Chicago: “Child endangerment and obstruction charges were dropped Thursday against a woman who briefly left her 2-year-old daughter sleeping in the car while she and her two older daughters poured coins into a Salvation Army kettle.” A lawyer for the mother, Treffly Coyne, said that she had stayed within sight of the car while making the donation.
(“Charges Dropped for Leaving Kid in Car”, AP/Las Vegas Sun, Mar. 14). And from upstate New York: “Though not ‘ideal,’ a couple’s efforts to control the weight of their obese daughter were made in good faith and did not justify a county agency’s repeated removal of the girl from her parents’ custody, an upstate New York appeals court ruled Thursday.” (Joel Stashenko, “Appeals Court Faults Removal of Obese Child From Parents”, New York Law Journal, Mar. 3; similar case in Dundee, The Scotsman).
Signed out against medical advice
…and then wins a settlement against the hospital for letting him do so [ER Stories, Feb. 2]. (For sharp-eyed readers: this post replaces one linking to a story on the same blog that — my lapse — Ted had already covered).
Prison food as punishment?
“Nutraloaf” is full of wholesome ingredients, but a class action on behalf of Vermont prison inmates claims it is punishment to eat and should be assigned only after disciplinary proceedings. (Wilson Ring, AP/Examiner, Mar. 22)(via Mike Cernovich at the happily revived Crime and Federalism).
“Why Do Lawyers Mouth Clients’ Ridiculous Alibis?”
Letter to the editor, WSJ, Mar. 22 (via YallPolitics):
It’s bad enough and sad enough to read the sorry story of the greed of tort-king “Dickie” Scruggs. The evidence and the transcripts was, of course, damning.
It was really nauseating, however, to read the absurd assertion by John Keker, his lawyer, that Mr. Scruggs was innocent and that the “prosecutors have concocted a ‘manufactured crime’ in which his client had no part” (“A Lawyer’s Trials: Tort King’s Path to Bribery Charge,” page one, March 14). So, according to Mr. Keker, the prosecutors could freely be accused of trying to frame an innocent man.
All Mr. Keker should have said was that his client had pleaded not guilty and that the matter would proceed to trial.
One assumed that when Mr. Keker made factual assertions he was accurately reporting what Mr. Scruggs had told him, since he presumably knew Mr. Scruggs’s side of the story through lengthy interviews under the protection of the attorney-client privilege.
Then we learned, a few hours later, that Mr. Scruggs was guilty all along. Either Mr. Keker knew this or he was ignorant.
Why lawyers in criminal-defense cases feel compelled to make factual assertions about their clients’ innocence, facts which they couldn’t possibly know, is beyond me.
Every day these lawyers appear on television and in the papers repeating the ridiculous alibis of their clients, not as their clients’ legal positions but as facts, only to be ultimately made foolish by a plea or a trial.
Innocent or guilty, a lawyer should retain his dignity and that of his client, if possible.
Felix M. Phillips
Attorney at Law
Minneapolis
More: Discussion continues in this Tuesday post.
Rolling redesign, cont’d
As you can see, I’ve embarked on a step-by-step redesign of the site, still very rough and unfinished, but I hope smoothing out as we get into next week. Reactions welcome, including whether readers would like to go back to the old pink-and-grey color scheme (widely disliked, but distinctive), which features are best included on the front page, etc. I think a three-column format is now fairly standard in sites of our type and should allow us to keep recent comments and posts high up for the benefit of frequent visitors, while also offering prominent navigation aids for newcomers and those using the site for research.
I expect to restore the blogroll and about-the-site soon, as well as a serif typeface.
Deep Pockets File: Bauer v. Nesbitt
On September 3, 2003, 19-year-old Frederick Nesbitt was underaged at “Wing Night” at the C View Inn in Cape May, New Jersey, so the waitress at the bar only served him soda while his companions drank pitchers of beer. (His 21-year-old companion James Hamby had a suspended license for drunk driving.) But Nesbitt had been drinking rum and drinking beer with the others before they got to the bar; and Hamby spiked Nesbitt’s drinks with rum under the table at the bar, which was presumably busy serving sixty other people and didn’t notice. So Nesbitt had a 0.199 blood-alcohol level when, speeding, he “lost control [of his car], careening back and forth across the road before striking a guard rail and landing on the driver’s side. He was thrown out the rear window while Hamby, who was found in the car, was pronounced dead at the scene.” Nesbitt is serving a five-year prison term for vehicular homicide, but Hamby’s estate is suing the bar. (It settled with Nesbitt for his $50,000 insurance coverage.)
The lower court threw out the case since the bar didn’t serve Nesbitt any alcohol, but a New Jersey appellate court ruled that the bar has a duty to arrange transportation for anyone who walks in who appears to be drunk “regardless of whether Nesbitt’s intoxication resulted from the service of alcohol by the inn or from other causes” (notwithstanding the absence of such a cause of action under the dramshop statute) so the bar will now have to hope the jury credits the witnesses who say that Nesbitt didn’t appear drunk. (Mary Pat Gallagher, “N.J. Court: Bar May Be Liable for Fatal Crash Even if It Didn’t Serve Patron Alcohol”, NJ Law J, Mar. 24; Tom Hester & Abby Green, “Court adds to taverns’ duty toward safe driving”, Newark Star-Ledger, Mar. 21; Insurance Journal, Mar. 21; AP, Mar. 20; NJLawman.com message board).
If your drinks appear more expensive in New Jersey, it’s because you’re paying for insurance for drunk drivers who might stop at the bar to use the restroom. Of course, why stop at bars? Why not convenience stores?
New feature: Most recent comments
Our new Movable Type upgrade finally allows us to add a feature we’ve wanted to add for a long time, a list of the most recent reader comments. Check out the right-left-hand sidebar.
“What is wrong with tort law”
Colloquy of Coyote and commenters, based on the John Ritter malpractice jury verdict.
Hillary’s Michigan do-over angels
The ten big donors who bootlessly pledged up to $12 million include some familiar names, such as John Eddie Williams and Peter Angelos, as well as a new one, Calvin C. Fayard, Jr., of the firm Fayard & Honeycutt, A.P.C., who boasts connections with former Louisiana AG Charles Foti (Folo, Mar. 20; “Michigan Missives”, The Caucus (NY Times), Mar. 19).
Site search fixed
With help from the Movable Type people we’ve restored site search, which had been broken for the past couple of days since our software upgrade. In coming weeks watch for some enhancements to the site that will be made possible by the new upgrade.