The Legal Reader^™

Judge Gives Dog Protection Order; US Man Accused of Beating It

NEW YORK: A judge is this dog's best friend. Bebe, a 5-year-old bichon frise, a fluffy little white dog, was given an order of protection after a man was accused of beating him.

Fredrick Fontanez, 20, was arraigned Thursday on a misdemeanor count of animal abuse and released on his own recognizance, but not before the judge told him to steer clear of Bebe.

The protection order, the first for a dog in the state, was issued by Queens Criminal Court Judge Alex Zigman. It says Fontanez cannot come within a 100 yards (91 meters) of the dog and its owner, Derek Lopez.

Bebe was found badly beaten July 20 in Lopez's apartment, where Fontanez was staying, a criminal complaint said. Lopez, 27, says he had to go to work and left Bebe with Fontanez, trusting the dog would be safe. When he returned hours later, he found a severely bruised Bebe, who "winced, yelped and cried" at the slightest touch, the complaint said.

Details here from the AP via the International Herald Tribune.

Law School Sued for Expelling Students

A former law student has filed a federal class action against St. Thomas University School of Law of Miami, claiming that it is illegally accepting and then expelling more than 25 percent of its first-year class to boost its flagging bar pass rates.

Filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the complaint alleges that the private law school unlawfully dismissed Thomas Joseph Bentey and as many as 80 students from the incoming class of 2005 because they failed to maintain a 2.5 grade point average.

The action further alleges that in 2003 the school began a scheme to accept large numbers of students -- and their tuition dollars -- only later to dismiss or pressure the withdrawal of almost 30 percent of its first- and second-year students. The case could include hundreds of former students as plaintiffs if the court grants class action status.

Details here from The National Law Journal via Law.com.

Above The Law

David Lat, former U.S. Attorney, proprietor of Underneath Their Robes, and a former contributor to Wonkette, has teamed up with Elizabeth Spiers and created a new law blog: Above The Law.

From his post entitled Letter from the Editor: Welcome to Above the Law:

Above the Law will be defined less by specific subjects within the law and more by tone or worldview (Weltanschauung, if you will; and you will, 'cause you're pretentious). We'll write about all things legal -- law firms, judges, law schools, cases -- as long as we have something mildly amusing, or at least obnoxious,* to say about them.

Hey! That's what The Legal Reader does! Anyhoo, go pay David's new enterprise a visit and welcome him back to The Internets (which, as you know, consist of "a series of tubes").

Broadcast Chief Misused Office, Inquiry Reports

Remember Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the porcine Republican hack President Bush appointed as the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ("CPB")? Remember when he tried to hire a "consultant" to "monitor" PBS's and NPR's "political" content? Remember when he tried to cut $100 million from the CPB's budget -- the very organization he was supposed to be heading and supporting?

Big surprise: It turns out that Tomlinson's not just fat, partisan, stupid, smug and ugly. He's also corrupt:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.

The report said that the official, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, had repeatedly used government employees to perform personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit. The summary of the report, prepared by the State Department inspector general, said the United States attorney’s office here had been given the report and decided not to conduct a criminal inquiry. The summary said the Justice Department was pursuing a civil inquiry focusing on the contract for Mr. Tomlinson’s friend.

Through his lawyer, James Hamilton, Mr. Tomlinson issued a statement denying that he had done anything improper.

The office of the State Department inspector general presented the findings from its yearlong inquiry last week to the White House and on Monday to some members of Congress.

Three Democratic lawmakers, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Representatives Howard L. Berman and Tom Lantos of California, requested the inquiry after a whistle-blower from the agency had approached them about the possible misuse of federal money by Mr. Tomlinson and the possible hiring of phantom or unqualified employees.

Details here from the New York Times.

Women Suddenly Scarce Among Justices’ Clerks

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Everyone knows that with the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the number of female Supreme Court justices fell by half. The talk of the court this summer, with the arrival of the new crop of law clerks, is that the number of female clerks has fallen even more sharply.

Just under 50 percent of new law school graduates in 2005 were women. Yet women account for only 7 of the 37 law clerkships for the new term, the first time the number has been in the single digits since 1994, when there were 4,000 fewer women among the country’s new law school graduates than there are today.

Last year at this time, there were 14 female clerks, including one, Ann E. O’Connell, who was hired by William H. Rehnquist, the chief justice who died before the term began. His successor, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., then hired Ms. O’Connell.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who joined the court in January, hired Hannah Smith, who had clerked for him on the appeals court where he had previously served. So by the end of the term, and counting Ms. O’Connell twice, there were 16 women among the 43 law clerks hired by last term’s justices.

After years in which more than a third of the clerks were women, the sudden drop was a hot topic this summer on various law-related blogs. Word of the justices’ individual hiring decisions spread quickly among those for whom the comings and goings of law clerks are more riveting than any offering on reality television.

Details here from the New York Times.

Exacting Easterbrook to Be Chief of 7th Circuit

Judge Frank H. Easterbrook has long told his law students, only half in jest he says, that he wishes he had a button on his courtroom bench that he could push to open a trapdoor beneath the feet of attorneys not properly prepared for court, sending them down a chute to the street outside. So far, he has no plans to install such an apparatus when he becomes chief judge of the 7th Circuit in November. Court watchers praise Easterbrook's intellect, but opinions about his tough courtroom style vary widely.

Details here from The National Law Journal via Law.com.

Beatles Reunite to Sue Record Companies for $25M

The Beatles have reunited, though only to sue their record companies.

A lawsuit filed by the Beatles, their representatives and their recording label Apple Records against Capitol Records and EMI Records will go forward following a Manhattan judge's denial of a motion to dismiss.

Capitol and its affiliate EMI concealed their use of the band's recordings "in an effort to pocket millions of dollars" in royalties, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs are seeking at least $25 million, asserting causes of action for fraud, breach of contract and -- in a difficult and unusual claim against a record company -- breach of fiduciary duty.

The defense moved to dismiss the causes of action for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, as well as the plaintiffs' requests for punitive damages and to reclaim the rights to their recordings, perhaps the most valuable catalog of music in existence.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Karla Moskowitz last week denied the defense's motion in its entirety.

Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.

Plaintiff Who Came to Deposition Stoned Has Case Dismissed and Must Pay Fees

A plaintiff whose deposition was aborted because he was under the influence of drugs, and who failed to comply with consequent sanctions, has seen his case dismissed with prejudice.

On Aug. 18, Superior Court Judge Vincent LeBlon in Middlesex County, N.J., also entered judgments against John Freeman for $9,375, the fees of the six defense attorneys who attended the botched dep. . . .

[F]reeman, a roofer, sought $3 million in damages for a shattered left elbow sustained in a fall at an East Hanover jobsite. But at his deposition on Dec. 21, 2005, defense lawyers pressed for details of a prior drug conviction, which was relevant to their suspicions that Freeman was using drugs at the time of his fall.

Upon objection from his lawyer, Blume Goldfaden associate Richard Villanov, the defense lawyers called LeBlon in chambers for a ruling. The lawyers also told LeBlon that Freeman appeared to be on drugs that day, as his speech was slurred, his pupils sometimes rolled backward and his answers were contradictory. LeBlon ordered Freeman to a hospital for an immediate drug test. After some further dickering among the lawyers and the judge, Freeman left the dep and never went for testing.

On March 10, LeBlon dismissed the case without prejudice and imposed $9,375 in sanctions against Freeman for the fees of the defense lawyers.

Details here from the New Jersey Law Journal via Law.com.

Don’t Count on a Standing Ovation, Nino

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia agreed to a public “conversation about civil liberties” with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen at the ACLU’s “Stand Up For Freedom” conference in Washington on Oct. 16. NBC’s Pete Williams is to moderate.

Scalia, of course, doesn’t always see the world the way the ACLU does. In June 2005 case, in which the ACLU of Kentucky challenged county displays of the Ten Commandments, the court sided with the ACLU, but Scalia dissented. “The Court’s repeated assertion that the government cannot favor religious practice is false,” he wrote.

And in Hudson v. Michigan this year, Scalia wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 vote decision that gave police more leeway to enter private homes. In this drug case, police failed to knock on Hudson’s door and waited only three to five seconds after announcing their presence to enter his home. The ACLU objected; the court did not. “Ominously,” the ACLU wrote in a review of the court’s term, “Justice Scalia’s majority opinion seemed to lay the groundwork for a broader attack on the exclusionary rule by questioning its continuing need as a deterrent to police misconduct.”

To be sure, in a 1989 case, Texas v. Johnson, Scalia sided with the ACLU and joined a 5-4 opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr. that struck down a law banning flag burning for violating the First Amendment. – David Wessel

Details here from the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire. (via the WSJ's Law Blog)

Florida Man Gets Six Years in Prison For Software Privacy Piracy

The owner of a major software piracy Web site was sentenced to six years in prison yesterday, one of the longest jail terms ever imposed for the growing crime of stealing copyrighted computer products, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria also ordered Danny Ferrer, 37, to pay restitution of more than $4.1 million and to forfeit a wide variety of luxury goods he bought with millions of dollars in proceeds. They included three airplanes; a helicopter; and numerous cars, including a 1992 Lamborghini, a 2005 Hummer and two 2005 Chevrolet Corvettes.

Starting in 2002, Ferrer and a number of co-conspirators operated http://www.buysusa.com/, which sold at huge discounts copies of software products copyrighted by such companies as Adobe Systems Inc., Autodesk Inc. and Macromedia Inc. The total loss to owners of the computer products was nearly $20 million, prosecutors said.

Details here from the Washington Post.

Bar Prep Company Ordered to Pay $11 Mil. for Copying Questions

In a ruling that promises to fundamentally alter the way many American law students prepare for the bar exam, a federal judge has ruled concluded that a California company illegally copied questions from the Multistate Bar Examination for use in its bar exam preparation courses and ordered it to pay more than $11.9 million to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

In the suit, NCBE claimed that employees of Multistate Legal Studies Inc. have attended bar exams in several states for the sole purpose of copying questions to be used in its prep courses.

MLSI is based in Santa Monica, Calif., and has offices in Philadelphia and New York. It operates bar review programs under the trade name PMBR, which stands for “preliminary multistate bar review.”

Lawyers for MLSI insisted that any similarities between the questions in their prep courses and those on the MBE stem from the fact that both are drawn from the same pool of material -- hornbooks, law treatises and case law -- and that such similarity is entirely permissible.

But Senior U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam disagreed and said the evidence showed MLSI had copied both the detailed facts in the questions as well as the correct and incorrect answers.

Details here from The Legal Intelligencer via Law.com. (HT to Bashman)

Judge Paves Way for Blockbuster Anti-Trust Suit Against NetFlix

Now that the Apple v. Creative insanity has begun to die down, another equally outlandish lawsuit has taken the crown. On August 17, 2006, Blockbuster filed a motion to dismiss an injunction filed by NetFlix attempting to prohibit Blockbuster from offering movie rentals online claiming Blockbuster infringed on NetFlix patents for its distribution method.

The same San Francisco judge responsible for the NetFlix v. Blockbuster case, US District Judge William Alsup, will now be responsible for the official proceedings of Blockbuster v. NetFlix. Although NetFlix counsel has claimed that the newest proceeding should be separate from the previous IP case, Judge Alsup claims Blockbuster does indeed have enough evidence for an anti-trust case.

"As a result of NetFlix's purported monopolistic conduct, Blockbuster may be forced out of the market, which would cede to Netflix virtually complete control of the online-DVD market," Alsup wrote during the acknowledgement letter to open the case. Since the same judge is handling both cases, the most likely outcome is that NetFlix will either be found correct in its assertion that Blockbuster has infringed upon its intellectual property, but is subsequently a monopoly; or that Blockbuster does not infringe upon NetFlix IP and thus NetFlix could not be a monopoly. Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Details here from DailyTech.com.

Judge Detains Five Over Ringing Phones

A judge detained and questioned a row of spectators when a cell phone rang for a third time in her courtroom, later ordering two people to serve community service for contempt of court.

When no one admitted having the ringing phones Wednesday, Lake County Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell told all five people in the row to sit in chairs reserved for jail inmates. They stayed there for more than an hour until the morning court call ended.

Boswell found three people in contempt of court because they initially refused to say who had the ringing phones. . . .

"The next time you come to court, don't bring your cell phone," Boswell said. "And when the court asks a question, answer the question."

That sounds a little over-the-top to me. My bet is that Judge Boswell gets censured and apologizes. Details here from the AP via Forbes.

Advocacy Group Sues Barney the Dinosaur

Warning: If you have children present, you may wish to excuse them before reading further.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing children's TV icon Barney the purple dinosaur. It claims that the Lyons Partnership, the company that owns the Barney trademark, is violating the free speech rights of Stuart Frankel, publisher of a Barney parody site.

Since 2002, Barney's lawyers have sent Frankel a series of cease-and-desist letters to shut down his site. The lawsuit, according to EFF, "asks the court to finally resolve the matter by declaring that his parody does not infringe Barney's copyright or trademark rights." CNET's Declan McCullagh reported in October that the cease-and-desist letters complained that Frankel's site "depicts a plush Barney toy in a violent manner or position" and asked that he "remove this violent content toward Barney on your Web site."

Read all about the case and view litigation documents at the EFF's Barney page. But be sure your kids are away.

Details here from Robert J. Ambrogi via the Law.com Blog Network.

Lawyers Who Won $200M Fen-Phen Settlement Suspended by Kentucky High Court

Kentucky's highest court suspended three attorneys Thursday over questions about how they divided a $200 million settlement over the fen-phen diet drug.

The ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court came after a lower court judge found that the Lexington, Ky., attorneys breached their duty to about 440 clients they represented against drugmaker Wyeth.

The plaintiffs were among tens of thousands who sued Wyeth, which pulled the fenfluramine half of fen-phen off the market in 1997 amid reports that some users had heart valve damage and a few had a deadly lung condition. Fen-phen was never an FDA-approved combination.

The clients of William Gallion, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and Melbourne Mills received about $45 million in a 2001 settlement with Wyeth. The rest was split among attorneys and consultants, according to Linda Gosnell, chief counsel for the Kentucky Bar Association.

"This is a case of absolute, unbridled greed," Gosnell told the high court in arguments last week.

Details here from the AP via Law.com.

Debate Grows On Out-of-Wedlock Laws

Some 1.6 million Americans in seven states are breaking old anticohabitation rules.

In Black Jack, Mo., (pop. 6,792), the city council wrangled last week over precisely how to define a family.

In West Virginia, religious conservatives are getting ready to do battle with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over the use of a law that aims to bolster marriage by outlawing "lewd and lascivious cohabitation."

In North Carolina, a state judge in July ruled unconstitutional a law that states it's illegal for unmarried couples to live together.

Still, 1.6 million Americans in seven states are breaking their states' laws for doing just that, according to Unmarried America, a lobbying group for singles' rights based in California.

States enforce these morality-based laws - which can include fornication and "criminal conversation," sweet-talking a married woman with a mind toward adultery - only in select cases, experts say.

Yet the debate about whether the laws should continue to exist is a flash point between secularists and traditional Christians over the definition of a family.

Details here from the Christian Science Monitor.

'Video Vigilante' Is Himself Arrested

OKLAHOMA CITY Aug 16, 2006 (AP)— Brian Bates says he was so fed up with prostitutes and their customers cruising his working-class neighborhood in the mid-1990s that he picked up a video camera and started documenting their sex acts on tape. Dubbed the "video vigilante," Bates soon made a splash on local TV and drew praise from police and prosecutors with his lurid, caught-in-the-act footage, which he posted on his Web site to embarrass the johns. The national media eventually took notice, and Bates was appearing regularly on programs such as "The Maury Povich Show."

But now Bates could be looking at prison himself.

Prosecutors say some of his footage was not a result of intrepid camera work. Instead, they say, he paid prostitutes to take their customers to locations where he could easily tape them. He has been charged with pandering and aiding and abetting prostitution.

Bates and his attorney have denied the allegation and claim Bates ran afoul of the police and district attorney's office when he videotaped two white Oklahoma City police officers beating an unarmed black man with their batons during an arrest in 2002. At the time, District Attorney Wes Lane defended the officers and decided not to prosecute them, and Bates bitterly criticized him for that.

The further you read this story, the weirder it gets. Among other details is the fact that Bates is facing 140 years in prison. Details here from the AP via ABC News.

A Law Unto Herself

The criminal defense attorney is star-struck, young and unorthodox. But don't be fooled. She's also Ivy League, savvy and successful.

Matt Farrell, a video producer, needed an attorney after he had been charged with growing marijuana. He hired Allison Margolin, "L.A.'s dopest attorney," on a friend's recommendation.

Farrell's first impression was "she was hot." His second was doubt. She looked too young to be a lawyer.

Then he saw the Ivy League degrees on her wall.

Like actress Reese Witherspoon's character in the movie "Legally Blonde" — a rich, ditsy Beverly Hills blond who goes to Harvard Law School — Margolin, 28, is the kind of lawyer who might be easy to dismiss. The graduate of Beverly Hills High talks like a Valley girl, preceding adjectives with "like" and using "whatever" as a period.

Her years at Columbia University and Harvard Law School failed to dim her fascination with movie stars. She is devoted to the tabloids and knows intimate details about the rich and famous. . . .

[A] lawyer for 3 1/2 years, Margolin has gained notoriety for unorthodox ads that proclaim her "L.A.'s dopest attorney." She even has a video publicizing her practice on the Internet site http://www.youtube.com.

Details here from the front freakin' page of the Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: She also has her own "blawg": Allison's Wonderland.

D.C. Federal Judge Slams Lawyers for Role in Hiding Tobacco Risks

Judge Gladys Kessler's scorn for the tobacco industry was evident in her 1,742-page opinion last week, which found that nine cigarette manufacturers and two trade groups had conspired to hide the truth about smoking's adverse health consequences for more than 50 years.

Her wrath, though, was directed not only at company executives at the forefront of the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry but also at the lawyers she said aided the decades-long project to illegally shade the industry from scrutiny.

"At every stage, lawyers played an absolutely central role in the creation and perpetuation of the Enterprise and the implementation of its fraudulent schemes," the D.C. federal judge wrote. She pointed to how both in-house counsel and outside law firms "devised" and "coordinated" strategy, directed scientists' research in favor of the industry, destroyed documents and "took shelter behind baseless assertions of attorney client privilege."

Details here from Legal Times via Law.com.

Judge To Decide If iPod Showdown Belongs In Court

14-Year-Old Girl Suing Classmate Over Missing iPod

(Naperville Sun) WHEATON, Ill. Stephanie Eick isn't expected to be in court today when a DuPage County judge decides whether he'll hear arguments as to who's responsible for the loss of Shannon Derrik's iPod, or whether he'll grant the request of Stephen Eick and dismiss the lawsuit filed by Derrik's mother, Melanie McCarthy.

But if the judge decides the dispute belongs before the court, she'll have to show up sometime.

So will Shannon and perhaps other former Still Middle School students who might know a bit about the situation.

The two sides will either have to arrange a future date with the judge on a day when the kids aren't in class, but court is in session, or the kids will end up missing school because of the suit, Stephen Eick said.

Details here from CBS2Chicago.com.

Filipino Judge Claiming To Have Psychic Powers Sacked

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - A Philippine judge who claimed to have psychic powers and the ability to talk with "dwarf friends" was sacked on "administrative grounds" after a failed psychiatric test; he later lost his appeal to keep the job.

Judge Florentino Floro allegedly claimed supernatural abilities and the ability to foretell the future. He would also hold "healing sessions" in his chambers.

His appeal to remain at his post was rejected by the Supreme Court. The final ruling said "judges are expected to be guided by the rule of law and to resolve cases before them with judicial detachment" to ensure the public maintained its confidence in the judicial process.

"The psychological finding of mental unfitness, when taken together with Judge Floro's claimed dalliance with 'dwarves' poses a serious challenge to such required judicial detachment and impartiality," the ruling adds.

This would "eventually erode the public's acceptance of the judiciary as the rational guardian of the law, if not make it an object of ridicule."

Details here from All Headline News.

Family Calls Naked Pic Charges "Bull Crap"

FRAMINGHAM [MA] -- Theodore Rufo’s arraignment was short, but it was his supporters who drew attention after yesterday’s Framingham District Court appearance.

One woman claimed a television cameraman touched her breasts, a man who said he was Rufo’s father told a news crew he was "sick of this bull crap," and another woman yelled at reporters and cameramen to leave them alone and to go "catch terrorists."

Rufo, 42, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. He is accused of displaying a photo of himself to a woman, in which he is naked except for pantyhose with the crotch cut out to expose his genitals, authorities said.

Police arrested Rufo, of 173 Main St., Medway, on Thursday, the day after police said he taped the explicit photo of himself to his car window so a woman could see it as she walked to her car, according to court records . . . .

[I]nside Rufo’s car, police said they discovered crotchless pantyhose, women’s underwear, high heel shoes, pornographic magazines, photos of Rufo in women’s undergarments, sex toys and cameras.

This story has so many bizarre and incongruous details that it almost has to be fake. But I'm afraid it must be real -- a Google search for "Theodore Rufo" currently returns 738 pages, all referring to these events. Details here from the Metro West Daily News. (via PB)

NSA Eavesdropping Program Ruled Unconstitutional

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly taping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

Not surprising, but gratifying nonetheless. Details here from the AP via CNN.

DaimlerChrysler Launches Dr. Gag Campaign

Here’s a question for Dr. Z: Why are you trying to prevent the news media from covering a high-profile asbestos trial?

DaimlerChrysler, the auto company represented in TV commercials by its chairman, Dieter Zetsche a.k.a. “Dr. Z”, moved yesterday for a gag order to stop an Oakland law firm from fielding calls from the press, including Legal Pad’s sister publication The Recorder.

The gag motion targets Rebekah Price, a single mother who is dying of cancer, plus lawyers at Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood.

Chrysler fears that, unless restrained, plaintiff will attempt to issue press releases or otherwise communicate with the news media … in an effort to prejudice and influence the jury,” DaimlerChrysler attorney Scott Shepardson wrote in a petition to Alameda County Superior Court. A hearing date for the motion has not been set.

Details here from the Legal Pad from CalLaw.com.

UPDATE: There's now a full article online -- Asbestos Plaintiffs Firm Pins Hopes on an RV From eBay -- from The Recorder via Law.com.

Man Pleads No Contest to Stalking Local Judge

A Bartlesville [OK] man has pleaded no contest to charges stemming from harassing a local judge.

Joseph Murray Looney, 69, pleaded no contest to charges of stalking before Special Judge John D. Gerkin Monday. The charge came after a series of incidents involving Associate District Judge Curtis DeLapp. Following to the plea, Gerkin found Looney guilty and sentenced him to a one year sentence with all but 60 days suspended.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed in the case, Looney called DeLapp at home on June 14 and stated, “God is going to fry you in hell for your criminal illegal decisions, you (expletive) pig.”

He also was alleged to have called the Washington County Courthouse stating that DeLapp was a “Nazi judge” and that he is going to “fry in hell.”

The next day, on June 15, Looney was seen by at least one witness standing across the street from the courthouse in front of the First United Methodist Church yelling, “Lie in hell you satanic pig DeLapp.”

I love it that this guy's name is "Looney." Details here from the Bartlesville, Okla. Examiner-Enterprise.

West Alabama Judge Held on Meth Charge in Mississippi

COLUMBUS, Miss. - An Alabama judge was jailed on methamphetamine possession charges Tuesday in the same Mississippi town where his wife was arrested earlier this year on similar charges.

Ira D. Colvin, a district judge from Pickens County, Ala., was arrested Monday afternoon by police investigating suspects who were believed to be traveling store-to-store purchasing ingredients for the drug, said sheriff's officer Ivan Bryan.

Officers found precursors for methamphetamine in Colvin's vehicle along with about a gram of powdered meth and a small amount of the drug in liquefied form like it was ready to be injected, Bryan said.

"He had two needles ready to go," said Bryan.

Details here from the AP via the Sun Herald.

Legal Aid Program Has Expensive Taste

WASHINGTON — The government-backed clinic where Richard Taylor seeks free legal help uses furniture worthy of a second-hand store. The carpets are worn. And the walls lack the standard glut of law books and journals that usually adorn law firm libraries.

Across the country, the neighborhood offices of the Legal Services Corp. where one out of every two poor Americans is turned down for help because the agency lacks resources are a far cry from the federal program's headquarters.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the luxuries that executives of Legal Services have given themselves with federal money from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within cab distance of their offices.

"I don't think that's right," Taylor said, as he walked from the program's inner city legal clinic in the nation's capital, covering his head with a towel to protect himself from the searing summer heat.

Details here from the AP via LexisONE.

Wacky Stuff From the Court of Appeal

When bored, I often peruse the California Court of Appeal's daily list of unpublished opinions looking for stuff that is either interesting or just plain weird. Today did not disappoint in the "just plain weird" category.

In Santa Venetia Center for the Arts and Humanities v. San Rafael Unified School Dist (CA1/1), the plaintiff Artists group had contracted to buy some land from the School District, but eventually defaulted. The District sued to quiet title and evict the Artists. The Artists declared bankruptcy and then settled.

Apparently some of the Artists didn't like this, and hired a new lawyer to try to scotch the deal -- eventually resulting in this appeal. It didn't work. Before sanctioning both the Artists and their new attorney, the Court had this to say:

In sum, the artists lack standing to contest most of the matters they cite, their appeal is untimely as to anything of which they have standing to complain, their briefs are defective, their arguments lack merit and their attorney misrepresented the complexity of the issues, apparently as a means of delaying our consideration of the merits of the Artists’ arguments.

Ouch! The Court even went a step further and reported the artists' new attorney, Claire Leary, to the State Bar for possible disciplinary action.

In another case, Murrell v. Mankowski (CA2/6), two sisters fought bitterly over their deceased parents' estate. The prevailing sister, Mankowski, comes off clean as a whistle. The losing (and suing) sister, Murrell, is portrayed as a near-raving lunatic, and got herself declared a vexatious litigant into the bargain:

Notwithstanding Murrell's opposition to the vexatious litigant motion, which she captioned "Answer to False Charges of Being a Vexacious [sic] Litigant. This Motion Should be Titled, Nichols the Vexacious [sic] Perjurer and Liar!" the motion was granted.

The "Nichols" referenced in Murrell's caption is James R. Nichols, Jr., the "good" sister's attorney. Murrell, of course, was pro per.

In my opinion, either of these decisions is more entertaining than your average airport novel, not to mention anything you're likely to find on TV during the ungodly hours when you might actually have time to stare at it.

Man Admits Threatening to Murder Federal Judge

A Queens man admitted Friday that he threatened to kill a federal judge and use a bomb to blow up the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.

The defendant, Wazir Khan, 20, has been held since his arrest in April 2005, less than a month after Eastern District Judge Raymond Dearie received several threats via letter and telephone.

Khan pleaded to knowingly and willfully making a threat, via a phone, to harm a federal judge and destroy a building, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §844(e) and 3551.

He faces between 57 and 71 months in prison, according to the calculations of federal prosecutors, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Khan was trying to "intimidate" Judge Dearie, who was overseeing the prosecution of Khan's mother for credit card fraud. Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.

Former WilmerHale Star Resigns From Bar in Disgrace

A former rising star in the intellectual property practice of WilmerHale has resigned from the bar after admitting to a litany of misconduct, including falsifying expense reports, forging client signatures and assigning associates to perform "pro bono" work for friends and family.

William P. DiSalvatore, who resigned his position as a partner in WilmerHale's New York office in January, offered to resign from the bar in May as he was facing a disciplinary investigation that would have likely led to his disbarment.

"[I]f charges were predicated on the misconduct under investigation, I could not successfully defend myself on the merits against such charges," DiSalvatore, 40, said in the affidavit accompanying his bar resignation.

The Appellate Division, First Department, approved the resignation Thursday in Matter of William P. DiSalvatore, M-3023, ordering the ex-partner's name stricken from the roll of attorneys.

In his affidavit, DiSalvatore admitted to misconduct of unusual breadth.

Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.

Untested Conspiracy Theory Seeks to Expand DUI Liability

If an untested and novel legal theory succeeds, the wife and brother of a binge drinker with a string of drunken driving arrests could be held civilly liable for the death of a bicyclist because they supplied the car, insurance and alcohol to the driver.

The Northern California case uses a conspiracy theory to expand third-party liability as a means to avoid traditional limits on culpability under state dram-shop laws.

Dram-shop laws shield bar owners and social hosts from civil liability if they supply alcohol to a drinker who later causes a death.

Although the theory may be a long shot, a state judge has allowed the suit to proceed to discovery. The suit seeks damages from the wife and bar owner/brother of Joseph Lynchard, 74, of Santa Rosa, Calif.

Details here from the National Law Journal via Law.com.

Cops Suspended Over Video Parody Sue

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Eighteen police officers who were suspended after making a video that parodied life on the force sued the city Thursday, claiming they were victims of racial bias because they were disciplined while four Asian-American officers were not. The plaintiffs include male and female officers who are black, Hispanic and white, said their attorney, Waukeen McCoy. The four officers who took part in the video but were not suspended are of Chinese descent, as is Police Chief Heather Fong, who also was named as a defendant, according to McCoy.

''They weren't disciplined at all,'' McCoy said. ''There were singled out and treated more favorably, and that is a violation of law.''

Two dozen officers were suspended without pay in December after city officials uncovered the 28-minute Christmas party video, which contained depictions of a white officer driving over a black homeless woman and a traffic cop pulling over a woman and ogling her. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Fong quickly condemned the clips, calling them racist, sexist and homophobic.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, also claims that because of the mayor and chief's public denunciation of the video they suffered retaliation, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They lawsuit seeks $20 million in damages.

Newsom said Thursday that he could not comment on the specifics of the allegations, but he reiterated that officers were wrong to make the video on city time while ''mocking and mimicking the community.'' The lawsuit ''only reinforces my concern about action and accountability,'' he said.

As is often the case, I agree with Mayor Newsom's concerns. Details here from the AP via the New York Times. (Note to self: Why hasn't the San Francisco Chronicle picked this up yet?)

Teen Sues Mother for ID of Father

Child wants history of family illness; fear of 'opening the floodgates'

In a case that family law experts fear could set a dangerous precedent, a Michigan teenager is suing his mother to learn the identity of his father.

Family law attorneys say the issue of compelling a mother to reveal the identity of the biological father is a new area of law. And depending on how the Michigan judge rules in the case, they say, courts nationally could see a new flood of lawsuits of children suing their parents.

"You are opening the floodgates of litigation," said Richard Crouch of Crouch & Crouch in Arlington, Va., who has been practicing family law for more than 30 years and has sat on several American Bar Association and Virginia State Bar family law committees. "The courts haven't got any business concerning themselves with this area, even if there are health concerns. You're opening up too large an area where a lot of the litigation would be useless and frivolous."

Details here from The National Law Journal via Law.com.

Order re: Motion to Compel Acceptance of Lunch Invitation

The court ordered the lunch invitation accepted. Res ipsa loquitur. From Judge Pendleton Gaines of the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County. (via FBK)

Judge Declares Lawyer Drunk in Court

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A judge ordered a blood-alcohol test for a defense lawyer who was slurring his words, then declared a mistrial after declaring him too tipsy to argue a kidnapping case.

''I don't think you can tell a straight story because you are intoxicated,'' the judge told Joseph Caramango as she declared a mistrial for his client.

Caramango, 41, acknowledged in court that he was drinking the previous night, but maintained he was not drunk. If convicted, his client faces life in prison.

''I don't believe I've committed any ethical violation,'' Caramango said Tuesday, disputing the accuracy of the breath-alcohol test. ''If it proved anything, it proved I was not intoxicated.''

Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt announced Caramango had a blood-alcohol level of 0.075 percent. Nevada's legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers is 0.08 percent.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times.

UPDATE: Oh, Jesus. CourtTV has full coverage -- 'Dazed and confused' Vegas lawyer causes mistrial after showing up to court drunk -- including video. The video segments are very long, and beyond painful to watch. I recommend it. (via FBK)

Jury Awards Lawyer $1.1 Million in Wrongful Termination Suit

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury has awarded just under $1.1 million to attorney Warren Snider in his wrongful termination suit against the firm of Laquer Urban Clifford & Hodge LLP.

Snider, who worked an associate in Laquer Urban’s Pasadena office from 1991 to 2003, sued the firm in February 2005 alleging it fired him because treatments he underwent for his chronic liver disease required him to scale back his billable hours—to an average of 135-140 hours per month instead of the 150-hour average he would have needed to meet the firm’s annual billable requirement of 1,800 hours. . . .

[F]our months [into his course of treatment], at which point Snider had seven months left of treatment, partner Christopher Laquer fired Snider for insubordination, saying that he violated the firm’s vacation policy when he took a trip to Northern California to attend his father-in-law’s memorial service.

The termination was clearly pretextual, [Snider's attorney Wilmer] Harris told the MetNews.

Details here from the Metropolitan News-Enterprise.

Law Rubs Massage Therapist the Wrong Way

LINDSTROM, Minn. (AP) -- LaRae Lundeen Fjellman could lose her state license as a massage therapist for having sexual relations with her husband.

Her husband, Kirk Fjellman, is a former client. He saw her professionally from October 2000 to May 2002, and the two say they started dating in July 2002. But when they consumated the relationship a few months later, they ran afoul of a Minnesota law that bans massage therapists from having sexual relations with former clients for two years.

''There's no harm, no victim,'' Kirk Fjellman said. ''What's this about?''

The case is before a judge and could be decided this month, with LaRae Fjellman facing a fine and possibly loss of her license. The outcome could have implications for the private lives of an array of alternative health care providers.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times.

Prison Artist Faces Disciplinary Hearing

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A convicted killer who sold postcard-sized paintings he created with dye from M&Ms and brushes fashioned from his hair broke prison rules by running an unauthorized business out of his cell, officials said.

While Donny Johnson hasn't profited from his art -- all the money is being used to start a program for children of inmates -- prison officials said he was wrongfully engaged in a business without the warden's permission.

Johnson, 46, has been locked up since 1980 for second-degree murder in a drug-related killing. In 1989, he was convicted of assaulting one guard and slashing the throat of another. He's now serving life without parole in the most secure unit at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, about 10 miles south of the Oregon border. . . .

[B]ecause he's not allowed to have any art materials in his cell, Johnson orders ''supplies'' from the prison commissary. Once a month, he buys 10 packs of M&Ms at 60 cents each. He then puts a few candies in small plastic jelly containers, adds water and soaks the candies. Johnson's ''paint'' is left behind. His brush is made of plastic wrap, foil and strands of his own hair. He then layers blank postcards with vibrant colors, shapes and spirals.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times. Adam Liptak of the Times wrote a recent interesting article about Mr. Johnson, including an "audio slideshow" of some of his work.

The authorities have already locked Mr. Johnson in an 8 by 12 foot cell for the rest of his life. In my opinion, if he can figure out how to paint in those circumstances, they ought to leave him alone and let him do it.

Judge Orders Killer Released From Prison

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A convicted killer is set to be released from prison after a judge ruled his rights had been violated because he was continuously denied parole.

On Thursday, the state Supreme Court declined to review an appeal by the California attorney general's office, paving the way for Robert Rosenkrantz's release. Earlier this year, the lower court judge had said the state violated Rosenkrantz's rights because his sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole turned into a sentence without that possibility.

Rosenkrantz, now 39, of Calabasas was imprisoned for the 1985 slaying of his boyhood friend who had revealed Rosenkrantz was gay.

Rosenkrantz testified during his trial that he intended to shoot up Redman's car, but killed his friend when he used an anti-gay slur.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times.

Vt. Weighs in on Lesbian Custody Fight

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that Vermont courts, and not those in Virginia, have exclusive jurisdiction over a case involving two women battling for custody of a child they had while they were in a lesbian relationship.

The unanimous ruling conflicts with a series of decisions in Virginia, where courts ruled the state's anti-gay marriage laws controlled the case.

Justice John Dooley wrote that Vermont civil union laws govern the women's 2003 separation and subsequent child custody disagreement because they were legally joined in a civil union there in 2000.

''This is a straightforward interstate jurisdictional dispute over custody, and the governing law fully supports the Vermont court's decision to exercise jurisdiction and refuse to follow the conflicting Virginia visitation order,'' Dooley wrote.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times. The Court's opinion is Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins.

Sexual Offenders Certified as a Class

A federal judge has certified all of Georgia's registered sex offenders as a class for the legal battle over the state's new sex offender law.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper's order allows a challenge to the law's constitutionality to move forward as a class action lawsuit.

Georgia is home to more than 10,000 registered sex offenders. The new law, which the Legislature adopted this spring, bars them from living within 1,000 feet of officially designated school bus stops. Plaintiffs' lawyers say the ban threatens to drive many offenders from their homes.

Details here from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution via LexisONE.com.

Man in Passenger Seat Fights DUI Charge

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) -- A man charged with drunken driving from the passenger's seat has asked a judge to throw out an incriminating statement he made to a state trooper.

Derek Randall Pittman, 26, of Carlisle, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.237 percent when he was arrested, said Michelle Sibert, a Cumberland County assistant district attorney who is prosecuting the case.

Trooper Jeffrey D'Alessandro said he pulled the car over early on the morning of Dec. 26 after watching it swerve from a turning lane into a travel lane on U.S. Route 11.

When D'Alessandro approached the vehicle, he said he found the driver, Lucas Enbacker, holding a large sandwich with both hands and he detected a strong odor of alcohol.

When the trooper asked why the car swerved, Pittman leaned across the front seat and said it was his fault, the trooper said. Pittman said he had briefly held the steering wheel while Enbacker was taking a bite from his sandwich, according to arrest records.

Details here from the AP via the New York Times.

Journalist Jailed For Refusing to Give Up Tapes of Protest

A freelance journalist was jailed today for refusing to give videotapes to a federal grand jury that show an anarchist protest in San Francisco in which a police car was allegedly set on fire.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup found Josh Wolf in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena that the grand jury issued in February for tapes Wolf made of the July 2005 demonstration in the Mission District. Wolf posted some of the videos on his Web site -- thisrevolution.blogspot.com/2006/07/1-year-ago.html -- and sold that footage to local television stations. Federal prosecutors demanded the rest of the tapes, saying they might contain evidence of attempted arson.

Prosecutors contend that burning a police car is a federal crime because the San Francisco Police Department receives federal funds. Wolf and his lawyers accuse the government of manipulating the case to sidestep California's shield law, which allows journalists to withhold unpublished material and confidential sources from prosecutors. There is no federal shield law, and the state law does not apply in federal court.

Wolf, 24, could be jailed until next July, when the grand jury's term expires. Alsup denied his requests for bail or for a 10-day stay while he asks the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the contempt order.

Details here from the San Francisco Chronicle.

U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records

A federal prosecutor may inspect the telephone records of two New York Times reporters in an effort to identify their confidential sources, a federal appeals court in New York ruled yesterday.

The 2-to-1 decision, from a court historically sympathetic to claims that journalists should be entitled to protect their sources, reversed a lower court and dealt a further setback to news organizations, which have lately been on a losing streak in the federal courts.

The dissenting judge said that the government had failed to demonstrate it truly needed the records and that efforts to obtain reporters’ phone records could alter the way news gathering was conducted.

Details here from Adam Liptak of the New York Times.

N.Y. Panel Disbars Attorney for Forging Judge's Name

An appeals court in Brooklyn has disbarred an attorney who was convicted of criminal contempt for forging the signature of a Family Court judge during a post-divorce proceeding against her ex-husband.

A unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, said that it could not offer a lesser sentence for the attorney, Mary K. Henning, despite her otherwise unblemished record.

"Notwithstanding the mitigation advanced by the respondent, inasmuch as her misconduct goes to the heart of the judicial system, the respondent is disbarred," the court wrote in Matter of Henning, 2004-06838.

Henning denies that she forged the signature, despite the findings of a Supreme Court justice and the 2nd Department, according to a phone message from her attorney, Michael G. Santangelo. He said she had moved to Massachusetts and is no longer practicing law.

Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.

Michigan High Court Reprimands Lawyer for Comparing Judges to Nazis

The Michigan Supreme Court on Monday reprimanded an outspoken lawyer for "vulgar and crude" attacks against appeals court judges, whom he likened during radio appearances to Nazis. The court voted 4-3 to reprimand Geoffrey Fieger for twice appearing on Detroit-areas radio shows in 1999 and calling state Court of Appeals judges "jackasses" and other names. The judges had angered Fieger by overturning a $15 million medical malpractice judgment he had won.

Fieger -- best known for defending assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian -- also likened the judges to Adolph Hitler and other Nazis.

Fieger argued he and other lawyers have a First Amendment right to publicly criticize judges. The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board agreed in a 2004 ruling, but the grievance board that filed the complaint against Fieger appealed to the state's high court.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Clifford Taylor concluded Fieger's broadcast remarks were "nothing more than personal abuse."

The dissent said Fieger's speech was political and should be protected under the U.S. Constitution.

Details here from the AP via Law.com.

Notice of Appeal, Asshole

Plaintiff George C. Swinger, Jr., an inmate in Washington State, filed a pro se Notice of Appeal in a civil case before U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton in the Western District of Washington. The Notice, filed July 12, 2006, states:

I hereby am informing you that I am appealing the asshole Ronald B. Leighton's decision in this matter.

You have been hereby served Notice. You're not getting away with this shit that easy.

You can view the handwritten Notice of Appeal here (.pdf). (via FBK) (That's almost as good as a "Motion to Kiss My Ass" . . . .)