As Steve Chapman notes in a recycled but still-relevant column, a Seventh Circuit experiment along those lines seems to have served justice well. Commenters at Reason “Hit and Run” say the practice has long been in use in the military justice system. I mention the issue toward the end of this 2003 Reason piece adapted from my book The Rule of Lawyers (which I notice now has a Kindle edition).
“Food safety bill critics: Small farms could lose”
After you fully discount the chain-email false alarms, you’re left with plenty of well-founded concerns about how small producers would fare under the various food-safety measures before Congress. Farm World:
The public outcry has mostly focused on the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (House Resolution 875), but Kastel [Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute] pointed out that of all the food safety bills currently before Congress, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Globalization Act of 2009 (HR 759) appears to be the one that’s most likely to be voted on, possibly with elements of the other bills incorporated [emphasis added].
Sponsored by Congress’ most senior member, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), HR 759 amends the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to include provisions governing food safety. The bill provides for an accreditation system for food facilities, and would require written food safety plans and hazard analyses for any facilities that manufacture, process, pack, transport or hold food in the United States.
It also calls for country of origin labeling and science-based minimum standards for harvesting fruits and vegetables, as well as establishing a risk-based inspection schedule for food facilities. …
The [Cornucopia] institute claims the preventative measures [on handling of food on farms] are designed with large-scale producers and processors in mind and “would likely put smaller and organic producers at an economic and competitive disadvantage.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation opposes Dingell’s bill, arguing that improving existing inspection and import methods would be preferable. [Earlier entries in series here, here, and here]
Obama puts MADD chief in charge of highway-safety agency
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is anything but an uncontroversial organization, as the Washington Times, Radley Balko, and our own archives make clear. Among the bad, sometimes awful ideas with which it has been identified are a reduction of the blood alcohol limit to .04 (meaning that for some adults a single drink could result in arrest), blanket police roadblocks and pullovers, the 55 mph speed limit, traffic-cams, and the imprisonment of parents who knowingly permit teen party drinking, to name but a few. Of particular interest when it comes to the policies of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), it has backed proposed legislation demanding that costly breathalyzer-ignition interlock systems be foisted on all new cars, whether or not their drivers have ever committed a DUI offense; it’s also lined up with the plaintiff’s bar on various dubious efforts to expand liability.
Now President Obama has named MADD CEO Chuck Hurley to head NHTSA. Drivers, car buyers, and the American public had better brace themselves for a season of neo-Prohibitionist rhetoric, nannyist initiatives, and efforts to criminalize now-lawful conduct. It won’t be pretty.
More: Coyote Blog (“What, was Ralph Nader busy?”)
April 24 roundup
- The customer who couldn’t be stopped? “Family of car salesman killed in 90 mph test drive gets $13M” [Obscure Store]
- Arizona bar disciplinary authorities move toward possible suspension for two high-volume consumer lawyers [ABA Journal]
- Trial begins on claim U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable for Katrina levee breaks [John Schwartz, New York Times]
- Always good for copy: now Jack Thompson is riling Utah lawmakers [GameSpot]
- America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® (that’d be RFK Jr.) is now blasting Obama [Brian Ross, ABCNews.com “Blotter” via ShopFloor]
- “Burning of Surreal Boat Sparks $1M Artists Rights Suit” [Heller/OnPoint News]
- Nice profile of author Philip K. Howard [The New Yorker] And a big spread from the Examiner’s Quin Hillyer including a Howard profile, some tidbits on Washington politics and why overly legalistic schools can’t teach.
- Law firm of Dewey, Cheatham, & Howe moves into Somali pirate defense [satire, h/t @trafficcourt]
“Hat” theory of public office
A buddy of mine who holds elected office has the “hat” theory. As soon as elected officials put on the “hat” of office, it squeezes their heads so tight that they can no longer think. They forget all they knew before, of the wrongs and the remedies, of why somebody decided to vote for them in the first place, and assume the position dictated by the hat. He says they can’t help themselves because it’s the hat.
Don’t
“It is axiomatic that ‘Judge’ and ‘Stripper’ showing up in a headline is never a good thing, especially if you happen to be the ‘Judge.'” — Daniel Ruth, Tampa Tribune, via Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch (on disgraced Florida appellate judge Thomas Stringer)(earlier).
Update: Animal rights vs. free speech
The Supreme Court “has agreed to consider whether a law barring videotapes and other depictions of animal cruelty violates the First Amendment.” The law could result in criminal charges being filed over, say, videos of bullfights or cockfights taken in nations where those practices are perfectly lawful, or taken in U.S. states where until recently various forms of animal fighting were lawful. The Third Circuit ruled it an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. [ABA Journal, Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSBlog, Adler @ Volokh; earlier] Nearly ten years ago (yes, believe it or not, this blog will turn 10 as of the first of July) we covered the original federal legislation, and visitors still arrive regularly at this site after searching on the term “crush videos”.
As we noted in a 2006 post, litigators for the Humane Society of the U.S. have been trying to force the U.S. Postal Service to ban the use of the mails by animal-fighting magazines like The Feathered Warrior. Now, according to an HSUS release, they have gotten a judge to order the USPS to reconsider its non-censorship policy. [Rebecca Baker, “Completely Legal” Gannett Westchester legal blog, Apr. 23]
“‘Greedy’ Stanford Law Grad Must Pay $630K in Legal Fees Over Meritless Art Suit”
As the Blog of Legal Times and ABA Journal note, the D.C. Circuit has upheld an order that Washington, D.C. art dealer and attorney Robert Fastov pay more than $630,000 to compensate Christie’s, the auction house, for meritless litigation aimed at extracting a settlement on an untenable claim. In a summary judgment order last year, the trial judge cited Fastov’s “well-documented proclivity in this case to engage in obstructionist litigation tactics” and ordered him to pay fees: “a greedy individual, with the advantage of a legal education and a claimed litigation experience, has initiated and maintained this lawsuit, which anyone with a modicum of common sense would have realized was without merit.”
“After Mom’s Wistful Remark, A Maternity Ward Inquisition”
New mom Karen Piper, groggy with medications, told her doctor she wished the baby had been a girl. And so came to be launched the investigation of whether she was an abuse risk who should not be allowed to take the baby home. (Marc Fisher, Washington Post, Apr. 23).
CPSIA chronicles, April 24
- Understatement alert: per the official Congressional Research Service on Capitol Hill, “For the moment…one thing seems certain: implementation of the CPSIA is not going well.” [report in PDF format courtesy ShopFloor]
- In Wisconsin, the Madison Children’s Museum has for the past 21 years based its annual fundraiser (July 18, this year) on a big discount sale of American Girl dolls and accessories. Worse luck for them.
- “Anti-recycling”, maybe? Is there a word for what happens when you yank perfectly safe, useful products off shelves by the ton and send them instead to landfills?
- Blast from the past dept.: if you think Public Citizen has made a mess of the risk and science issues in its advocacy on behalf of CPSIA, you should check out the world-class mess it made when it enlisted in the trial lawyer campaign against silicone breast implants, to name but such one campaign of many.
- Powersports dealers wary of whether new stay of enforcement really protects them [DealerNews, Sioux City (Iowa) Journal]
- The first senior, influential Senate Democrat to acknowledge that CPSIA needs fixing? Montana’s Max Baucus is willing at least to sign on to a legalize-minibikes bill.
- In the comments section on NPR’s phthalates story earlier this month, one of the most-recommended comments was that by Steven Tesney of Houston, who wrote, “As a result of CPSIA and the surrounding political grandstanding, my small home-based company will be going out of business. I design clothing for ‘Alternative’ families with infants, toddlers & kids. My products are organic and use natural dyes but because of new testing requirements that are completely cost prohibitive, I will be forced – along with hundreds of thousands of crafters, artisans and other small business owners – to close my doors. The only companies that will be able to afford the testing will be large corporations (many from China). Mass produced goods win while homemade, handcrafted goods lose. Say goodbye to the charming hand carved wooden toys & crocheted baby caps that you take to baby showers. Say hello to a plethora of licensed products staring back at your children.”
- “CPSIA and the black market” [Wacky Hermit]
Public domain image courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org: Walter Crane, illustrator, The Baby’s Aesop (1887)