Overlawyered » prisoners http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Further update roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/further-update-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/further-update-roundup/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:10:08 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25626
  • More on prosecution of “jury nullification” activist Julian Heicklen [Brian Doherty, Tim Lynch/Cato, earlier]
  • Age-bias litigant who complained about 88 year old judge is reassigned same judge [NYDN via Ellie K., earlier]
  • Court certifies Nutella class action [Russell Jackson, earlier here and here]
  • D.C. agency dismisses Banzhaf’s complaint about single-sex dorms at Catholic U. [Caron, earlier]
  • After SCOTUS decision in Brown v. Plata, L.A. faces possible release of thousands of inmates [PoL, earlier here, here and here, Federalist Society panel]
  • Cautionary tale of star attorney Stanley Chesley [Corporate Counsel] Ken Feinberg, Harvey Pitt back off expert avowals in Chesley cases [Robert Ambrogi] Judge Bamberger disbarred in Kentucky fen-phen scandal [ABA Journal]
  • Texas doctor will surrender license in case where nurses faced false criminal charges [PoL, earlier]
  • Mistrial in case of New Jersey lawyer Paul Bergrin [Star-Ledger, earlier]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/further-update-roundup/feed/ 2     July 22 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-22-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-22-roundup-2/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:30:14 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23977
  • Illinois prisoner sues for land to start his own country [AP]
  • “Have you got a piece of this lawsuit?” Important Roger Parloff piece on litigation finance [Fortune, now out from paywall] “Hedge Funds Finance Medical Malpractice Claims” [Jeff Segal, Michael Sacopulos and Wayne Oliver, Forbes via White Coat]
  • Criminalizing bad parenting: more scrutiny of “Caylee’s Law” proposals [Steve Chapman, L.A. Times and Boston Globe editorials, New Scientist]
  • Deal with ADA complainant averts closure of popular Popponesset Marketplace in Mashpee, Mass. [Cape Cod News]
  • Because it’s not as if NYC needs electricity or anything: Bloomberg gives $50 million to Sierra Club campaign to stop coal burning by utilities [WaPo] “Environmental justice” arguments deployed against pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil to U.S. [John Kendrick, WLF]
  • Unimpaired have permanent right to sue: Fla. high court throws out asbestos-reform law [PBP]
  • Red tape demanded by quality-of-life progressivism suffices to strangle poorer urban economies [Walter Russell Mead]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-22-roundup-2/feed/ 5     June 27 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-27-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-27-roundup/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:57:27 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23568
  • “Electronic Arts Has Right to Refer to John Dillinger in Its Video Games” [Volokh]
  • Fans of “Civil Gideon” (constitutional entitlement to publicly funded lawyers in civil cases) glum that SCOTUS didn’t give idea much of a boost in Turner v. Rogers case last week [Concurring Opinions symposium, ABA Journal]
  • Feds (in particular, the FTC) go after Google [AW, Manne & Wright/TotM, Stoll]
  • “The Dept of Education, Yale, and the New Threat to Free Speech on Campus” [Greg Lukianoff/HuffPo] “In Making Campuses Safe for Women, a Travesty of Justice for Men” [Christina Sommers, Chron Higher Ed] Feds crack down on campus flirting and sex jokes [Michael Barone, D.C. Examiner] Heather Mac Donald on Yale hostile-environment complaint [City Journal, earlier] “Why Cross-Examination Rights Matter in Campus Sexual Harassment Cases” [Hans Bader]
  • Trial lawyer propaganda coup? HBO airs plaintiff’s-side “Hot Coffee” documentary [Abnormal Use, Ted Frank/PoL, Schwartz/NYT, more, yet more]
  • Financial institutions abroad will be pleased to be roped into U.S. regulatory schemes. Won’t they? [Dan Mitchell, Cato at Liberty]
  • Proposal for judge-guided negotiations in NY med-mal cases leaves Ted Frank underwhelmed [PoL]
  • “Virginia inmate sues after gruesome tries at sex change” [AP]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-27-roundup/feed/ 2     Conrad Black “supercilious” in the slammer? http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/conrad-black-supercilious-in-the-slammer/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/conrad-black-supercilious-in-the-slammer/#comments Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:09:46 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23437 Watch out for sentencing spin, warns Scott Greenfield.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/conrad-black-supercilious-in-the-slammer/feed/ 1     June 10 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-10-roundup-4/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-10-roundup-4/#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:41:43 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23338
  • The appalling reign of California’s prison guards union [Tim Kowal, League of Ordinary Gentlemen via Tim Cavanaugh; Steven Malanga, City Journal; earlier]
  • Defense side, including dozens of sued bloggers, begins to respond in “Rakofsky v. Internet” case [Turkewitz, Popehat, earlier]
  • Point/counterpoint on class action arbitration clauses [Karlsgodt]
  • Group plans to Twitter-fy the novel Ulysses via crowdsourcing in time for Bloomsday, but let’s hope nobody tells litigation-prone Joyce heir [Ulysses Meets Twitter 2011 via BoingBoing]
  • Battle over reform of joint and several liability continues in Pennsylvania legislature [Wajert]
  • From Miami, latest dramatic tale of cops vs. citizen video-taking [David Rittgers, Cato at Liberty] New Jersey bill would criminalize taking photos of kids in many circumstances [Nicole Ciandella, CEI, see also]
  • Australia: “Man Gets Workers’ Comp for Injury Sustained When Punching Customer” [Lowering the Bar]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-10-roundup-4/feed/ 1     June 1 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-1-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-1-roundup-2/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:58:57 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23199
  • More views on California prisoner release: Steve Chapman (California can incarcerate less and be safer), John Eastman/City Journal (state’s pols share blame for conditions), Sarah Hart, FedSoc SCOTUScast (sharing dissenters’ foreboding). Earlier here and here;
  • Stephen Carter, “Economic Stagnation Explained, at 30,000 Feet” [Bloomberg/RCP]
  • Long-running legal campaign aimed at blocking new coal-fired power plants [Conn Carroll, Examiner]
  • Unconsciously? “We hope it sends a message that if you … unconsciously ignore the law, you could go to jail.” [WSJ Law Blog on prosecution of executive following pool drain entrapment death]
  • Following outcry: “Disney withdraws application to trademark ‘SEAL Team 6′” [AP, earlier]
  • More fact-checking of Scott Horton Guantanamo Harper’s article mysteriously awarded prize by ASME [Alex Koppelman/AdWeek, Joe Carter/First Things, Jack Shafer/Slate (citing "slipperiness and many flights of illogic"), FishBowlNY, Politico, Noah Davis/Business Insider, Cutline, earlier] Horton is a lecturer at Columbia Law and his piece drew on work done at Seton Hall Law. More: defense of Horton at leftist TruthOut site;
  • Germans hesitate to join nanny-state parade [four years ago on Overlawyered]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-1-roundup-2/feed/ 2     California prison crowding injunction, cont’d http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/california-prison-crowding-injunction-contd/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/california-prison-crowding-injunction-contd/#comments Thu, 26 May 2011 15:59:38 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23135 More reactions to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Brown v. Plata decision (earlier) from Scott Greenfield, Heather Mac Donald, and Eli Lehrer. Steven Greenhut explains how compensation for California prison guards came to take priority over facilities improvement; unionized prison employees’ role in lobbying for more draconian incarceration laws has also occasioned much outrage, from, among others, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote this week’s opinion. And (h/t Tyler Cowen) here is a 1995 paper by economist Steven Levitt finding (using numbers from that era) that “For each one-prisoner reduction induced by prison overcrowding litigation, the total number of crimes committed increases by approximately 15 per year. The social benefit from eliminating those 15 crimes is approximately $45,000; the annual per prisoner costs of incarceration are roughly $30,000.”

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/california-prison-crowding-injunction-contd/feed/ 3     SCOTUS approves Ninth Circuit prisoner-overcrowding order http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/scotus-approves-ninth-circuit-prisoner-overcrowding-order/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/scotus-approves-ninth-circuit-prisoner-overcrowding-order/#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 19:35:21 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23093 Alas, my chapter on institutional reform litigation in Schools for Misrule has proved only too relevant to the headlines: In today’s 5-4 Brown v. Plata decision, the Supreme Court approved a Ninth Circuit panel’s order that 46,000 California prisoners be freed to relieve overcrowding (opinion PDF via Josh Blackman). Alito (with Roberts) dissented on the grounds that the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act requires nothing of the sort, and in fact was drafted with a mind to discourage such outcomes:

    Before ordering any prisoner release, the PLRA commands a court to “give substantial weight to any adverse impact on public safety or the operation of a criminal justice system caused by the relief.” §3626(a)(1)(A). This provision unmistakably reflects Congress’ view that prisoner release orders are inherently risky. In taking this view, Congress was well aware of the impact of previous prisoner release orders. The prisoner release program carried out a few years earlier in Philadelphia is illustrative. In the early 1990’s, federal courts enforced a cap on the number of inmates in the Philadelphia prison system, and thousands of inmates were set free. Although efforts were made to release only those prisoners who were least likely to commit violent crimes, that attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful. During an 18-month period, the Philadelphia police rearrested thousands of these prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes. Those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, and 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses. Members of Congress were well aware of this experience.

    Scalia (with Thomas) dissented on the grounds that, PLRA aside, the orders go far beyond the federal courts’ prescribed role and institutional competence:

    It is important to recognize that the dressing-up of policy judgments as factual findings is not an error peculiar to this case. It is an unavoidable concomitant of institutional-reform litigation. When a district court issues an injunction, it must make a factual assessment of the anticipated consequences of the injunction. And when the injunction undertakes to restructure a social institution, assessing the factual consequences of the injunction is necessarily the sort of predictive judgment that our system of government allocates to other government officials.

    But structural injunctions do not simply invite judges to indulge policy preferences. They invite judges to indulge incompetent policy preferences. Three years of law school and familiarity with pertinent Supreme Court precedents give no insight whatsoever into the management of social institutions. Thus, in the proceeding below the District Court determined that constitutionally adequate medical services could be provided if the prison population was 137.5% of design capacity. This was an empirical finding it was utterly unqualified to make. Admittedly, the court did not generate that number entirely on its own; it heard the numbers 130% and 145% bandied about by various witnesses and decided to split the difference. But the ability of judges to spit back or even average-out numbers spoon-fed to them by expert witnesses does not render them competent decisionmakers in areas in which they are otherwise unqualified.

    Concur: Ted Frank, Hans Bader. A contrasting view: Tim Lynch at Cato. Background: podcast with Sarah Hart, Federalist Society. And Jason Mazzone asks whether the majority’s inclusion of a photo of crowded prisoners really helps or hurts its case with the public.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/scotus-approves-ninth-circuit-prisoner-overcrowding-order/feed/ 24     “Vacaville Inmate Sues State For Sex Change Surgery” http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/vacaville-inmate-sues-state-for-sex-change-surgery/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/vacaville-inmate-sues-state-for-sex-change-surgery/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:05:42 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22707 An inmate convicted of murder in 2002 has made it to the appeals court level with a suit against the California Corrections Department’s policy that “sexual reassignment surgery is not a covered benefit.” [KCBS]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/vacaville-inmate-sues-state-for-sex-change-surgery/feed/ 6     “Convicted Terrorist’s Demand for High-Fiber Diet is Rejected” http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/convicted-terrorists-demand-for-high-fiber-diet-is-rejected/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/convicted-terrorists-demand-for-high-fiber-diet-is-rejected/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:03:41 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=18933 Terry Nichols, who did not seem notably concerned about the health of the Oklahoma City victims, has now developed an interest in healthy foodways, but a federal judge did not go along with his request to order that his diet be changed to include more whole grains and fruits. [Lowering the Bar]

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