“In 2009, an earthquake devastated the Italian city of L’Aquila and killed more than 300 people. Now, scientists are on trial for manslaughter.” [Stephen S. Hall, Nature via Arts & Letters Daily]
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Posts tagged as:
crime and punishment
How they feed off each other. [Lucian Dervan, Journal of Law, Economics and Policy, SSRN]
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Bad enough when the media caters to this sort of thing, but when government itself does it, you may have crossed into Arpaio territory [Coyote] Related: David Kravets, Wired.
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I’ve got a few thoughts up at Cato on the case of the 11-year-old Virginia girl who tried to rescue a baby woodpecker in the back yard only to learn that possessing and transporting a migratory bird is a federal offense that carries a $500 fine and possible jail term. (& Henry Joel Simmons, Right on Crime)
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Great WSJ article on the unending proliferation of federal crimes, with appearances by a family that ran into a law making it a felony to dig for arrowheads on federal land, Bobby Unser and his snowmobile-astray ordeal, and a man effectively ruined by the $860,000+ cost of successfully defending himself against a federal charge of violating Russian hunting regulations.
“Most people think criminal law is for bad people,” says Timothy Lynch of Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. People don’t realize “they’re one misstep away from the nightmare of a federal indictment.”
More: from Tim Lynch, and (via PoL) Josh Blackman, William Anderson/Regulation mag.
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- Correct result, yet potential for mischief in latest SCOTUS climate ruling [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, my earlier take]
- Wouldn’t even want to guess: how the Howard Stern show handles sexual harassment training [Hyman]
- Philadelphia: $21 million award against emergency room handling noncompliant patient [Kennerly]
- Antitrust assault on Google seems geared to protect competitors more than consumers [Josh Wright]
- “They knew there was a risk!” Curb your indignation please [Coyote]
- Theme issue of Reason magazine on failures of criminal justice system is now online;
- “Why Your New Car Doesn’t Have a Spare Tire” [Sam Kazman, WSJ]
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved S. 978, a bill that would raise from a misdemeanor to a felony the unauthorized performance or streaming of a copyrighted work when the infringement takes place at least ten times and either reaps $2,500 or more in revenue, or avoids the payment of license fees whose fair market value would exceed $5,000. Mike Masnick at TechDirt thinks the bill could wind up authorizing the jailing of some persons who embed YouTube videos or post videos of themselves lip-synching hit tunes; CopyHype defends the bill and dismisses the concerns as overblown.
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- Supreme Court disbars Bill Lerach [Richard Samp, WLF] And check out the byline of the former class-action king’s recent contribution to The Nation; do you think it omits anything material? [h/t Bob Lenzner]
- Ted Frank guessed right on outcome of Wal-Mart case but still lost big betting on it [PoL]
- After feds seize online bettors’ money, Anne Arundel County, Maryland police department crows over windfall [CEI] And c’mon Maryland, surely we in the home state of H.L. Mencken and Frederick Douglass can do better in the liberty rankings than this;
- “Wrongful-Death Lawsuit Filed After Man Killed by Rooster” [Lowering the Bar]
- Hotel union behind California bill mandating fitted sheets [Daily Caller, earlier]
- Fifth Circuit upholds constitutionality of Texas law banning barratry (stirring up litigation) [Christian Southwick, Legal Ethics Forum]
- A Linda Greenhouse column I agree with? One of us must be slipping [vagueness in criminal statutes, see related Harvey Silverglate]
According to his lawyer, Indiana high school senior Tyell Morton would have faced a maximum of three years had he brought a gun to school. Unfortunately for young Morton, he brought a blow-up doll instead. [Nsenga Burton/The Root, WTHR, Alkon]
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Watch out for sentencing spin, warns Scott Greenfield.
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Cynical? Even more so than usual? The Harvard lawprof lays out a theory that ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his accuser share an interest in cooperating to foil prosecutor Cy Vance [Newsweek]
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If prosecutors are to be believed, Paul Bergrin not only defrauded lenders on a grand scale but “set up witnesses to be murdered before they could testify against his clients”. “I can’t have some [expletive] lawyer in suspenders and I’m supposed say thanks because he got my sentence down to twenty years,” said one murder-rap defendant client. “I’m paying top dollar, and I demand legal brilliance. Someone who will consider all the options.” [New York magazine]
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Defendants may be presented at a very late stage with new allegations which they’ve never heard before and are precluded from challenging [Scott Greenfield]
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Congress is once again considering expanding an “anti-hacking” law that’s already disturbingly broad. Will users someday risk a felony rap for flouting websites’ Terms of Use? [Orin Kerr, Volokh]
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My Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro on the Obama Education Department’s unsettling insistence that colleges and universities, on pain of losing federal dollars, pare back the due process accorded to those accused of sexual misconduct. [Cato at Liberty]
Plus: earlier on Yale’s submissive reaction to Title IX complaint and suspension of a fraternity. More: “hostile environment” Title IX complaints leveled against other schools as well; Cathy Young on campus sexual assault numbers.
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Race car great Bobby Unser discusses his legal ordeal — after his snowmobile got lost in a blizzard, he was charged with having entered protected federal wilderness land — in this Heritage Foundation video [more]
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Ontario: “A judge has reopened a major legal controversy by ruling that accused people can claim they were too drunk to be found culpable of committing crimes.” [Globe & Mail]
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Brian Walsh and Benjamin Keane of the Heritage Foundation explore the collision between ever-advancing criminalization and the values of the U.S. Constitution. [Heritage Legal Memorandum]
