Massachusetts’s highest court thought it a bit much that fees and costs would eat up $800,000 from an estate valued at $1.2 million, or two-thirds of the value at stake. [Robert Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch; Above the Law]
Incidentally, Robert Ambrogi is hanging up his keyboard after an impressive four-year tenure at Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch, but he’ll continue to maintain his other sites. He has kind words for this site as one to “follow religiously”, too.
Yesterday’s roundup item wondering whether Massachusetts Democrats had secured the requisite photo permissions for women portrayed as rape victims in a controversial campaign flyer drew many readers thanks to a link from Kathryn Lopez at the Corner.
Didn’t realize the newsman had covered the story (quite a while back, it would appear from the look and feel of the video):
Via Andrew Sullivan. On Massachusetts AG and Senate candidate Martha Coakley’s role, see this earlier post, as well as critical videos here and here, Popehat, Jury Box, and Radley Balko.
A late-night binge drinking outing by some high school friends in Norfolk, Mass. ends badly. The mother says her late daughter “is absolutely 100 percent responsible” for what happened to her but is still is suing seven (7) teenagers and adults for their roles. [Boston Globe]
The Massachusetts attorney general and Senate candidate poses as the guardian of justice and civil liberties. Dorothy Rabinowitz knows better (earlier on the Amirault case here and here; on Coakley’s prosecutorial record here).
More (via Memeorandum): Bronwyn’s Harbor, No Quarter (citing views of Jeralyn Merritt/TalkLeft and Arthur Leonard); Dan McLaughlin, RedState; Dan Riehl (Woodward, Souza cases). Yet more: on Coakley’s offer to a deal to one defendant on condition that the experienced defense counsel handling the deal agree not to represent a second defendant in future, see Scott Greenfield (characterizing the move as “a deliberate effort to undermine the constitutional right to counsel”), Kenneth Anderson/Volokh, and John Steele/Legal Ethics Forum.
Martha Coakley’s record as a criminal prosecutor. [Radley Balko, Politico] More: Ed Brayton. Update: Dorothy Rabinowitz has not forgotten the Amirault case, nor should we.
In the latest round in the prolonged controversy over the Nantucket Sound development, Aquinnah Wampanoag Indians who live on the west side of Martha’s Vineyard say that turbines off the east side of the island would spoil their welcome of the morning sun [NYT, WSJ editorial]
A dismissed teacher’s case against the school system in Lowell is now before Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court. Phanna Rem Robishaw, a native of Cambodia originally hired to teach bilingual programs, had received favorable evaluations for years but received an unsatisfactory rating in English fluency after the state began requiring that teachers be tested on that skill. An arbitrator reinstated her but a state court judge reversed the reinstatement, terming her performance on an interview test tape “utterly incomprehensible”. Robishaw’s lawyer says the arbitrator excluded the tape from evidence and that the judge should not have considered it, and that the judge failed to observe the presumption against overturning arbitration results. “In 2002, Massachusetts’ voters passed Question 2, requiring all school superintendents to attest to the English fluency and literacy of their teachers where ‘the teacher’s fluency is not apparent through classroom observation and assessment or interview assessment.'” [Lowell Sun]
Readers with long memories will recall the 1990s controversy over a hard-to-understand foreign-born teacher in Westfield, Mass. which led Massachusetts voters to adopt Question 2; I wrote about it for Reason here. By coincidence, presumably, Robishaw attended Westfield State College.