Readers may recall the brouhaha last year when a federally protected plant, the Sebastopol meadowfoam, was discovered growing on the grounds of a controversial proposed housing development in the Northern California community; state wildlife officials investigated and said it was apparently planted on purpose. (May 25, 2005). Now the plant has sprung up again on the site, and although opponents of the project have seized on the news, the developer says it’s just a result of the germination of seeds from the earlier illicit plantation. (Terence Chea, “Trouble in bloom at Calif. development site”, AP/Boston Globe, Jul. 17).
Posts Tagged ‘Bay Area’
“No one will be hurt if we get our diploma”
Updating our Feb. 22 report: “A judge Friday suspended California’s high school exit exam, finding it discriminatory in a ruling that could allow thousands of students who failed the test to get their diplomas anyway.” Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman “agreed with the plaintiffs that the exam discriminates against poor students and those who are learning English. ‘There is evidence in the record that shows that students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested,’ Freedman wrote.” It would appear that from now on a high school diploma is meant to signify not a student’s actual mastery of a certain body of material, but rather the mastery he or she would have attained had the breaks of life been fairer. Employers, and all others who rely on California high school diplomas in evaluating talent, would be well advised to adjust their expectations accordingly.
“Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said the state would immediately appeal the ruling, which he said creates ‘chaos’ for more than 1,100 high schools that are completing graduation preparations.” However, plaintiff Mayra Ibanez was gratified:
“It is hard to be poor. It is hard to grow up in a place where there is a lot of crime,” said the 18-year-old, a Mexican immigrant who attends school in the working-class San Francisco Bay area city of Richmond. “No one will be hurt if we get our diploma.”
(Juliet Williams, “Ruling Blocks Calif. High School Exit Exam”, AP/Forbes, May 12).
Sensible Public Health
Here’s a story about a public health intervention that:
1. Appears to have reduced the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.
2. Especially by encouraging people to have a check-up.
3. Appears to have been fairly inexpensive.
4. Involved no coercion.
The Bay Area Reporter offers a story about a costumed character who promotes sexual disease control (sort of like Smokey the Bear encourages people to prevent forest fires). But the particular costume would scandalize many people. Read the whole article before you make up your own mind.
Subway maps on your personal electronic device
What a neat idea, so naturally it’s drawn cease-and-desist letters from the New York and San Francisco transit authorities (Wired, via Dennis Kennedy who got it from B.L. Ochman)(cross-posted from Point of Law).
S.F.’s move to regulate bloggers
…is now officially dead, reports Bill Quick (May 16)(via Instapundit)(see Apr. 6). The Federal Election Commission, on the other hand, remains a threat, according to Redstate.org (May 20)(also via Instapundit)(see Mar. 17, Mar. 31). More on campaign finance law and free speech: Jonathan Rauch, “McCain-Feingold at Rest”, National Journal/Reason Online, May 9.
S.F. to regulate bloggers?
San Francisco to vote on regulating blogging
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote April 5 on a proposed campaign finance regulation that would define “electioneering communication” to include weblogs that receive more than 500 hits from San Francisco voters. There would be a disclosure requirement (that must be made in a 14-point typeface) and potential reporting requirements. (via Southern California Law Blog and Personal Democracy Forum).
Today’s police chase lawsuit round-up II
So, you’re a police officer and you see a Nissan truck zoom through a stop sign at 40 mph. You give chase, but the car speeds up and drives even more erratically. Do you:
(a) View this as a sign that this maniac driver must be stopped?
or
(b) Stop the chase. The guy is driving dangerously!
Lawsuit after lawsuit posit that police act inappropriately by not stopping the chase — even though that effectively creates a policy that rewards, and thus encourages, miscreants who put other drivers at risk by trying to escape the police. Simply put, policy (b) is the policy that will guarantee that drivers try to drive dangerously to force police to peel off, while policy (a) encourages all but the most wildly irrational to pull over.
In California on March 16, 2003, Joseph Boldt, allegedly under the influence of meth, sped up in his stolen vehicle after running the stop sign, and Sergeant Mark Farber followed. Boldt decided to try to escape by going southbound in the northbound lanes of I-280, at speeds of up to 110 mph, causing three other accidents before smashing into an innocent driver, Girish Wadhwani, critically injuring him. Boldt’s passenger, Bobby Luke Kleinheinz, also wanted on an arrest warrant at the time, wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was killed; the wheelchair-bound Boldt faces second-degree murder charges, though his trial has been postponed at least a couple of times because of crash-related health problems. Kleinheinz’s family is, of course, suing the police, rather than Boldt. The Association of Bay Area Governments paid Wadhwani $3.15 million for his broken bones. “Millbrae officials said they believed Farber acted appropriately but agreed to the settlement for fear of losing an even larger award during a civil trial.” (Ryan Kim, “$3.15 million settlement in high-speed crash”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 26; AP, Mar. 26; Amy Yarbrough, “Man awarded $3.15 million in damages after police chase”, San Mateo County Times, Mar. 19; “Crash trial postponed”, SF Examiner, Sep. 14; Ethan Fletcher, “Chase case heads for trial”, San Francisco Independent, Jul. 23; Michelle Durand, “Fatal wrong-way driver begins murder trial today”, San Mateo Daily Journal, Jun. 8; Michelle Durand, “Murder trial delayed for fatal wrong way driver”, Dec. 24, 2003; WPIX-5, Mar. 19, 2003; previous OL posts on high-speed chases: Mar. 15 & Sep. 21, 2003)(& letter to the editor, Apr. 12).
Defamation or reputation protection?
Winning a defamation case in the United States as a private person is thankfully and notably difficult. Winning a defamation case as a public person (someone well known in the relevant community or a public official) is extremely difficult unless there is an unmitigated lie, and nearly impossible if the case comes down to one person’s word against another’s.
Often defamation actions are covers — one person who may have done something wrong will protest his or her innocence, sue and accuser and use the pressure of a lawsuit to obtain a retraction of some sort. Those lawsuits are discouraged in California by the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute, which penalizes plaintiffs for using defamation actions as swords to prevent defendants from exercising First Amendment rights.
The Monk won’t hazard a guess here about the merits of this lawsuit that former US track superstar Marion Jones filed against Vincent Conte, the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. That company is better known as BALCO, [alleged] steroid supplier to the superstars. Conte stated in interviews and in ESPN The Magazine that he personally witnessed Marion Jones inject steroids into herself and that he cut ties to her because she kept losing steroid paraphenalia on the road.
Jones has passed a lie detector test and testified to her innocence under oath before various athletic committees and in affidavits. But her ex-husband was thrown out of the 2000 Olympics for steroid use and her boyfriend is reputedly similarly dirty. On the other hand, Conte has never subjected his statements to the penalty of perjury.
Mutiny of the bounty-hunted, cont’d: Calif. schools
Under California law, if school districts do not comply with public records requests within a stated period, they can be liable for requesters’ legal fees. In July and early August, as many officials were leaving for vacation, various Bay Area districts received requests for “school board members’ statement of economic interest — a document that details an elected official’s investments”. When the statements were not forthcoming within the prescribed period, lawsuits promptly followed demanding legal fees. The requesting organization, which calls itself Nolex Group, turns out to be run by a lawyer and to have no immediately visible purpose other than filing the requests. The Emery Unified district settled for a reported $2,500, but others resisted, with one defendant’s lawyer calling the action a “holdup lawsuit” and another saying that “These guys are trying to line their pockets at the expense of schoolchildren.” After the local news media took an interest, Nolex, which appears to be based from the Walnut Creek home of attorney Scott Hammel (with help from attorney Byron Done), “said it planned to drop six suits it had filed against San Mateo County school districts.” Hammel has vehemently denied improper motivations. (Jahna Berry, “Calif. Schools Blast Records Request as ‘Holdup Lawsuit'”, The Recorder, Nov. 24; “Lawyers Target Schools For Easy Money”, KRON, Oct. 21; Ethan Fletcher, “Alleged shakedown suit dropped”, San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 7).