Overlawyered » prosecution

Prosecution, depression, and the Aaron Swartz case

Walter Olson — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:36:42 +0000

From Ken at Popehat, harrowing but vital reading.

Prosecution, depression, and the Aaron Swartz case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

DoJ suddenly drops high-profile New Orleans prosecution

Walter Olson — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:02:03 +0000

Some locals are “stunned” that Justice would drop the River Birch case after four years of vigorous prosecution, and wonder whether there is any link to recent resignations and misconduct charges among high-level figures in the U.S. attorney’s office. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, more, earlier]

Tags: New Orleans, prosecution

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Police and prosecution roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 04:05:52 +0000

Why you should discount many “minor offender faces eleventy-billion-year sentence” stories [Popehat] One day of smurfing made her a “career offender” [Sullivan]
“In Dog We Trust”: Scott Greenfield and Radley Balko dissent from unanimous SCOTUS verdict on police canines [Simple Justice, Huffington Post]
Arizona lawmaker would make it felony to impersonate someone on social media [Citizen Media Law]
“Can juries tame prosecutors gone wild?” [Leon Neyfakh, Boston Globe "Ideas"]
“Cop exposes D.C. speed camera racket” [Radley Balko] How Rockville, Md. squeezes drivers who stop in front of the white line or do rolling right turns [WTOP]
After scandal: “Pennsylvania Senate Passes Legislation to Eliminate Philadelphia Traffic Court” [Legal Intelligencer, earlier]
Bloomberg precursor? When Mayor LaGuardia got NYC to ban pinball [Sullivan]

Tags: police, prosecution, red light cameras, social media, traffic laws

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Banking and finance roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 04:06:16 +0000

David Henderson reviews Roger Donway book on Greg Reyes backdated-options prosecution [Econlog]
Francis Menton on Argentina vs. creditors [Manhattan Contrarian via FedSoc Blog]
New book, with co-author Lawrence Cunningham, gives Hank Greenberg’s side of the story on AIG [Concur Op, NY Post]
Are Wall Street’s expert networks a violation of insider trading laws? [David Zaring, Conglomerate via Bainbridge]
“A Brief Explanation Of The Economics Of Securities Lawsuits” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes] Related: Alison Frankel, Reuters [history of attempts at reform]
What, a new bank? Yes, the proposed Bank of Bird-in-Hand [Kevin Funnell]
Rules-based, low-discretion enforcement of Dodd-Frank? If only [Louise Bennetts (Cato), Jurist]

Tags: Argentina, banks, prosecution, securities litigation

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Orin Kerr on the Aaron Swartz case

Walter Olson — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:18:34 +0000

A two-part post, with part 1 on the law as applied to the facts, and part II on sentencing, prosecutorial discretion, and the appropriate targets for reformist energy. Earlier here (& Greenfield; Timothy Lee and Mike Masnick on plea bargaining).

Tags: crime and punishment, prosecution, technology

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“What the Aaron Swartz case says about our justice system”

Walter Olson — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 04:12:09 +0000

Programmer Aaron Swartz, a founder of RSS syndication and Reddit, committed a series of trespasses and hacks at MIT so as to download millions of papers from the JSTOR academic database, possibly with the plan of making them freely available through file sharing. When caught he returned the files and JSTOR did not recommend prosecution. In September Timothy Lee wrote in Ars Technica that while there was no excuse for Swartz’s actions, it was also mystifying that federal prosecutors were going to such lengths to stack up felony counts and legal theories under the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) that could send the popular techie to prison for life. Now Swartz, who is known to have been afflicted by depression, is dead, a suicide at age 26. [Jonathan Blanks, Lawrence Lessig, Glenn Greenwald, Patterico interview with Swartz lawyer Elliot Peters, Scott Greenfield, Orin Kerr (disputing premise that prosecutors overcharged), Timothy Lee/WaPo]

Tags: prosecution, technology

“What the Aaron Swartz case says about our justice system” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Police and prosecution roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 04:09:31 +0000

Forensics scandal keeps widening, as FBI agents trained state and local examiners in faulty methods [WaPo, Radley Balko] New York Times wades into case of Mississippi pathologist Steven Hayne [Reason] “Massachusetts Lab Scandal Leads to Fears of the Guilty Being Freed, Not So Much About the Innocent Being Jailed” [Shackford]
“Speed camera reform gains momentum with Maryland lawmakers” [Washington Examiner, editorial, WBAL]
“Gas masks, helmets for state alcohol-control agents — Everyone is a law-enforcement agent these days” [Steven Greenhut/PSI]
How the media hatched the “bath salts face-chewer” tale [Sullum]
“FBI investigating Utah state trooper for arresting sober people, charging them with DUI, lying on witness stand.” [@radleybalko summarizing Salt Lake City Tribune]
Looking forward to 2013 docket in white-collar crime [Peter Henning, NYT DealBook]
Bruce Green (Fordham), “Prosecutors and Professional Regulation” [SSRN via White Collar Crime Prof]

Tags: expert witnesses, illegal drugs, Maryland, prosecution, red light cameras

Police and prosecution roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Civil liberties roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:30:27 +0000

Drones in domestic policing a liberty danger, warns NYT [editorial, earlier]
When prosecutors freeze bank accounts, high-level targets can’t hire the best lawyers to defend themselves. Regrettable unintended etc. [Silverglate]
On criminalizing false statements to federal agents [Scott Greenfield vs. Bill Otis]
“Congress Has Enough Time to Keep Spying on You, Forever” [Matt Welch; Cato video with Julian Sanchez]
More on Philadelphia forfeiture [John K. Ross, Reason, earlier]
Homeland Security program: “Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations” [Kim Zetter/Wired via Fountain]
Does Brooklyn indictment signal U.S. claim of universal jurisdiction over acts hostile to its foreign policy, anywhere in world? [Eugene Kontorovich/Volokh]

Tags: aviation, forfeiture, Fourth Amendment, Philadelphia, prosecution, transit

Civil liberties roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Don’t

Walter Olson — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:59:25 +0000

If you’re high-ranking figures in a federal prosecutor’s office, don’t resort to pseudonymous rants on comment boards to settle scores, especially not if it means commenting on open cases that your office is handling [three now-resigned officials from the U.S. Attorney's office in New Orleans; WWL, Gambit, Daily Mail]

Tags: don't, New Orleans, prosecution

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The Right rethinks prisons

Walter Olson — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 15:30:11 +0000

How a seemingly unlikely assortment of libertarians, religious conservatives and small-government advocates have been helping to turn around the debate on incarceration. [David Dagan and Steven Teles, Washington Monthly]

Tags: Cato Institute, prisoners, prosecution

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