- Tony Jalali case: “Anaheim, feds try to seize office building under forfeiture laws because owner rented to medical marijuana dispensaries” [@radleybalko, Institute for Justice]
- Judge Ciavarella, of cash-for-kids Pa. scandal, sentenced to 28 years [Citizens Voice, background]
- Explosion in US prison population isn’t just from War on Drugs [Pfaff via Greenfield] Reform of (and reduction in) incarceration too important to be left to liberals [Eli Lehrer, Weekly Standard]
- “Report details lives ruined for children put on sex-offender registries” [Susan Ferriss, Center for Public Integrity via Lenore Skenazy]
- Criminal justice reform, per the NAACP’s Ben Jealous, is “one area where GOP can connect with black voters” [Jeremy Kolassa]
- “It’s actually a really good book, making me despise Geragos all the more.” [Scott Greenfield reviews Mistrial] And an oldie but goodie: Greenfield reviews “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Criminal Justice System”;
- Alleged “duty injury king” of Cook County jail dethroned after one comp claim too many [Chicago Sun-Times]
- Tip from Georgia cops: avoid situations where you might have to cling to hood of moving car [Lowering the Bar]
- ABA’s evidently already made up its mind to oppose Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, but is holding public “hearings” on the topic anyway [ABA Journal]
- Don’t forget to check out Cato’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, which you can also follow on Twitter and like on Facebook
NYC proposes expansion of black market
“Young New Yorkers would not be able to buy cigarettes until they were 21, up from the current 18, under a proposal advanced [last month] by Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.” [New York Times via J.D. Tuccille] Or at least would not be able to buy them legally: according to estimates from the Mackinac Institute, New York state already has the nation’s highest rate of smuggled cigarette consumption, at more than 60 percent of its total market. [Catherine Rampell, NYT; Mackinac; Tax Foundation; Christopher Snowdon, “The Wages of Sin Taxes” (CEI, PDF)]
More: As the legal drinking age has been pushed upward in recent years, the average age of first use of alcohol has fallen markedly [Tuccille]
Postal code lookups on websites
“Canada Post — a failing, state-owned Crown Corporation — not only claims a copyright on the database of postal codes (a collection of facts, and not the sort of thing that usually attracts copyright). They also claim a trademark on the words ‘postal code,’ and have sent legal threats to websites that use the words factually, to describe actual postal codes.” (U.S. = zipcodes) [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing; Eruci]
Environment roundup
- Can EPA use subregulatory guidance to dodge judicial review of formal notice-and-comment rulemaking? Appeals court says no [Allison Wood, WLF]
- “Outhouse blues: Salisbury Twp. tells 77-year-old to install $20,000 septic system he doesn’t want” [Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Online]
- Denying attorney fee in oil spill case, Texas judge questions authenticity of client signature [ABA Journal, Chamber-backed Southeast Texas Record]
- Why “climate justice” campaigns fail both the environment and the poor [Chris Foreman, The Breakthrough]
- Does the Yale Alumni Magazine often side with plaintiffs who sue to muzzle critics? [Neela Banerjee on Michael Mann lawsuit against National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mark Steyn, etc.]
- Anti-science, anti-humanity: Milan animal rights action trashes years of psychiatric research [Nature]
- Parody Tom-Friedman-bot must be at it again: “best place to start” response to Boston attack “is with a carbon tax” [Tim Blair] Too darn hot: “Dems warn climate change could drive women to ‘transactional sex'” [The Hill]
- Some California lawmakers seek to curb shakedown lawsuits under notorious Prop 65 chemical-labeling law [Sacramento Bee; Gov. Brown proposes reform]
“Report: CFTC Exploring Bitcoin Regulation”
Too popular to last dept.: “The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is reportedly ‘seriously’ exploring whether volatile cyber currency Bitcoin may fall under the U.S. regulator’s purview.” [Matt Egan, Fox Business]
“A child-custody catastrophe”
“They will spend 10 years and all their money on litigation because of their inability to agree on anything,” a therapist predicted accurately. Yet more unsettling: the mom leveled false abuse accusations at the dad before eventually recanting. [Winnipeg Free Press]
World’s grumpiest patent lawyer goes for Round Two
It started with an insult-filled letter to a patent examiner that quickly made the rounds in the legal blogosphere (“Are you drunk? No, seriously … are you drinking scotch and whiskey with a side of crack cocaine while you ‘examine’ patent applications?”) In Round Two, the incensed attorney goes after patent-law blogger Dennis Crouch of Patently-O, who brought the letter to the web’s attention. [Above the Law]
May 7 roundup
- In quiet retreat from STOCK Act, Congress dispenses with trading transparency for its staff [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Deep-pocket quest: hotel named as additional defendant in Florida A&M hazing death [Orlando Sentinel, earlier]
- “Keynes didn’t expect to have kids so he didn’t care about the future” wheeze long predates Niall Ferguson [Kenneth Silber; my new post at IGF, where I’ve also been posting lately on the topic of adoption]
- Ten and five (respectively) reasons for a plaintiff’s lawyer to turn down a personal injury case [Eric Turkewitz, Max Kennerly]
- Setback for man seeking to trademark “Eat More Kale” [AP, earlier]
- Gawker is now on the UK “Warning: This bag of nuts may contain nuts” case [earlier]
- Overlawyered’s Twitter feed just passed the 7,000-follower mark, while our Facebook page, which recently stood at 1,000 likes, has now surged to nearly 2,500. Thanks for following and liking, and if you’d like to engage with other parts of Cato on social media, check out this nifty guide by Zach Graves.
Correctional officers’ “bill of rights” and the Baltimore jail scandal
Last month 13 guards and 12 others were indicted on charges of letting a gang effectively take over management of the Baltimore City Detention Center; according to the indictment, corrupt guards allegedly smuggled in drugs, cellphones and other contraband and had sex with the gang leader, several becoming pregnant by him. Since then the public and press has been asking what went wrong. A Washington Post editorial suggests one place they might look:
The absurd situation described in the indictment took root at least partly because of a “bill of rights” for corrections officers, backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and enacted by the Maryland legislature in 2010 at the behest of the guards union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. This bill of rights grants extraordinary protections to guards, including shielding them from threats of prosecution, transfer, dismissal or even disciplinary action during questioning for suspected wrongdoing.
While Gov. O’Malley has sought to minimize the relevance of the 2010 law, the Post notes that FBI recordings suggest that a guard who was deemed “dirty” was transferred to another facility, rather than fired — transfers-instead-of-firing being a less than optimal way of dealing with public employee corruption, but one typical of systems with strong tenure entrenchment. AFSCME, which boasted at the time of its “relentless lobbying” on behalf of the law, is now doing damage control. More: “those protections left officers at the jail without fear of sanctions for allegedly smuggling contraband or having relationships with inmates, the FBI said in an affidavit.” [Baltimore Sun] Union-allied lawmakers defend the measure [AP]
Card counting in casinos
Counting by way of human memory is not unlawful, but casino law tends to ban card counting that is assisted by mechanical device. Is that a defensible distinction? [Adam Kolber, Prawfs]