Archive for 2004

In the Kerry skyboxes

Unlike his running mate John Edwards, John Kerry has willingly disclosed the identities of his “bundlers”, the financiers responsible for raising large amounts of money in grouped donations. (He has 266 who’ve come in at the $100,000+ level, compared with more than 525 for George W. Bush.) Names familiar to readers of this site are well represented: “Trial lawyers who represent injured people in suits against business are prominent Kerry fans. Among his $100,000 Vice Chairmen are Florida plaintiff’s lawyer Kirk Wager, who hosted Mr. Kerry’s first presidential fund-raiser at his Coconut Grove home in December 2002, and attorneys Richard Scruggs of Mississippi and John Coale of Washington, both part of the tobacco companies’ $206 billion settlement with 46 states.” However, Mr. Kerry (like Mr. Bush, but unlike Mr. Edwards) also raises large amounts from other types of law firms, including firms known for lobbying and for general business work, including Mintz Levin and Piper Rudnick. (Wayne Slater, “Vested interests in Kerry”, Dallas Morning News, Jul. 25).

“Lawyers, especially trial lawyers, are the engine of the Kerry fundraising operation,” reports the Washington Post. “Lawyers and law firms have given more money to Kerry, $12 million, than any other sector. One out of four of Kerry’s big-dollar fundraisers is a lawyer, and one out of 10 is an attorney for plaintiffs in personal injury, medical malpractice or other lawsuits seeking damages. …

“Among the trial lawyers who raised money for Kerry early in the campaign were Michael V. Ciresi of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP, who represented Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota in its successful $6.5 billion suit against the tobacco industry, and Michael T. Thorsnes, who recently retired from his San Diego law firm after winning $250 million in settlements and verdicts.” After Kerry locked up the race, “One trend was a sharp increase in the number of trial lawyers joining the Kerry fundraising campaign. Among those soon joining as major fundraisers were John P. Coale, one of the nation’s most prominent trial lawyers, whose better-known cases include the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, and at least 16 plane crashes; Robert L. Lieff, founding partner of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, a San Francisco-based firm that lists four class-action settlements in 2004 alone totaling $176.5 million; and San Francisco lawyer Arnold Laub, whose firm Web site lists its participation in the $3.7 billion fen-phen settlement, a $185 million toxic chemical award and $4.5 million for a pedestrian accident case. … John Morgan, an Orlando lawyer whose firm specializes in medical malpractice, said he has helped raise more than $500,000 for Kerry.” (Thomas B. Edsall, James V. Grimaldi and Alice R. Crites, “Redefining Democratic Fundraising”, Washington Post, Jul. 24)(our politics archive).

Happy Trails

Well folks, thanks for letting me part of the Overlawyered community for a week. Though come to think of it, I have been part of the Overlawyered community on the reading side for the entire year or so since I discovered blogs, and hope to continue in that role for a long time. If you have suffered through my guest posts, things are looking up for you as the guest guard changes. (Incidentally, a guest blogger at Crescat Sententia has some musings on guest blogging generally; he also has been thinking about blog crushes.) If you ever find yourself nostalgic for vice talk, please visit us at Vice Squad.

I’ll depart with one further observation, one that shouldn’t be surprising given my week o’ posts, or to anyone who follows Vice Squad. Here are some of the happenings during the past week — happenings so common, so mundane, that they almost manage to fly under the radar: 38 arrested in Chicago; 42 arrested in Chatham County, Georgia; 4 arrested in Reno; 10 arrested in Decatur, Alabama; 9 arrested in Willimantic, CT; 16 arrested in Elmore County, Alabama?

And what is the noble purpose served by this frenzied feeding into the maw of the insatiable criminal justice system? To make it a little bit harder for some of our friends and neighbors to consume a substance that they choose to consume.

Thanks again to Walter Olson and Ted Frank, and be sure to check in tomorrow for a new, improved guest blogger.

Personal Responsibility and Addiction

OK, I am feeling a little guilty that during my week of guest blogging I didn’t really focus on core Overlawyered topics. To make partial amends, let me ask a couple of questions drawn from the intersection of Overlawyered’s and Vice Squad’s areas of interest. Should drug users be held responsible for their decisions to use drugs? Should addicts be held accountable for other criminal acts that are undertaken either under the influence of drugs, or to serve the needs of drug acquisition? If addiction is a disease, shouldn’t addicts be excused for their habits or for their actions, even otherwise criminal actions, that flow from their addictions?

With respect to serious crimes, the law agrees with our general intuition: a condition of intoxication or addiction is not an excuse for criminal behavior. Nevertheless, many people are willing to be indulgent of less serious social indiscretions if the perpetrator “had a bit too much to drink.” Chronic addicts, however, often become unsympathetic characters — even compassionate social workers find themselves “blaming the victim” (the client or patient) when they deal extensively with junkies.

Many treatment programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Gamblers Anonymous, explicitly adopt a disease perspective towards their respective addictions. Nevertheless, these programs do not absolve the addict of responsibility for his or her behavior — quite the contrary, they emphasize personal accountability. Even if biological conditions make drug use a nearly overwhelming necessity for some addicts, it is the drug use which is the necessity — not bank robbery or car theft or other crimes. And generally even the drug use will be deterred if a police officer is standing over their shoulder.

Incidentally, in the mid-1960s it looked as if the US Supreme Court might make the status of addiction an excuse for some sorts of crimes. This impression was squelched via the 1968 case of Powell v. Texas.

Read On…

Honest mastheads, cont’d

If Fox News is going to have to hire lawyers to defend the accuracy of its “Fair and Balanced” against MoveOn.org’s silly and abusive complaint (see Jul. 20), how many other media outfits are going to need to worry about backing up their puffish slogans? David Giacalone, guest-posting at Legal Underground, has a funny post (Jul. 24) listing various newspaper slogans that publishers might wish to reconsider, from the Atlanta Journal’s “Covers Dixie Like the Dew” (substantiation, please) to the Toledo Blade’s “One of America’s Great Newspapers — In One of America’s Great Cities”.

More on Racial Profiling

Last night I mentioned some of the difficulties in trying to justify racial profiling on the grounds of efficient policing. I just wanted to add a few more comments. First, in my paper with Mike Alexeev, our generally anti-profiling “results” apply to situations where the probability of being stopped is relatively low, as it is in standard highway enforcement. If the police can stop a substantial proportion of folks (a’ la airport screening), then our results are not applicable. Second, choosing whom to stop is the first stage, but as or more important is the next stage, how those who are stopped are treated. Is the stop limited in time and intrusiveness? (Here’s one way not to treat people.) Further, is the goal that ostensibly is being served actually benefiting from the profiling? In a fine paper that looks very closely at Maryland’s I-95 stops, Samuel R. Gross and Katherine Y. Barnes attack Maryland’s stop-and-search policy partly on the grounds that it accomplishes essentially nothing in impeding the flow of drugs to Baltimore and Washington, DC. Third, I am almost ashamed to admit that my own views on racial profiling changed a bit when I found myself to be a “profilee.” (I briefly recounted the tale during an earlier guest-blogging appearance at Crescat Sententia — oh no, I don’t want to develop a reputation as someone who blogs around!) Funny how it is easier to suport a policy (our drug war comes to mind) when you are pretty sure that you and yours will not bear the costs of it.

New batch of reader letters

Our pipeline is still sadly backed up, but we’ve posted four new pieces of correspondence on our letters to the editor page. Among them: Peter Nordberg writes in (and I respond) regarding the Illinois practice (see Jul. 23) of letting medical malpractice plaintiffs use an anonymous physician reviewer to certify the merits of their claim; the newly filed lawsuit by disabled applicants asking for more time and fewer distractions in taking the medical school admission exam; and two letters about scuba diving litigation.

Racial Profiling

Should the police use race as one of the characteristics upon which they make decisions about stopping and searching motorists or pedestrians? (The question assumes, of course, that the police are not operating from a description of a specific individual believed to be involved in a crime.) Among those who have answered “no” to a question of this sort is our nation’s Attorney General. Others think that the practice is OK, as long as it is consistent with efficient policing: after all, you wouldn’t want to focus lots of law enforcement on groups that are rare offenders, such as elderly women. But is it right that a black driver on I-95 in Maryland in the late 1990s was five times more likely to be subject to a search than was a white driver?

Those who take the “efficient policing” position often say that the disproportionate number of stops is OK, as long as the probability that a searched motorist is carrying contraband (in the case of anti-drug enforcement, the aim of most of the highway searches) is about the same for blacks as for whites. (This probability is sometimes called the “hit rate.”) By this reckoning, if only 5 percent of the blacks who are searched are found to be carrying drugs, while 20 percent of the whites searched are carrying, then the racial disparities in searches are not consistent with efficient policing and should be curtailed, eliminated, or reversed. On the other hand, if the hit rate for searches is about 20 percent for both groups, then the use of race as an indicator might be acceptable.

But I and my co-author, Michael Alexeev of Indiana University, think that this standard “efficient policing” story is mistaken, for reasons that I will mention after the “Continue reading…” link.

Read On…