- Class actions: “How to pick lead counsel, Judge Alsup-style” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
- Foiled by video: “N.J. man busted staging slip-and-fall for insurance money learns his sentence” [Noah Cohen, NJ Advance Media]
- More on the “reptile theory” of jury persuasion [Drug and Device Law: Stephen McConnell, more from James Beck; earlier here, here, etc.]
- Trial lawyer consultants are sticking with their story that Toyotas are subject to electronically induced sudden acceleration that cannot be overcome by the brakes, and the Fair Warning website is not the place to expect a skeptical reaction to that [Amy Martyn, Fair Warning, our coverage]
- Arbitration-killing bill: so-called FAIR Act is trial bar top priority in Congress [Phil Goldberg, Washington Examiner]
- “Can a new study solve Johnson & Johnson’s talc problem?” [Chuck Dinerstein, American Council on Science and Health]
Posts Tagged ‘juries’
Crime and punishment roundup
- Three episodes of the Cato Daily Podcast, all with Caleb Brown: “A Survey of State-Level Criminal Justice Reform” with Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute; “Reforming Parole and Probation” with Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; “Getting Honest on Bail Reform” with Josh Crawford of the Pegasus Institute;
- In news of unconstitutional legislation, the lawmakers of Monroe County, N.Y. (Rochester) want to make it illegal to “annoy” a police officer [James Brown, WXXI, Eugene Volokh]
- Jury unanimity is required in federal criminal trials, but does the Constitution also require it at the state court level? [Federalist Society SCOTUS Brief video with Jay Schweikert on Ramos v. Louisiana, argued at the Court Oct. 7]
- In August New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law stripping state double jeopardy protections from Trump associates who may receive clemency in the future. It’s an improperly targeted enactment at best [Jacob Sullum, earlier]
- Denison, Texas drunk with multiple priors, lying on gurney in hospital, kicks police officer and gets 99 year sentence for that [Stan Smith, KXII]
- Lengthy profile of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, including his feuds with the local U.S. Attorney and Pennsylvania’s Attornry General. One disturbing data point: “Homicides in the city are up six percent and shootings are up 10 percent this year.” [Steve Volk, Philadelphia Magazine]
Liability roundup
- Little kid gets into driver’s seat, depresses gas pedal, injures mother, lawsuit tries to blame this on Tesla [Linette Lopez, Business Insider via Ted Frank]
- “New York court strikes down $7 million talc/asbestos verdict, says plaintiff’s evidence was lacking” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine]
- “How a Jury Asked for 10 Million Dollars Came to Award $2,500” [Brunswick, Ga.; Katheryn Tucker, Fulton County Daily Report (reg)]
- If Europe adopts American-style class action mechanisms, it should also look to the procedural safeguards we’ve had to develop to cut down on abuse [Kevin LaCroix, D&O Diary]
- “Setting the Record Straight About the Benefits of Pre-Dispute Arbitration” [Victor Schwartz and Christopher Appel, Washington Legal Foundation]
- Judge turns away Justice Department challenge to Dial soap class action settlement [Mark Hayward, New Hampshire Union Leader]
Unexpected moments in jury duty
“It must be extremely rare… for a judge to be summoned for jury duty in a case over which he or she will be presiding. But that happened in the UK not long ago— and the judge then had trouble getting out of it.” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]
Crime and punishment roundup
- Sorry, Denver cops, but you can’t keep a journalist from photographing an arrest on the street by telling her she’s violating the health-privacy law HIPAA [Alex Burness, Colorado Independent on handcuffing of editor Susan Greene]
- Conor Friedersdorf interviews Scott Greenfield, criminal defense blogger and longtime friend of this blog, at the Atlantic;
- Claim in new article: “extremely broad criminal statutes, no less than vague and ambiguous criminal statutes, are constitutionally problematic for depriving ordinary people of ‘fair notice’ about how the legal system actually works” [Kiel Brennan-Marquez guest series at Volokh Conspiracy: first, second, third]
- “We Cannot Avoid the Ugly Tradeoffs of Bail Reform” [Alex Tabarrok; Scott Greenfield] New York should learn from Maryland on risks of unintended consequences [New York Post, and thanks for mention] And a Cato Daily Podcast on bail reform with Daniel Dew of the Buckeye Institute and Caleb Brown;
- In Little Rock and elsewhere, police use of criminal informants creates disturbing incentives that can challenge both probity and accountability [Jonathan Blanks, Cato on Radley Balko account of Roderick Talley raid episode]
- Call to scrap juries in UK rape trials (because they acquit too often) is met with criticism [Matthew Scott, Spectator]
Constitutional law as it shoulda been
In learning to reason impartially about constitutional law, a valuable exercise is to come up with a list of instances in which the best reading of the Constitution cuts *against* your own view of good policy. Ilya Somin goes first, with examples that include near-total Congressional control over foreign trade; too much use of juries; the extreme difficulty of removing a seriously bad President; the near-indelible status of state lines; and an amendment process that is too hard to use.
Emotional support, therapy and companion dogs in court
“As dogs and other animals are increasingly used in courts to comfort and calm prosecution witnesses, a few voices are calling for keeping the practice on a short leash, saying they could bias juries.” [AP/WTOP]
Medical roundup
- After malpractice caps, doctors ordered fewer invasive tests to diagnose heart attacks [Elizabeth Cooney, Stat]
- Product liability defense lawyer manages to survive peremptory challenge and make it onto a jury for a med-mal case, and here are his observations [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law]
- “How Big Government Backed Bad Science and Made Americans Fat” [Reason interview with Nina Teicholz]
- Suits against blood thinner Xarelto have done poorly. Can plaintiff’s lawyers keep plugging away till they get wins? [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine]
- “Pharmacy Benefit Managers Are Not the Cause of High Prescription Drug Prices” [Ike Brannon]
- Advice for physicians: “5 ways to live through medical malpractice lawsuits” [Stacia Dearmin, KevinMD]
December 6 roundup
- Torts class hypotheticals come to life: tipsy axe-throwing, discussed in this space last June, is coming to D.C. [Jessica Sidman, Washingtonian] One guess why Japanese “slippery stairs” game show might not translate easily to Land O’ Lawyers [Dan McLaughlin on Twitter]
- “California lawyer pleads guilty in $50M visa scam” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
- Claim: longstanding practice in Louisiana and Oregon of not requiring jury unanimity for felony convictions reflects states’ racial past [Angela A. Allen-Bell, Washington Post]
- “Judge Halts Copyright Troll’s Lawsuit Against A Now-Deceased Elderly Man With Dementia And An IP Address” [Timothy Geigner]
- David Henderson reviews Richard Rothstein book on history of federal encouragement of housing segregation, The Color of Law [Cato Regulation magazine]
- Class action: sellers of cold-pressed juice should have disclosed that it was high-pressure-processed [Elaine Watson, Food Navigator USA]
Jurors and social media
A New York advisory (@jordanzakarin on Twitter).
Solid overall life advice, too pic.twitter.com/UByBgiRdFN
— Jordan Zakarin (@jordanzakarin) August 1, 2016