Fort Worth Star-Telegram consumer columnist Dave Lieber, 50, had an argument with his son in the restaurant parking lot the morning of Aug. 13, told him to walk home, but doubled back to return minutes later after thinking better of it. Police later arrested him on two felony charges of child abandonment. Watauga, a suburb of Fort Worth, has crime rates well below the national average. (Alex Branch, “S-T Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber arrested”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 27; Dave Lieber, “How parents can learn from serious mistakes”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 15; Chuck Lindell, “Father’s arrest ignites debate over child abandonment”, Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 28).

Wired.com, meet Radley Balko and Jeralyn Merritt.

“Hundreds of people in Alabama and Nevada have been prosecuted” for doing that, per Alex Tabarrok (Marginal Revolution, Aug. 15).

University of Iowa professor Arthur H. Miller (who is not the NYU Law professor Arthur Miller) allegedly traded grades and offered to trade grades for second-base action with female students, appropriately resulting in criminal charges and being placed on leave by the university.  Paul Caron points us to this Chronicle of Higher Education blog post that says Iowa has ordered all of its professors to undergo sensitivity training to avoid sexual harassment.  Because obviously a professor who would demand students let him fondle their breasts for a grade would never have engaged in such a behavior if only he had an additional hour of sensitivity training.

What this is really about is lawsuit prevention.  Just as a doctor fearful of being sued will order an inefficient, wasteful, and possibly counterproductive medical test, an employer fearful of being sued will insist upon inefficient, wasteful, and possibly counterproductive sensitivity training.

“Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school,” said former (two-term) Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, according to FoxNews.com’s report of a tape of remarks made by Gravel to a Washington, D.C. crowd last week. (”Former Presidential Candidate Urges Crowd to Stalk Federal Prosecutor”, Aug. 5)(via Taranto).

• If you’re claiming benefits for “total and permanent” disability it’s probably best not to enter bodybuilding competitions [Boston Globe and more, firefighter Albert Arroyo] More: GruntDoc;
• From 1884 Montreal: actionable to snub a parishioner while taking collection in church? [Volokh]
• Follow the bouncing venue in lawsuits against Rick Frenkel and Cisco over Patent Troll Tracker blog [Texas Lawyer "Tex Parte" blog]
• Individual liberty was one reason Bill Gates was free to earn his billions, too bad he’s not doing more to advance it with his philanthropy [NYTimes, Bloomberg and "tobacco control"]
• Andrew Giuliani, son of the mayor, is suing Duke University for kicking him off its golf team [Newsday, Henican] More: complaint at Popehat;
• New at Point of Law: AAJ, formerly ATLA, has its convention in Philadelphia (more); bogeyman of supposedly ultraconservative Roberts Court; why must “trophy” federal courthouses have such soulless and uncomfortable design?; Congress gunning for arbitration; too bad NYT’s enthusiasm for transparent public contracting on corporate monitors doesn’t carry over to other lawyer-hiring; the Delaware advantage in court organization; as we keep asking, what happened to Ron Motley’s yacht? and much more;
• Dr. Anna Pou, New Orleans cancer surgeon whose prosecution after Katrina roused intense controversy, recounts her experience [AP via Folo]
• “Unreal world of greed”: California appeals court throws out $88 million fee-arbitration award to Milberg Weiss and other firms following challenge to “smog impact fees” [six years ago on Overlawyered]

[A] large deal of the gleeful Spitzerfreude on Wall Street arose from of the poetic justice of Spitzer’s undoing at the hands of the same extra-judicial tactics he regularly used against Wall Street firms and corporate executives when he was attorney general of New York. The real scandal of Spitzer’s career was not so much the former Girls Gone Wild model as the prosecutors gone wild.

My retrospective of Eliot Spitzer as both archetype and victim of overaggressive prosecutors in the July/August American Spectator is now on line at the AEI website.

Big-league Arkansas trial lawyer Tab Turner did it, and was fined $9,500. Big-league Michigan trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger did it, and managed to beat the rap at his recent trial. And now we learn that big-league California trial lawyer Pierce O’Donnell did it too: evaded limits on campaign contributions to John Edwards by reimbursing underlings to enable them to contribute. Would it be simpler to compile a list of the big Edwards backers who did obey the law? (WSJ law blog, Jul. 24). More on Edwards campaign finance shenanigans here.

Update Jul. 25, NLJ: O’Donnell indicted, based on a separate episode of laundering of contributions (to Los Angeles mayoral campaign of James Hahn).

Philadelphia and New York City prosecutors say Richard Gottfried (who is not the New York state assemblyman of the same name) wrongfully obtained hundreds of thousands in court-appointed work as a sentencing expert for indigent criminal defendants, in the process collecting money for work never performed. Gottfried, who allegedly invented degrees for himself, knows a bit about sentencing from the other side: he’s an ex-convict whom authorities say had been involved earlier in mail fraud and a real estate scam. (AP/Washington Post; Bronx D.A. Robert Johnson release, Jul. 8; Philadelphia DA Lynne Abraham case listing, Mar. 13, 2006).

Louisville Courier-Journal:

After 52 hours of deliberation over eight days, a federal jury yesterday declared it was hopelessly deadlocked in deciding whether attorneys William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. defrauded clients of $65 million in Kentucky’s 2001 fen-phen settlement.

After the judge declared a mistrial, the jury foreman, Donald Rainone of Erlanger, said jurors were stuck at 10-2 to acquit the defendants, and had been at that vote for much of their deliberations.

“We felt the prosecution just didn’t have a strong enough case,” Rainone said in a phone interview in which he strongly criticized the prosecution for being unprepared and focusing its case on only Gallion, Cunningham and a third lawyer, Melbourne Mills Jr.

“There’s a lot of people that had their hand in this,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that should have been on trial that weren’t.”

Rainone declined to say who else should have been on trial, saying he didn’t want to “get sued.”

Of course, that the prosecution failed to indict participants in the fen-phen scam who also stole from tens of thousands to tens of millions doesn’t explain why one votes to acquit the criminal defendant attorneys who stole millions–except for the fact that the defendants were able to blame the empty chair for their actions. If the defendants’ allegations about Stan Chesley’s role are half true, the question remains why Ohio disciplinary authorities have not so much as opened an investigation, much less failed to disbar him. But we will perhaps learn more as the civil trial progresses. Meanwhile, as Peter Bronson writes, “giving immunity to someone so powerful, wealthy and politically wired was everything that destroys public trust in the justice system.”

Judge William O. Bertelsman, who has taken senior status, has recused himself from the retrial; the new judge, Danny Reeves, will likely be requested to lower the eight-digit bond for Gallion and Cunningham, who remain in jail. Melbourne Mills, who was acquitted, says he has already spent the $20 million he was paid for his role in the case–a case his lawyer told a jury that he was too drunk to work on and didn’t understand the underlying law. Nice work if you can get it.

Off-the-record reports I am receiving about the trial blame prosecutors’ performance (such as failing to object to defendant expert opinion that contradicted the facts) and Judge Bertelsman’s instructions to the jury; it also seems to me that the defendants were given far too much leeway to argue the law before the jurors when the judge should have given a straightforward instruction that the underlying case was or was not a class action covering all future Kentucky claimants rather than allow argument over that simple legal question. (Answer: it wasn’t. The settlement with AHP explicitly says it’s a lump-sum settlement for existing plaintiffs requiring the attorneys to comply with Rule 1.8, and there is no indemnification provision contrary to defense testimony arguing otherwise.)

On November 14, 1999, high-school dropout Rolando Domingo Montez, celebrating his 19th birthday, was arrested for public intoxication and trespass after the owner of the boat on which he and his friends were sitting complained. Police placed him in Cell No. 1 of the Port Isabel City Jail. The next morning, Montez was permitted to make some collect calls from his jail cell to seek bail money from his mother, Pearl Iris Garza. Mom, complaining that Montez was in jail again, refused. But she generously came to pick up Montez on the 16th when he was released on his own recognizance. Unfortunately, while Garza was waiting in the lobby, and while police were responding to a call for assistance regarding a suspicious vehicle, Montez hung himself with the 19-inch phone cord from the phone he had used to make the calls.

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ILR comments. The judge-bribing attorney had requested a 30-month sentence (in conjunction with the now-standard set of hundreds of letters listing his supposed good deeds); his plea agreement provided for a five-year maximum sentence, which he got. He’ll still have the jet and millions of dollars when he gets out, even after paying the $250,000 fine imposed at the sentencing. David Rossmiller and Folo will undoubtably continue their excellent coverage, or check our previous Dickie Scruggs coverage.

Jonathan D. Glater reports that the former Milberg Weiss will pay $75 million over five years; the government will release a statement saying no current attorneys committed wrongdoing. (”Firm to Settle Class-Action Case for $75 Million”, NY Times, Jun. 17; also W$J). The W$J says the firm will admit that it committed wrongdoing in the past, but will not actually plead guilty–i.e., the same sort of deferred prosecution agreement that the NY Times recently condemned in the context of business. (To be clear: I’m not objecting to a deferred prosecution agreement here. Felony convictions for entities are usually effectively death sentences, and that is pointless if the guilty parties have actually left the building.)

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• As I type this post, I’m listening to Andrew Frey argue Conrad Black’s appeal before Judge Posner and the Seventh Circuit. Posner seems to be confused over whether incorrect jury instructions can be prejudicial in a general verdict. [Bashman roundup; earlier]
• “For years families bogged down in Harris County [Texas] probate courts have accused judges of bleeding estates of tens of thousands of dollars to pay high-priced lawyers for unnecessary work.” [Houston Chronicle; Alpert v. Riley (Tex. App. Jun. 5, 2008) (via)]
• Company sets policy. Employee violates policy. Is corporation criminally responsible for employee’s act? [POL; FCPA blog; Podgor]
• Merrill Lynch banker asks for investigation of Enron Task Force withholding of exculpatory evidence [Bloomberg]
• When calculating the costs of medical malpractice suits, let’s not forget the noneconomic costs. “In the [John] Ritter case, the jury agreed with the defendant physicians and exonerated them of any liability. They were lucky. How lucky? They were able to spend four years with attorneys worrying about their future, including the potential that they would be ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars and be left penniless. So, they didn’t really win. They just lost less.” [EM News via Kevin MD via Dr. RW]
• Nor should we forget the defensive medicine costs. [Kevin MD]
• Legal reform = job creation. [American Courthouse]
• According to Justinian Lane, if you’re reading this post, you’re a “spineless sycophant.” [Bizarro-Overlawyered]

In today’s NY Times, Joe Nocera lambastes Bill Lerach’s lack of remorse and notes that his crimes weren’t victimless.  To which I would add: given that Lerach’s Portfolio defense of his crimes demonstrates that he lied in his sentencing letter to the court and the allocution he made, and given that Lerach got a reduced sentence under the Guidelines for “acceptance of responsibility” because of those false representations, why isn’t the government looking to make a criminal contempt or perjury charge?  (We’ll give John Keker the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know what was in Lerach’s heart when he falsely told the court “Mr. Lerach has stepped up and accepted responsibility.”)  Surely Judge John Walter doesn’t condone this sort of thing.

If the government doesn’t step up here, it’s further evidence that they got rolled in their plea negotiation with Lerach.

For those interested in an update on the Tracy Barker case, where litigation lobby activists falsely stated that an arbitration agreement prevented her from getting civil justice in the case of her alleged sexual assault, Barker’s suit against her alleged assaulter Ali Mokhtare proceeds before Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia, case no. 1:07-cv-01231-LMB-BRP. Mokhtare denies the allegations. Barker appears to have fired Todd Kelly or vice versa. Discovery closed April 17. After discovery closed, Barker moved to amend her complaint a second time to add new allegations; Mokhtare moved to substitute the United States in his stead; the US rejected Mokhtare’s request and opposed the motion, arguing that he was not acting in the scope of employment. Judge Brinkema rejected both motions. Mokhtare is appealing the US’s decision to the Fourth Circuit (No. 08-1560).

If the feds are really in search of types of jobholders with a high risk of scandal and defalcation, we could probably come up with some other nominees for them. (John Berlau, CEI “Open Market”, May 23). New York apparently has such a system already (North Country Gazette); see also Reason comments (employees of SEC-regulated financial institutions).

New Jersey: “An Essex County jury has ordered Newark to pay $4.1 million to the family of a murdered Seton Hall University student because of mistakes made by a police dispatcher and 911 operator during her abduction. The jury’s verdict came after the attorney for Sohayla Massachi’s family argued that prompt action by the Newark police may have prevented her murder after she was abducted by a jilted boyfriend in May 2000.” The jury attributed 25 percent of its $5.5 million award to Seton Hall and its security agency, Argenbright Security Inc., but those defendants had already settled. (William Kleinknecht, Newark Star-Ledger, May 16).