Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Prosecution roundup

  • Six-year-old charged with sexual assault [Channel3000.com, Wisconsin; Radley Balko]
  • “Beware: Cities Hunting You Down For Reagan-Era Parking Tickets” [David Kiley, AOL]
  • Waco, Texas: “McLennan DA fights DNA testing because exonerations override juries” [Grits for Breakfast] Robert Mosteller, “Failures of the Prosecutor’s Duty to ‘Do Justice’ in Extraordinary and Ordinary Miscarriages of Justice” [Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Controlled substances: “Could a US lawyer lawfully counsel clients about this proposed new law?” [John Steele, LEF]
  • Mens rea erosion a “deeply troublesome trend” [Kevin LaCroix on WSJ] “Trial penalty,” long sentence minimums give prosecutors muscle to extract plea deals [NYT, Sullum] “Settlements feed U.S. prosecutor overreach” [Reynolds Holding, Reuters BreakingViews] “Responsible corporate officer doctrine” worries pharma defense lawyers [WSJ Law Blog] “The continuing quest to criminalize business judgment” [Kirkendall]
  • “More than three-quarters of turn-of-the-century Chicago homicides led to no criminal punishment — not because the perpetrator could not be identified, but because no jury would convict.” [William Stuntz’s posthumous book via Cowen]
  • “Scalia criticizes narcotics laws” [for over-federalization] [WSJ]

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2 Comments

  • The problem with the parking tickets–other than the ridiculousness of doing this after 20 years–what if the records of payment ain’t so hot? Which we know they aren’t. I have an idea–if one of these collection agencies makes a mistake, even if based on the government’s records, there’s a $1,000,000 civil penalty.

    • By spo

  • According to the article linked to in item 1 above, a prosecutor is pressuring a child to admit to a sexual assault. Such an admission would free the prosecutor from a counter suit, and it would label the child as a sexual offender. The consequences of such a label lasts for life. I recall the poor lady who was 18 when she pleasured a 17 year old boy friend. Every time she moves she has to register with the local police. It’s nuts and unfair.