N.Y. solon: let’s ban phones, audio in crosswalks

“A state senator from Brooklyn said on Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation that would ban people from using an MP3 player, cell phone, Blackberry or any other electronic device while crossing the street in New York City and Buffalo.” (“Ban Proposed On Cell Phones, iPods In Crosswalk”, WNBC, Feb. 7). Comment: TechDirt, Global Nerdy, Bainbridge, Wired blog. A Blog for All rounds up links. Commenter Mike Knowland at Dvorak.org writes, “It won’t be enforced, but when someone gets hit by a car while breaking this law, the driver won’t be 100% at fault anymore.”

Genarlow Wilson, Inmate #1187055

“Genarlow Wilson, honor student and football star, had consensual sex with a fellow teenager. What happened to him next was a crime.” Once the target of recruiting efforts by Ivy League coaches, the Douglasville, Ga. native is now twenty years old and Inmate No. 1187055 at Burruss Correctional Training Center, an hour and a half south of Atlanta. His crime? Sex with a 15-year-old girl, when he was 17. “Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act.” The operation of Georgia law was what you might call Draconian: “Just two years into a 10-year sentence without possibility of parole, he peers through the thick glass and bars, trying to catch a glimpse of freedom. Outside, guard towers and rolls of coiled barbed wire remind him of who he is.” (Wright Thompson, “Outrageous Injustice”, ESPN E-Ticket magazine, no date posted; Wilson appeal website; Chandra R. Thomas, “Why Is Genarlow Wilson in Prison?”, Atlanta magazine, no date posted; Sherry F. Colb, “The Harsh Wages of Sin: Why Genarlow Wilson is Languishing in Prison”, FindLaw, Jan. 10; Doug Berman, Jan. 24).

More: Georgia lawmaker has introduced bill that would allow for more lenient resentencing in Wilson case ((Alyson M. Palmer, “Ga. Bill Takes Aim at Sentencing That Resulted in 10-Year Term for Teen Sex”, Fulton County Daily Report, Jan. 29).

European speechcrime, cont’d

Perhaps not unrelated to the French Mohammed-cartoons trial mentioned yesterday, this is from Brussels Journal (Feb. 2):

If Turkey joins the EU then we will have the comedy situation that denial of the Armenian Holocaust is a criminal offence in France, whilst mentioning it is a criminal offence in Turkey. The happy result of this could be that the entire population of France could be lifted and placed, Midnight Express like in Turkish prisons. Of course the entire population of Turkey could then find itself extradited to France and imprisoned there.

Before anyone objects, yes, it’s of course true that the laws in question do not actually compel citizens to speak affirmatively on behalf of the official view, so it’s still possible (through silence) to avoid breaking anyone’s law. The concept remains funny, though.

Marcotte’s regrets

I wouldn’t even go so far as to say there’s things I “regret”. There are comments I’ve made that tone-deaf wingnuts don’t understand, sure.

— John Edwards official campaign blogger Amanda Marcotte, or someone posing as her, in the comments at J Train. Marcotte (or the person posing as her) apparently thought better of the Edith Piaf stance, and a minute later returned with a second amending comment. For examples of the “comments I’ve made that tone-deaf wingnuts don’t understand” regarding the Duke lacrosse case, see our post of Friday, further updated on Sunday.

Marcotte has a “tremendous fan” and doughty supporter in Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors (Feb. 6), whose precision in classifying adversaries as “conservative” is disputed by South of Heaven (Feb. 7: “People who know me are rolling all over the floor.”) On the other hand, inveterate publicity hound and professional taker-of-offense Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has now gone on the warpath against Marcotte (and another Edwards hire, Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister). Marcotte’s writings on religious topics do seem to present a rather broadly inviting target for offense-takers, to judge from the snippets now making their way into press coverage (Nedra Pickler, “Catholics Slam Bloggers Hired by Edwards”, AP/ABCNews.com, Feb. 6; Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Unholy Hire”, National Review, Feb. 6). The New York Times’s coverage, unlike the AP’s, makes reference to the Duke lacrosse rants that originally drew our and many other people’s attention to Marcotte. (John M. Broder, “Edwards’s Bloggers Cross the Line, Critic Says”, New York Times, Feb. 7). The Times adds that “Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.”

More commentary: Patterico (“godbag”); Ed Morrissey (“In the case of Marcotte, her anti-Catholic screeds would make Jack Chick blush with embarrassment”); Althouse; John Cole (scroll to “Browns/Cowboys Superbowl”, as well as comment); Kos comments (do Catholics tithe, anyway?); “Expo” on Kos; Matt Stoller at MyDD.

U.S. capital market regulation: a view from “Red Ken”

From a report in London’s Evening Standard Dec. 12 on the controversy over NASDAQ’s interest in buying the London Stock Exchange:

Critics such as Mayor Ken Livingstone warn that the takeover could have very serious implications for London’s position as the world’s pre-eminent international finance centre.

In a letter to the Office of Fair Trading, Mr Livingstone says the proposed takeover risks the traditionally free-wheeling City being throttled by US-style regulation [emphasis added] and warns that investment in the Stock Exchange could be curtailed.

Note to the New Yorker, Fortune, and other press organs who claim Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Schumer are being excessively alarmist about capital market flight: when even the Castro-fêting “Red Ken” says we’re overregulating in this country, maybe we’re really overregulating (cross-posted from Point of Law).

Jack Thompson faces possible disbarment

Aw, that’s not fair. What would we do for material? “Thompson’s ire [at the alleged evils of videogaming] spread to several law professionals involved in the lawsuits he filed. The disbarment proceedings resulted from separate grievances filed by people claiming that Thompson made false statements and attempted to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them, according to documents in the [Florida bar disciplinary] case.” (K.C. Jones, ” Grand Theft Auto Critic Faces Misconduct Charges”, InformationWeek, Feb. 6; “Jack Thompson Faces Florida Supreme Court Disciplinary Hearing”, GamePolitics.com, Feb. 3; Billy Berghammer, “Jack Thompson Faces Florida Disciplinary Hearing”, Game Informer, Feb. 5). More: Oct. 30, Oct. 20, and many others.

Update: Indictments in Roberts sex/extortion case still pending

We first covered the case of Ted H. and Mary Schorlemer Roberts Jun. 13, 2004 and Sep. 3, 2005:

According to a story in the San Antonio Express-News, husband-and-wife legal partners Ted H. and Mary Schorlemer Roberts received money in a curious sequence of events. Mary, claiming to seek “no strings” discreet encounters, would seduce men over an Internet dating service. Ted would then write the men (in legal documents sometimes typed by Mary) and notify them that he planned to seek intrusive and public civil discovery to investigate whether the affair brought forward potential causes of action that were flimsy at best; the men would pay tens of thousands of dollars for a release and confidentiality agreement.

Now:

Two San Antonio, Texas, lawyers, married to each other, face a trial on theft charges based on allegations that the wife had sexual liaisons with four men whom the husband subsequently threatened with litigation unless they compensated him for his emotional distress.

You’ll never guess how the Roberts’ lawyer defends them:

[Michael] McCrum contends the state is trying to prosecute his clients for something that civil lawyers do all the time — send demand letters and present petitions they plan to file under Rule 202.

“By stretching statutory words to an unprecedented interpretation, the state seeks to criminalize as “theft the presentment and subsequent settlement of potential claims authorized under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure,” Mary and Ted Roberts alleged in one of several motions to quash their indictments that Harle dismissed in October 2006. …

[Baker Botts attorney Rod] Phelan says there is “a kernel of truth” in the point that McCrum is making. “The line between extortion or blackmail and making a demand to settle a colorable claim is gray,” he says.

The prosecutor distinguishes the two by noting that Ted Roberts was acting pro se. (Mary Alice Robbins, “Married Lawyers Face Trial for Payment Demands After Wife’s Affairs”, Texas Lawyer, Feb. 6). Note that these are theft, rather than extortion charges, however; a stretch, to be sure, but the prosecutors decided that Texas law does permit extortion in these circumstances. (It does seem rather appalling under the prosecutors’ view that the only thing Roberts needed to accomplish his blackmail is to expand the conspiracy to a third person.) Unfortunately for the extortion victims, their identities were revealed by the indictment and the Texas Lawyer coverage. A job for ReputationDefender?