In dozens of prosecutions each year, parents or caregivers are charged after infants who died under their care have been found to display supposedly infallible indicators of abuse — in particular, subdural and retinal hemorrhage with brain swelling. Many convicted defendants stoutly maintain their innocence all along; others are sent to prison on the basis of equivocal “confessions”. Even when (as is common) there is no pattern of previous child abuse, it often happens that authorities remove other children from an alleged abuser’s home as legal action proceeds. Has the hope of using cutting-edge forensics to identify abusers wound up leading the authorities and courts to inflict new injustices? [Emily Bazelon, New York Times Magazine] More: Balko.
Archive for 2011
Marketing the board game you’ve invented
Hold on. Have you considered the legal risks? [Board Game Geek]
Artisan cheese, Mark Bittman and Michelle Obama
I’ve got a food policy roundup at Cato that tries to answer such questions as:
* Has FDA’s regulatory zeal finally met its match in the foodie zeal of cheese-makers and -fanciers who are beginning to insist on their right to make and enjoy cheeses similar to those in France, even if they pose a nonzero though tiny bacterial risk?
* How annoying is it that Mark Bittman would stop writing a great food column in the NYT in order to start writing an inevitably wrongheaded politics-of-food column?
* Is Wal-Mart secretly smiling after First Lady Michelle Obama publicly twisted its arm to do various things it was probably considering anyway, along with some things it definitely wanted to do, such as opening more stores in poor urban neighborhoods?
Related: Led by past Overlawyered guest-blogger Baylen Linnekin, Keep Food Legal bills itself as “The first and only nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom.” 11 Points has compiled a list of “11 Foods and Drinks Banned in the United States.” And GetReligion.org has more on the “shadowy community of outlaw Amish and Mennonite dairy farmers” portrayed in several recent press reports.
Redskins owner sues Washington City Paper
“Indeed, the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper,” wrote one Redskins official in a lawsuit-threatening letter to an investor in the alternative weekly. Not that owner Dan Snyder is a bully trying to silence his critics or anything! [letter from City Paper editor Amy Austin; Romenesko, TBD]
February 7 roundup
- Paper by Lester Brickman previews his much-anticipated new book Lawyer Barons [Mass Tort Lit, SSRN] More: Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf.
- “A Players’ Class Action Against the NFL for Concussions?” [Russell Jackson]
- C’mon, DoJ, stop spreading domestic violence myths [Christina Hoff Sommers, USA Today]
- “Historians as Experts: A Plea for Help” [Bill Childs, TortsProf; related, Nathan Schachtman]
- Might not really work, though: “A call for aviation liability reform in South Dakota” [PoL]
- “Chevron Turns Tables on Ecuador Plaintiffs; Sues Them” [WSJ Law Blog, ShopFloor, more, yet more, NYLJ]
- Hedge funder plays race card against NYC’s famed Dakota co-op. How plausibly? [Business Insider]
- N.C. official: citizen who challenged road plans might be practicing engineering without a license [N&O]
“Lawyer Deemed ‘the Most Worst Attorney’ in Online Rants Can’t Sue, Judge Rules”
A Suffolk County, N.Y. judge ruled that online gripes about a divorce lawyer were pure opinion. [ABA Journal]
Criminal charges for spitballs in school
Most striking part of this Spotsylvania County, Va. story:
Capt. Liz Scott [of the] Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office says while Mikel’s punishment [and misdemeanor assault charges] may be controversial, “assault is assault is assault.”
“There were three victims that were involved in this, and I think the public needs to remember that,” Scott told FoxNews.com.
Scott said those victims, two females and one male, complained of feeling a “pinch” or “sting” when they were hit with the pellets and one even had a welt on her arm as result.
Perpetrator Andrew Mikel II is 14 years old. In other school and zero-tolerance news, police in Hammonton, New Jersey have charged a 7-year-old for bringing a Nerf-style toy gun to class [NBC Philadelphia] A lawmaker in Hawaii is proposing to ban the sale of squirt guns to minors [Free-Range Kids] A St. Lucie County, Florida kindergartener who was “voted out” of his classroom by fellow students at his teacher’s suggestion has won a $350,000 settlement. [TCPalm/Orlando Sentinel] And lawsuits by parents against school districts over alleged bullying of kids are said to be burgeoning in Florida [Orlando Sentinel]
February 5 roundup
- Thomas Sowell on EPA dairy-spill regulations [NRO, earlier at Cato here and here] It’s the miracle federal agency: “What doesn’t the EPA do?” [ShopFloor]
- President’s State of the Union medical malpractice gesture, cont’d [PoL, more, Ted Frank/Examiner, NJLRA, related, earlier here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.]
- Fired minor-league Yankees mascot files wage-hour suit [ESPN]
- Ohio sheriff prepares criminal complaint against reporter for asking him questions [WHIO via Balko]
- It all happened so suddenly: Henry Waxman now disapproves of the use of subpoenas for fishing expeditions [Mark Tapscott, Examiner; earlier]
- Should hospitals ban cameras from childbirth? [NYT “Room for Debate” with contribution from Jim Harper, Cato Institute]
- Non-“flagrant” trespassing OK? Tort liability shift in Third Restatement [PoL]
- Nope: “At this time, I would like to formally accuse Walter Olson of having an intern or something.” [Ron Miller]
Nutella? Bad for your diet?
A class action plaintiff is shocked at the discovery. [ABA Journal, WSJ Law Blog] And a contrasting view: Max Kennerly. More: Stephen Richer, WLF.
A Ban On “Walking While Wired”?
[cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]
New York state senator Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) is crusading to ban pedestrians’ use of cellphones and other mobile devices while crossing the street. It’s for your own good, you must understand:
“When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”
The Daily Caller asked me to write an opinion piece about this proposal so I just did. Excerpt:
Phone use on the street has become near-ubiquitous in recent years, yet over nearly all that time — nationally as in Gotham — pedestrian death rates were falling steadily, just as highway fatalities fell steadily over the years in which “distracted driving” became a big concern.
In the first half of 2010, the national statistics showed a tiny upward blip (0.4 percent), occasioned by a relative handful of fatalities in a few states. Even a spokesman for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Jonathan Adkins, seems to agree it’s premature to jump to conclusions: “You don’t want to overreact to six months of data,” he told columnist Steve Chapman.
Like others who seek quasi-parental control over adults, Sen. Kruger tends to infantilize his charges. He told the Times: “We’re taught from knee-high to look in both directions, wait, listen and then cross. You can perform none of those functions if you are engaged in some kind of wired activity.”
This drew proper scorn from columnist Chapman: “Actually, you can perform all those functions and dance an Irish jig, even with text messages or rock music bombarding you.” That some ear bud devotees don’t take due caution is no reason to pretend they can’t.
C.S. Lewis, Lily Tomlin and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood all get walk-on parts as well.