against him seeking $70 million in damages. No word on the status of the case.

My favorite part of this, I think, are the misunderstandings of their respective positions.

The lawyer says early in the tape "You think I couldn’t pick up the phone and have 20 beautiful women in here?" Correct answer: No, you’re a traffic lawyer getting me out of a ticket and begging me for a blow job.

Ah, But she’s a gem, too. She’s suing the dude for $70 million dollars. Is she likely to get even a significant fraction of that? Correct answer: No, you’re suing a traffic lawyer! These ain’t the richest lawyers. Even if he has malpractice insurance, 1) his malpractice premiums and limits are probably very low because not much is at stake in traffic cases, and 2) this isn’t really a malpractice case anyway. It’s a tort case, that might not be covered by this lawyer’s insurance.

Jack Goldsmith, as former head of the Office of Legal Counsel inside the Justice Department, was responsible for evaluating and approving (or rejecting) the frequently controversial anti-terrorism policies of the Bush administration. His new book, The Terror Presidency, offers an insiders view of the fights over the ultimate legality of many of the President’s most contentious assertions of power.

In his book, Goldsmith admits he agrees with the President’s core objectives and world view. Indeed, he frankly states, he is “not a civil libertarian.” Nevertheless, he faults the Bush administration for taking the wrong path in protecting Americans from the next terrorist attack. I encourage you to read University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone’s review of the book for a more complete understanding of Goldsmith and the aims of his book. I’ll tempt you with the closing paragraph of that review:

The net effect of the Bush administration approach has been deeply ironic. Although “the President and Vice President wanted to leave the presidency stronger than they found it,” they “achieved the opposite.” By unlawfully disregarding statutory, international and constitutional law, they “borrowed against the power of future presidencies — presidencies that . . . will be viewed by Congress and the courts . . . with a harmful suspicion and mistrust.” Because of the Bush administration’s obsession with excessive presidential power, our nation and our democracy are less secure.

If you want the extreme cliff notes version, here’s Goldsmith appearing on the Jon Stewart show last week.

William J. Barnes shot and partly paralyzed a Philadelphia police officer in 1966, and he served 20 years for it and related offenses.

But last month, 41 years after the shooting, the district attorney filed new charges of murder after the officer, Walter T. Barclay Jr., died of an infection she says stems from the shooting. Mr. Barnes, now 71, was sent back to prison.

“The law is that when you set in motion a chain of events,” District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said, “a perpetrator of a crime is responsible for every single thing that flows from that chain of events, no matter how distant, as long as we can prove the chain is unbroken.”

She plans to prove that the bullet that lodged near Mr. Barclay’s spine in 1966 led to the urinary tract infection that led to his death last month.

The case has drawn national attention as most legal experts say they have never seen an attempt to stretch causation medically across four decades, and some say they worry about the precedent the case could set concerning double jeopardy.

New Murder Charge in ‘66 Shooting - New York Times

Cleansing America: Orson Card imagines deporting millions of illegal workers. I think his scenario is spot-0n, and a lot of the rhetoric is refreshingly caustic. Nevertheless, the picture painted in this editorial is a bit of a red herring for a couple of reasons:

1. There’s no serious political will to actually deport the millions of workers currently living here. Most who oppose any kind of “amnesty” aren’t actually advocating a mass deportation policy. Instead, they want to close up the borders and deport only those who commit crimes or endanger others, leaving most of the undocumented to live here in a kind of unofficially tolerated quasi-legal status.
2. Deporting all those people is impossible. Part of the reason people aren’t seriously entertaining mass deportation is because rounding up millions of people and paying for their return “home” would be unworkable in nearly every way. Our nation’s already stretched law enforcement  resources and personnel can’t be feasibly diverted to rounding up the mostly law abiding immigrant workforce. And there’s no money to pay for such a crazy gambit. Oh, and if we succeeded, there’s little doubt the deportees would return.

I’m among those who believe the current status quo is better than a flawed immigration bill. Immigrants come here because we have jobs for them. There is no better example of the free market than the flow of workers from Mexico, where they are not valued, to the US where they are badly needed. Sure, immigrant workers require medical care and schooling for their children, but the efficiency we gain in hiring aspiring Americans to work difficult, low-paying jobs in exchange for a shot at  improving their lives,  well…it’s a no brainer.

Did you get caught sharing files? Engadget's attorney/columnist says paying up is your best bet. If you're really innocent, you better start documenting your case right away.

Know Your Rights: What to do when the RIAA comes calling - Engadget

1) Guy makes funny video. Posts it to YouTube.

2) Viacom's VH1 show Web Junk 2.0 uses dude's video without notifying or compensating him.

3) Dude is nevertheless tickled pink to see that his video is on TV. He records the Web Junk segment featuring his video, and posts it to YouTube.

4) Viacom, apparently trying to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe, sends a take-down notice to Google claiming this new video infringes upon their copyrighted material.

5) Google complies.

Let's Review (this quote is straight from the dude's mouth): "Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!"

Techdirt has extra link-y goodness and some spot-on commentary I won't reproduce here. 

Here's a really good summary of the Michael Vick case from ESPN by sports attorney Lester Munson. Also, from ESPN, TMQ columnist Gregg Easterbrook counts the ways in which he feels sympathy for Vick. Some of his apologia aren't entirely persuasive, but it's a rare counterpoint to most of what's been said.

The Photographer’s Right is a downloadable guide that is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make copies and carry them your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. You may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial gain and credit is given to the author.

Bert P. Krages Attorney at Law: The Photographer’s Rights Page

Apparently, an inmate is now alleging that Vick used his dogfighting operation as a front to funnel money to Iran and Al Quaeda. Not knowning that Iran (Shiite) and Al Quaeda (Sunni) are enemies is the least of this dude’s probems:

Riches alleges that Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., and used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va.

The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and “used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government.”

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year. “Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint. Riches wants $63 billion dollars “backed by gold and silver “ delivered to the front gates to the Williamsburg Federal Correctional facility in South Carolina. Riches is an inmate at the facility serving out a wire fraud conviction.

FOXNews.com - South Carolina Inmate Hits Michael Vick With ‘$63,000,000,000 Billion Dollar’ Lawsuit Alleging Al Qaeda Ties.

This post by University of North Carolina law professor Eric Muller does a good job of illustrating what’s really wrong with Scooter Libby’s commuted sentence. A pardon would at least be consistent with a belief that he was not guilty. Bush, though, has said he doesn’t disagree with jury’s verdict. He simply thinks a 30 month sentence is too harsh. He points to the probation office’s recommendation of a lesser sentence as proof that the judge was to heavy handed.

But Bush’s commutation eliminated the prison sentence altogether. Erasing the sentence is incompatible with the Bush administration’s previously rigid support for the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For more on why that’s particularly galling, check out sentencing expert Doug Berman’s analysis of the Libby case.