An earlier cyberbullying bill in New York was struck down by the state’s highest court as in violation of the First Amendment, and now a new version… well, let’s just say that it has free speech problems too, which don’t get conjured away just because a person named in and distressed by speech is a minor [Eugene Volokh, Eric Turkewitz first post with explanatory followup, Scott Greenfield first and second posts, earlier]
Posts Tagged ‘New York’
New York bill would ban many instances of photo-sharing as elder abuse
What?! A bill passed 61-0 in the New York senate, and promoted as curbing elder abuse, “makes it a crime for caregivers (including family) to post photos on social media if elderly, vulnerable seniors aren’t able to give consent.” [Eric Turkewitz]
Crime and punishment roundup
- “Lawmakers must act now to close New York’s double jeopardy loophole,” claims New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood. Its what? [Kenneth Lovett/New York Daily News, Jacob Sullum/Reason, Jed Shugerman/Slate (defending closing of “loophole”), Jonathan Blanks on Twitter, earlier]
- Speaking of pardon powers, Debra Saunders quotes me in column on Presidential pardons, Martha Stewart, Rod Blagojevich, Marc Rich, etc. [Las Vegas Review Journal/syndicated]
- “California Town Hired Private Law Firm to Sue Citizens, Then Tried to Conceal Massive Costs” [Scott Shackford, earlier on Indio, Coachella, etc.] Bill passed by California assembly “would put an end to a practice in which several cities have been contracting with private prosecutors to handle nuisance abatement cases, then billing the impacted citizens thousands in lawyers’ fees.” [same]
- “In light of the [Aaron] Persky recall, here are some studies on the impact of elections on judicial behavior. The story is consistent: elections make judges harsher, and there may be other costs as well (like lower-skilled people becoming judges).” [John Pfaff Twitter thread, earlier here, here, and here]
- “CBP Sued For Seizing $41,000 From Airline Passenger, Then Refusing To Give It Back Unless She Promised Not To Sue” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
- Even when suspects are in fact guilty, lies told to justify searches “corrupt the law in order to enforce it. That’s not how policing is supposed to work.” [Jonathan Blanks on Joseph Goldstein, New York Times investigation of police perjury (“testilying”)]
NY court: public accommodations law restricts rights of group seeking to boycott Israel
Both ironic and disturbing: rejecting a First Amendment defense, a New York court says city and state public accommodation law may forbid the left-wing National Lawyers Guild from turning down (in line with its position favoring an Israel boycott) an attempt from a group based in West Bank Israeli settlements to buy an ad in its awards banquet program [Eugene Volokh]
Liability roundup
- Activist high court, no-fault PPI auto insurance, assignment-of-benefits (AOB) claims helped Florida win top Judicial Hellhole ranking from American Tort Reform Foundation [Amy O’Connor, Insurance Journal]
- Maybe getting people interested in the age-old ethical dangers of champerty and maintenance would be easier if litigation finance were framed as a Chamber of Commerce vs. Peter Thiel match-up [Jacob Gershman, WSJ] “Prosecutors Investigate Firms That Offer Plaintiffs Early Cash” [Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times]
- Seventh Circuit: parents, not Starbucks, bore duty of protecting 3-year-old from harm resulting from playing on crowd-control stanchions [Roh v. Starbucks]
- British Columbia is only Canadian province without limits on soft-tissue injury claims after car crashes, and now fiscal implosion at province-owned auto insurer ICBC may force leftist NDP government to reconsider that [Mike Smyth/The Province, Jason Proctor and Karin Larsen, CBC]
- “NYS Exposed: The one law adding $10,000 to the cost of a new home” [WHEC, New York Post editorial on scaffold law and other elements of state liability scene, earlier]
- “Former South Carolina Lawmaker Sentenced for Improperly Using Office to Help Trial Lawyers” [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform; Glenn Smith, Post and Courier; John Monk, The State]
Yes, there’s footage of the shooting. No, you can’t see it.
New York City police union argues that a (ridiculously broad) New York labor law may forbid public release of bodycam footage in misconduct cases [Ed Krayewski. Reason]
States ranked on paternalism
“Wyoming has the most freedom from paternalism, while New York is the most paternalistic state.” 50-state survey [Russell Sobel and Joshua Hall, Mercatus Center] From: “For Your Own Good: Taxes, Paternalism, and Fiscal Discrimination in the Twenty-First Century,” new Mercatus book on sin taxes edited by Adam Hoffer and Todd Nesbit.
Schools and childhood roundup
- Cafeteria nudge dud: questions raised on efficacy of USDA Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, launched in 2010 [Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post; Elizabeth Nolan Brown/Reason]
- “Florida Legislator Wants to Make It a Crime to Leave Your Kid in the Car for Just One Minute. But Why?” [Lenore Skenazy] “Dad Teaches Kids to Ride the Bus. But CPS Says He Can Never Leave Them Alone, Ever.” [same, Canada; more] “Court Upholds Dad’s Conviction for Making 8-Year-Old Son Walk Home Alone” [same, California]
- Judge: Arizona lawmakers not free to end Mexican-American studies program in schools if motivated by animus [Michael Kiefer, Arizona Republic]
- “Former Los Altos baseball player sues coach after being benched, claims bullying” [Hayley Munguia, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Calif.]
- Oft-told story of residential schools as ruin of Native American life might admit of some complication [Naomi Schaefer Riley, Education and Culture, reviewing Dawn Peterson, Indians in the Family: Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion]
- New York initiative on suspensions likely to make schools less safe [Max Eden, New York Post] “Another Obama Policy Betsy DeVos Should Throw Out” [Jason E. Riley, WSJ]
Liability for abetting workplace bias
“Like the non-discrimination laws in a number of other states, including California, New Jersey, and Illinois, New York State’s Human Rights Law (‘NYSHRL’) contains a provision extending liability to those who aid and abet discrimination or retaliation.” The kicker is that New York’s law can impose extraterritorial liability on actors outside the state — such as a national moving and relocation firm that required by contract that its local contractor exclude from employment persons with certain categories of criminal convictions, and is now facing ban-the-box-related liability over that to New York plaintiffs that it did not itself employ. [Jodi Frankel, DLA Piper Labor Dish]
When prosecutors team up, and when they don’t
I’m in today’s New York Post. Excerpt:
“Mueller teams up with New York attorney general in Manafort probe,” Politico reported Wednesday. Commentators went wild.
What could be more exciting than for the special counsel investigating the Russian matter to team up with noted Trump foe Eric Schneiderman? Neither the president nor Congress can lay a glove on him; some of the legal weapons he wields go beyond what Mueller has at his disposal; and if Schneiderman obtains convictions in state court, Trump will have no pardon power. It’s like two superheroes with coordinating capes and powers!
Around liberal Twitter, it was a total game changer. “THIS IS BIG!!!!!!” typed Amy Siskind of New Agenda, hailing the sort of news for which four or five exclamation points won’t do. “What’s Russian for ‘Trump’s goose is cooked?’” crowed Harvard’s Laurence Tribe.
In the opposite camp, the Trumpian claque at Breitbart argued that with the combative New York AG on board — Schneiderman has long feuded with Trump, and is widely disliked by Republicans — the whole Russian probe can be dismissed as tainted. The connection “undermin[es] the integrity and impartiality of Mueller’s inquiry,” wrote Joel Pollak. “There could not be a more inappropriate person to be seen working with Mueller.”
Both sides should calm down….Federal and state prosecutors are supposed to cooperate when investigations overlap. That’s what they do.
I go on to discuss sharing of grand jury information, the ripples of dismay sent by Trump’s Joe Arpaio pardon (on which more from Josh Blackman here, see also and earlier), and New York’s Martin Act. Whole thing here.