- Renewed attention to Amirault case contributed to Coakley’s political nosedive [e.g., Jacob Weisberg of Slate via Kaus, earlier] First time a Massachusetts prosecutor has paid a political price over that episode?
- Many, many Democratic elected officials call for rethinking/renegotiating Obamacare rather than trying to force it through [e.g. Barney Frank] Blue Mass blogger: talk radio fueled ire at Coakley, let’s have FCC shut it down [Graham]
- “Big Brother and the Salt Shaker” [NY Times "Room for Debate", Food Liability Law, earlier on NYC initiative and more] NYU’s Marion Nestle “loves” being called a nanny statist, so we’ll just go right on calling her that [Crispy on the Outside]
- Terror suspects win right to seek compensation from UK government over restrictions on their activities [Canadian Press]
- “Men Without Hats. Meaning no hard hats. Meaning The Safety Dance never met OSHA requirements. No wonder it was shut down.” [Tim Siedell a/k/a Bad Banana]
- Italian judge orders father to go on paying $550/month living allowance to his student daughter, who is 32 [Guardian/SMH, earlier on laws mandating support of adult children]
- Two informants vie for potential bonanza of whistleblower status against Johnson & Johnson [Frankel, AmLaw Litigation Daily]
- “Polling Firm Says John Edwards Is Its Most Unpopular Person Ever” [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
Barney Frank,
broadcasters,
child abuse,
child support,
Italy,
John Edwards,
Massachusetts,
nanny state,
OSHA,
prosecutorial abuse,
safety,
salt,
terrorism,
United Kingdom,
whistleblowers
“‘He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up,’ [former Senator] Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph” of 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged in the Christmas Day attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit.
Tagged as:
defense lawyers,
terrorism
- “Trial lawyer group hails Senate health care bill as ‘stunning victory’” [Point of Law]
- Christopher Hitchens on our leaders’ absurd reaction to the attempted plane bombing [Slate] More: Stewart Baker on the security challenges [first, second]; Mark Steyn [first, second]
- Lots of coverage for Ted Frank’s Center for Class Action Fairness and its objection in a Yahoo! settlement [Zywicki/Volokh, Stier/Mass Tort Lit, CCAF, Turkewitz; Drum] And the Center has also filed objections in an AOL settlement of claims arising from advertising copy placed in the footers of emails;
- Sad: “Texas Man Freed by DNA Sues Over ‘Excessive’ Attorney Fees” [AP/Law.com]
- Litigious creationists: promoters of “intelligent design” back in court yet again [L.A. Times via WSJ Law Blog]
- “One Possible Class-Action Defense Strategy: Disappear and Live in a Tent” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Softballer can’t slide, wants money” [Elie Mystal, Above the Law; Queens, N.Y.]
- Litigators advised to use social media to snoop on players in their cases [Trial Lawyer Tips]
Tagged as:
baseball,
class action settlements,
class actions,
politics,
social media,
Ted Frank,
terrorism
The Transportation Security Administration is vigilant against those who would imperil national security by trying to carry the desktop amusements through airport checkpoints. [Boing Boing, Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
airlines,
terrorism
“I am at war with America,” says convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, whose inmate litigation has been enjoying more success than one might expect. Reid has argued that his freedom of religion requires prison officials to permit him access to “group prayers” with co-believers; other jihadists are also housed at the federal prison in Florence, Colorado. Now federal prison authorities are considering moving him to a different facility [Debra Burlingame, Wall Street Journal]
Tagged as:
prisoners,
terrorism
- “Intellectual Easter egg hunt”: great Michael Kinsley column on Wyeth v. Levine and FDA drug preemption [Washington Post]
- Negligent for the Port Authority to let itself get bombed: “Jury Awards $5.46M to 1993 WTC Bomb Victim” [WINS, earlier]
- “How following hospital quality measures can kill patients” [KevinMD]
- Owner of Vancouver Sun suing over someone’s parody of the paper (though at least it drops the printer as a defendant) [Blog of Walker]
- Court dismisses some counts in Billy Wolfe bullying suit against Fayetteville, Ark. schools [NW Arkansas Times, court records, earlier here and here]
- Law bloggers were on this weeks ago, now Tenaha, Tex. cops’ use of forfeiture against motorists is developing into national story [Chicago Tribune, earlier here and here]
- Can hostile blog posts about a plaintiff’s case be the basis for venue change? [IBLS]
- Calls 911 because McDonald’s has run out of chicken nuggets [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
bullying,
forfeiture,
free speech in Canada,
McDonald's,
parody,
Port Authority,
preemption,
terrorism
“Lawyers who defended the men prosecuted for a plot to kill thousands of innocent people using massive fertilizer bombs were paid £7.16m in legal aid, it emerged last night. The 2007 trial was one of the biggest in British legal history and followed raids by the Metropolitan Police across London and the Home Counties. The judge described five of the men convicted for their part in the foiled terror attack as ruthless and devious misfits who had betrayed their country of birth.” Two other defendants won acquittal. [The Independent]
Tagged as:
defense lawyers,
terrorism,
United Kingdom
- Torquay, England: cops to give flip-flops to drunken women exiting nightclubs to reduce high-heel trip/fall risk [Daily Mail]
- Mumbai attack introduced new terrorist tactics, expect to see them employed elsewhere [John C. Thompson/National Post, Bill Roggio] Heroic hotel employees [Reuters] Twitter, Flickr come into their own as breaking news sources during attacks [TechCrunch]
- “15 ways to get more out of Pandora” [Lifehacker h/t @lilyhill]
- NYT covers legal difficulties of pursuing pirates (but we did get to the story first) [NYT]
- Interview with Eve Tushnet [Norm Geras via Ann Althouse]
- “Dear @barackobama – thank u 4 another email with ‘donate’ at the bottom. Pls note my future donations will be called ‘taxes’” [@JerseyTodd]
- Pictorial tour of America’s ugliest motel [Lileks] At the time people were duly impressed. What equivalents are we building today?
Tagged as:
alcohol,
terrorism,
Twitter,
United Kingdom
“Israeli and Russian victims of a 2004 terror attack on an Egyptian Hilton cannot sue the hotel in the United States, in part because a judge believed they were seeking a higher recovery from a New York jury sitting blocks from the World Trade Center site. Southern District Judge Peter Leisure found that the plaintiffs, none of whom were Americans, may have been engaging in forum shopping in Niv v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 06 Civ. 7839, and he dismissed the case under the doctrine of forum non conveniens.” (Mark Hamblett, “N.Y. Forum Denied for Suit Over Terror Attack in Egypt”, New York Law Journal, Nov. 19).
Tagged as:
forum shopping,
hotels,
terrorism,
third party liability for crime
“International human rights law” — what could sound more cuddly and humanitarian? Who could disapprove of such a thing? That’s one reason it’s so popular at almost every law school nowadays following years of generous support by the Ford Foundation, Soros, and other donors. In practice, as is now clear, it often tends to furnish a set of handy weapons for carrying on “lawfare” — warfare by means of courtroom action against one’s adversaries, particularly in the courts of third countries. (Anne Herzberg, “Lawfare against Israel”, WSJ, Nov. 5). For the closely related issue of laws empowering private attorneys and litigants to pursue foreign entities over alleged terrorist support whether or not such actions advance U.S. diplomatic goals, see Sept. 12, 2007.
Tagged as:
Ford Foundation,
international law,
Israel,
lawfare,
terrorism
Fowzi Badavi Nejad, the only survivor among six terrorists who seized the Iranian Embassy and 26 hostages in London 28 years ago, “has reportedly been assured he will not be deported back to his native Iran because of human rights laws, and will instead stay in Britain at taxpayers’ expense.” (Chris Irvine, “Iranian Embassy terrorist to be freed this month can claim benefits”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 9).
Tagged as:
immigration law,
international law,
terrorism,
United Kingdom
Apparently not quite so pro bono as all that, reports the Washington Times: a Kuwait-based group backed by the government of that wealthy Arab state has kicked in nearly $4 million to the legal effort. Firms receiving Kuwaiti funds include Shearman & Sterling, Arnold & Porter and Pillsbury Winthrop. “The Kuwait-based group also has financed a public relations campaign run by Levick Strategic Communications in Washington” toward the goal of “due process for the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay”. (Jim McElhatton, “Kuwait helps pay detainees’ legal bills”, Jul. 25)(via Elefant).
Tagged as:
pro bono,
terrorism
It’s not just the U.S. civil-justice system that often winds up serving counterproductive ends, but also our criminal and national security legal systems. And just like with, e.g., our tort system, it sometimes seems like everyone knows this except us Americans.
Consider this, from the Times‘ detailed account of the interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
Mohammed met his captors at first with cocky defiance, telling one veteran CIA officer, a former Pakistan station chief, that he would talk only when he got to New York and was assigned a lawyer–the experience of his nephew and partner in terrorism, Ramzi Yousef, after Yousef’s arrest in 1995.
Apparently, KSM was somehow privy to an advance copy of Boumediene. . .
Tagged as:
lawfare,
terrorism
- “I did not know what kind of monster we were dealing with”: dramatic testimony from Judge Lackey on Scruggs corruption [Folo; and repercussions too]
- New at Point of Law: Pork-barreling Albany lawmakers shell out for just what NY needs, three more law schools; Sarbanes-Oxley unconstitutional? Ted goes after JAMA on Vioxx; sadly, appeals court overturns Santa Clara opinion that nailed ethical problems with govt.-paid contingency fee; legal aid lawyers, to subprime borrowers’ rescue? and much more;
- Cadbury claim: we own the color purple as it relates to chocolate [Coleman]
- A world gone mad: Innocence Project directors include… Janet Reno? [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- Not unrelatedly: Can a California prosecutor be held liable for wrongful murder conviction of man freed after 24 years? [Van de Kamp versus Goldstein, L.A. Times via Greenfield]
- With all his lawyer chums from Milberg-witness days, you’d think Ben Stein could have saved the makers of his creationist movie from stumbling into textbook IP infringements [Myers, again, WSJ law blog]
- Groggy from dental anesthesia, plus a half a glass to drink: then came the three felony DUI counts [Phoenix New Times, Balko via Reynolds]
- Shell says boaters had years of notice that mandated ethanol in fuel was incompatible with fiberglass marine gas tanks, which hasn’t stopped the filing of a class action [L.A. Times via ABA Journal]
- Terrorism asymmetry: “They say ‘Allahu Akbar!’ we say ‘Imagine the liability!’” [McCarthy/Lopez, NRO]
- Deborah Jeane Palfrey convicted [WaPo; earlier]
- David Neiwert truly born yesterday if he thinks Kevin Phillips is noteworthy for his record of being right [Firedoglake; some correctives]
Tagged as:
Ben Stein,
contingent fee,
Dickie Scruggs,
ethanol,
Innocence Project,
Janet Reno,
Kevin Phillips,
Milberg Weiss,
prosecutorial abuse,
roundups,
terrorism,
trade dress
