Some consider the Renaissance Italian cleric (whose feast day is today) to be patron of p.r. practitioners and lobbyists, and at least one comic tale, prefiguring the later Public Choice theme of “Bootleggers and Baptists,” tends to back them up. I explain at Cato at Liberty.
“Arbitration Three Years After Concepcion”
Still pretty much the Litigation Lobby’s number one target, and still worth defending with appropriate vigor. [Andrew Pincus, American Lawyer]
Alt-medicine personality menaces critic
Author Jon Entine, associated with George Mason U.’s STATS project and a visiting fellow at AEI, wrote a highly critical piece at Forbes.com about Mike Adams, whose extremely controversial views on science, medicine, vaccines, GMOs and other topics get wide circulation through the site Natural News, much shared on the internet. Adams’s resulting legal threats led Forbes to pull down the Entine piece (the publication of which Adams deemed “cyber-bullying” and “electronic harassment”), and Keith Kloor at DiscoverBlogs prints choice excerpts from what is said to be Adams’s electronic correspondence with Entine. More: Sharon Hill, Doubtful News.
Crime and punishment roundup
- Radley Balko weighs in on Philadelphia bodega-robbery scandal: “I want to refer to these thugs as ‘rogue cops,’ but given that [they’ve thrived] how rogue can they really be?” [Washington Post, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Speaking of Philadelphia cops: “16 Philly police, firefighters earned more than $400,000 in overtime since ’09” [Brian X. McCrone and Emily Babay, Philly.com]
- Also from Balko: “Police cameras are great, except when the video goes missing“; “Police shooting 377 rounds into a car occupied by two unarmed men “raises concerns.” That’s one way of putting it.” And a not very funny t-shirt;
- “Mission creep”: Department of Homeland Security has its fingers in many more pies than you might realize [Albuquerque Journal]
- Felony murder rule: “Sentenced To Life In Prison For Loaning His Roommate His Car And Going To Sleep” [Amy Alkon] Sentencing reform is bipartisan issue on both sides [L.A. Times]
- How many parents and caregivers are behind bars on scientifically bogus “shaken-baby” charges, and is there any urgency to finding out? [Matt Stroud, The Verge; earlier]
- Milwaukee cop drives into sober woman’s car, charges her with DUI [WITI via Greenfield]
“I showed up with a restraining order”
And a Kenosha, Wis. dad says that’s what it took to get some relief from the school on his complaints that his daughter was being attacked and bullied by one of her kindergarten classmates. A school spokeswoman “said there are two sides to every story, but she couldn’t talk about specifics.” Depending on whether, e.g., health privacy laws happen to apply in the situation, it might be true as a legal proposition that she couldn’t talk about specifics. [Fox 11 Online]
For-profit entities wielding government force
On “The perils of privatized probation,” Radley Balko seems convincing to me [Washington Post], quoting The Economist’s “Democracy in America“:
I’ve written about these fees before, but here’s a quick refresher: if you get hit with a $200 ticket you can’t pay, then a private-probation company will let you pay it off in instalments, for a monthly fee. Then there may be additional fees for electronic monitoring, drug testing and classes—many of which are assigned not by a judge, but by the private company itself. When probationers cannot pay, courts issue warrants for their arrest and their probation terms are extended—a reprehensible practice known as “tolling”, which a judge declared illegal last year. These are folks who had trouble paying the initial fine; you have to imagine they’ll have trouble paying additional fines. It’s plausible to posit that these firms’ business models are based on assigning unpayable fees to people who lack the sophistication, time, will or whatever to contest them. One might even say these predatory firms treat the long arm of the law as sort of lever on a juicer into which poor people are fed and squeezed to produce an endless stream of fees.
The incentives of the private companies do not, to put it mildly, appear well aligned with the interests of the public. More in our law enforcement for profit tag. Update: Sarah Stillman in the New Yorker with a damning investigative article.
“Why Government Fails So Often”
Peter Schuck, professor emeritus at Yale Law School, came to Cato in March to discuss his new book Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better. Caleb Brown of Cato interviewed him for this Cato podcast.
Paternalism roundup
- “Go to Heaven, Bloomberg: The meddling ex-mayor thinks he is on a mission from God.” [Sullum] “De Blasio to resurrect attempt at NYC big soda ban” [Eric Boehm, Watchdog.org]
- The CDC connection: much of Bloomberg’s crew of public health officials has moved into the Obama administration, and has big plans [Jeff Stier]
- “The public health approach rejects the idea that there is such a thing as unfettered free will” — here’s Bloomberg paternalism boiled down nicely for you [Larry Gostin, Hastings Center Report via Scott Burris, Bill of Health (regretting “mass delusion of autonomy”)]
- Centers for Disease Control (CDC): if skeptical media call, tell ’em you’re not around [Zenon Evans]
- For her own good: “89-Year-Old Kicked Out of HUD Housing for Smoking Cigarettes” [Elizabeth N. Brown]
- “Longer Pub Hours, Fewer Car Accidents in England and Wales” [James Schneider, Econlib]
- Sally Satel on the benefits of e-cigarettes [AEI Ideas video] “The FDA Says E-Cigarettes Are Less Harmful Than Smoking” [Jason Koebler, Vice Motherboard]
California: trial lawyers qualify initiative to overturn MICRA
MICRA, approved by California voters in 1974, limits noneconomic damage payouts in medical malpractice cases and has been the main reason medical liability insurance rates in the state are only in the middle of the pack nationally despite the state’s long-earned reputation as one of the most litigious in general. Focus-group research led trial lawyer advocates to tack on a provision prescribing drug testing for doctors to improve the measure’s chances [James Hay, San Diego Union-Tribune; Legal NewsLine and more; ABA Journal] Some predict that the impending lawyers-vs.-doctors battle, with various allies brought in on both sides, will be the most expensively fought ballot measure in history. Earlier coverage of MICRA here.
Humane Society, other groups to pay > $15 million over Ringling litigation
A year and a half ago, as I noted at the time, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) “agreed to pay $9.3 million to settle racketeering and other charges arising from alleged litigation abuse in lawsuits beginning in 2000 over elephant welfare,” while “other defendants in the countersuit, including the Humane Society of the U.S., have declined to settle [with Feld Entertainment/Ringling Bros.] and remain in the litigation.” Now the Humane Society and other groups have agreed to pay more than $15 million, suggesting the ASCPA settlement was not a freak occurrence. [AP/Houston Chronicle, Charles Schelle/Bradenton Herald]
My piece on the ASPCA settlement is here and Overlawyered coverage of the long-running litigation here.