- “Mississippi accused do time for years with no indictment for a crime” [Jerry Mitchell, Clarion-Ledger; Scott Greenfield]
- Petty fines/fees, cont’d: the many ways to rack up municipal court fees in Ferguson and St. Louis County [Julie Lurie and Katie Rose Quandt, Mother Jones; earlier here and here] St. Louis suburbs with now-familiar names agree to traffic-cam settlement [KMOV]
- Judge rules police entitled to SWAT raid of private home over satirical Twitter account “impersonating” Peoria mayor [Guardian, earlier]
- Plea bargaining and excessive prosecutorial power [The Economist via Alexander Cohen, Atlas Society]
- Radley Balko remembers policing expert and former San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara;
- “SEC ‘Gag Orders’: Does Settling in Silence Advance the Public Interest?” [Gary Matsko, WLF, cf. Toyota prosecution deal; related, Greenfield]
- Press 3 to confiscate his gun: New California law lets exes, in-laws, vengeful former roommates, or cops disarm individual without notice or hearing [Jacob Sullum, Sacramento Bee] More: Andrew Sullivan.
Update: John Wayne heirs lose case against Duke University
More tips for disability claimants
If collecting workers’ comp payments premised on disability from knee and other injuries, it is best not to post photos on Facebook of your exploits continuing to race your BMX bike [Kent, Wash.; MyNorthwest.com]
P.S. You might face less scrutiny, per this L.A. Times account, if you’re a Los Angeles firefighter or police officer claiming injury on the job under a remarkably generous compensation scheme “that has cost taxpayers $328 million over the last five years.”
California sex-consent law: an “engineer’s solution”
From rxc in comments:
The engineer’s solution:
Everyone who participates in the regulated activity needs to purchase a simple push-button device which controls a separate panel with a red light and a green light. During the regulated activity, each participant must hold down the button on the controller that illuminates the green light, which shall remain visible to the other party(ies) at all times. If, at any time, a participant releases this button, the green light goes off, and a red light comes on. Optionally, a siren could start to sound, to summon outside assistance.
These days, with Wifi and Bluetooth, I bet you could make the controller wireless and small enough to easily hold in one hand, leaving the other hand free for other activites…
I bet the Chinese could get something set up in a few weeks, and have it in stores by Xmas!
Failure to use such a device is cause to dismiss later allegations that consent was not given.
Batteries not included.
“Iowa Troopers Steal $100,000 in Poker Winnings From Two Players Driving Through”
Jacob Sullum traces how a gambling jackpot magically became a forfeiture jackpot (also from him, a history of how forfeiture law got so bad). The Washington Post followed up last month on its multi-part, front-page exposure of forfeiture law (Tim Lynch and Scott Shackford summarize some of its findings) with an op-ed from two former DoJ officials calling for abolition of the program they once helped run; Scott Greenfield has commentary on that as well as more generally on the costs of defense in forfeiture cases and on Nassau County, N.Y.’s resumption of the seizure of cars being driven by persons arrested for drunk driving, whether or not owned by those persons.
From today’s Washington Post: “Activists and Hill staffers meet to discuss curbs to asset-forfeiture laws”. And George Leef writes in Forbes: “Time For Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws To Meet The Same Fate As Jim Crow.”
Scary UK proposal: “Extremist Disruption Orders”
“Extremists will have to get posts on Facebook and Twitter approved in advance by the police under sweeping rules planned by the Conservatives.” [Telegraph] The Spectator joins other critics in noting that the idea, floated by Home Secretary Theresa May, could conceivably be used not only against proponents of violent Islamism but also (for example) radicals of right and left, Irish nationalists, and animal-rights protesters:
Labour’s ‘hate crime’ laws have already been used to pursue Christian street preachers criticising homosexuality and Englishmen being rude about Scots. This magazine was once contacted by the CID, which was ‘investigating’ an article about Islamic fundamentalism — the police were trying to establish if we had violated the parameters of argument defined by New Labour. Rather than repeal such laws, Mrs May seems to want to extend them.
HIPAA, health privacy laws, and contagious epidemics
“Health privacy” was a feel-good, no-downside issue for politicos, but expect the arrival of more serious mass outbreaks of communicable disease to change that [Arthur Caplan, Wired]
October 3 roundup
- Posner smacks lawyers, vindicates objectors in Radio Shack coupon settlement [CCAF, Fisher, more]
- “Germany To Consider Ban On Late-Night Work Emails” [Alexander Kaufman, Huffington Post]
- 7th Circuit overturns Wisconsin John Doe ruling, sends back to state judges [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, ruling; more, Vox] John Doe case prosecutor John Chisholm, via columnist Dan Bice, strikes back against source in office who talked to Stuart Taylor, Jr. [Taylor, Althouse]
- Trial lawyer/massive Democratic donor Steve Mostyn also dabbles in Texas Republican primaries [Robert T. Garrett, Dallas Morning News; Mostyn’s national spending from Florida and Arizona to New Hampshire and Minnesota]
- Sad: immigration lawyer known for Iraqi Christian advocacy faces asylum fraud charges [Chicago Tribune]
- Might have been entertaining had Bruce Braley opponent Joni Ernst in Iowa argued in favor of nullification, but that’s not what evidence shows [Ramesh Ponnuru]
- California hobbles insurers with diverse-procurement regulations [Ian Adams, Insurance Journal]
More on that California college sex law
Hans Bader has some clarification on one issue on which there’s been widespread confusion, on which the California law does not go to the extreme some would have liked [San Francisco Chronicle letter to the editor; earlier]:
“New law redefines consent at college” (Sept. 29) claimed that California’s new “affirmative consent” law regulating college sex “says that a person cannot give consent if they are intoxicated.” But it does not say this. What it actually says is that “consent” is absent when “the complainant was incapacitated” due to alcohol.
Most intoxicated people are not legally deemed “incapacitated” and can consent, as law professor Anne Coughlin and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have noted.
Many happily married people have sex after drinking. While some liberal Democrats who sponsored SB967 wanted to ban sex between intoxicated people, the final version of the bill does not do so.
Admittedly, the new law is disturbingly vague in other ways. Its co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), said, “Your guess is as good as mine,” when asked how an innocent person could prove “affirmative” consent.
Hans Bader, Washington, D.C.
If you celebrate Banned Books Week…
…yet deplore the Citizens United decision, you might have a consistency problem [A. Barton Hinkle, syndicated]